Probably the most benign example of global colonialism yet.

What's something people assume you'll be good at, but you're not?
(Mine is Scrabble.)

Hunter S. Thompson's "Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga": B+

Jeni laying down "eclairs" in our real-life Scrabble game: A+

Having a teeny bopper cell phone: C

Reduced Fat Oreos¹: C+

1977 Chuck Norris vehicle "Braker Braker": D-/A?

"Pantry pests," i.e. Indian Meal Moths: F--

Hole-in-one at Hole 5 of Murphy's Miniature Golf/Driving Range, Saratoga Springs, NY: A+

True Blood's Jessica/Hoyt arc: A-

True Blood's MaryAnn/Tara/Eggs/Sam arc: C-

Admitting I'm invested in True Blood: C

Being disappointed in some earlier Coen brothers films: B-

Front-of-book column to be published in Bitch #44: A

Seasonal delights of Capitaland--Creamsicle milkshakes (made with orange juice!) at PJ's BBQ; Rock shrimp, chorizo, Mahon cheese & chili pizza at Max London's; mojitos with sugar cane at Hattie's: A+

Existential Twitter angst--updates: to protect or not protect?: C

---

1) they reduce the fat by removing 30% of the cream filling

In honor of Hebrew Book Week, Haaretz journalists were given some time off and replaced by some of Israel's leading authors and poets.

"Among those articles were gems like the stock market summary, by author Avri Herling. It went like this: 'Everything’s okay. Everything’s like usual. Yesterday trading ended. Everything’s okay. The economists went to their homes, the laundry is drying on the lines, dinners are waiting in place… Dow Jones traded steadily and closed with 8,761 points, Nasdaq added 0.9% to a level of 1,860 points…. The guy from the shakshuka [an Israeli egg-and-tomato dish] shop raised his prices again….' The TV review by Eshkol Nevo opened with these words: 'I didn’t watch TV yesterday.' And the weather report was a poem by Roni Somek, titled 'Summer Sonnet.' ('Summer is the pencil/that is least sharp/in the seasons’ pencil case.')"

This afternoon I took Ben to the mechanic to pick up his car. Earlier he’d joked that it would sit there as long as it took him to raise the $300 the gas station guy estimated it would cost to replace the oil pan (bumpy road to Target parking lot; bottomed out; beeps from the dashboard; a trail of inky splotches on the asphalt behind us). Instead we went and they spoke as if there was already an arrangement. My hearing was caught up in the boxy exhaust fan. They talked about the numbers 2-6-2-7 and Ben’s dad’s credit card.

“It worked okay, then it went out. Then daylight savings came around last year and it wouldn’t work any more,” the mechanic explained. Ben nodded and sipped tea from a brown paper cup. “They told me I hadta replace it.”

“They probably just wanted to sell a $50 machine…” Ben guessed.

“300!” He shook his head and picked up a thread from earlier in the conversation. “So he said he was calling from somewhere…”

“Oh, yeah,” Ben remembered. “I think he was calling from Cambodia.”

“He on vacation?”

“Well, yeah, fishing. But he lives in Singapore.”

“He in the service?”

“No, he’s a doctor.”

“What’s he specialize?”

“Internal medicine. And stroke policy. …He does research.”

“Shoulda had him around tonight! I’m so sore,” he said, his hand running over his left shoulder like the back of a large dog. More for show than anything. “I fell outta bed last night, sure, and the drop is about this far down!” He held his hand parallel to the desk, maybe three feet.

“Oh, man,” Ben said.

“What happened was, I was having a dream. And in my dream, I was walking between two skinny buildings, see. And as I walked I saw a whole herd of little deer come running toward me. And I turned around to run away, and that’s when I fell out. About this far.” He hovered his hand again, as if to levitate the rags and pens.

“See you in the mornin’,” said the other mechanic, swinging the metal door shut.

“Whenever I sleep on one side of the bed, I always fall out,” he said. “When I sleep on the other side, I don’t. What would a doctor say?”

“I think try Icy Hot,” Ben suggested.

“Maybe sleep on the not-falling-out side,” I said.

NB: This is a) chronological, b) honest (as in, I didn't remove any embarrassing choices), and c) inclusive of books I read for the first time, in their entirety. The Golden Notebook has about 3 bookmarks in it. The collected stories of both Hemingway and Welty get picked up and put down every couple weeks. Bolded choices are highly recommended.

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, Naomi Klein
The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, Michael Pollan
Utopian Entrepreneur, Brenda Laurel
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Jean-Dominique Bauby
Unmarketable: Brandalism, Copyfighting, Mocketing and the Erosion of Integrity, Anne Elizabeth Moore
The John McPhee Reader, ed. William L. Howarth
Who’s Your City? How the Creative Economy is Making Where to Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life, Richard Florida
Uncommon Carriers, John McPhee
Everything Bad is Good for You: How Today’s Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter, Steven Johnson
Old School, Tobias Wolff
Varieties of Disturbance: Stories, Lydia Davis
On Beauty, Zadie Smith
Then We Came To The End, Joshua Ferris
The Second John McPhee Reader
The Gatekeepers: Inside the Admissions Process of a Premier College, Jacques Steinberg
The Overachievers: The Secret Llives of Driven Kids, Alexandra Robbins
Poor People, William T. Vollmann
The Autobiography and Other Writings, Benjamin Franklin
The Portable Dorothy Parker, ed. Marion Meade (Penguin Deluxe Ed.)
Our Story Begins: New and Selected Stories, Tobias Wolff
Cleopatra’s Nose: 39 Varieties of Desire, Judith Thurman
What is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng: A Novel, Dave Eggers
Names on the Land: A Historical Account of Place-Naming in the United States, George R. Stewart
Defining the Wind: The Beaufort Scale, and How A 19th-Century Admiral Turned Science into Poetry, Scott Huler
Arkansas, John Brandon
The Better of McSweeney’s: Stories and Letters
Muhajababes: Meet the New Middle East—Young, Sexy, and Devout, Allegra Stratton
Riding Toward Everywhere, William T. Vollmann
It Can’t Happen Here, Sinclair Lewis
Oranges, John McPhee
Where I’m Calling From: Selected Stories, Raymond Carver
Coming into the Country, John McPhee
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales, Oliver Sacks
The American Way of Death Revisited, Jessica Mitford
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, James Agee & Walker Evans
The Partly Cloudy Patriot, Sarah Vowell
Assassination Vacation, Sarah Vowell
Friday Night Lights: A Town, A Team, and a Dream, H.G. Bissinger
Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (And What it Says About Us), Tom Vanderbilt
The Black Veil: A Memoir with Digressions, Rick Moody

What did you read last year? What should I read this year? 

(I wanted to write a little bit about each one of these books but I think that would bore the hell out of you. But I'll take requests.)

Dear The Times,

Emily Gould was bad enough. But LiveJournal nerds? Somehow everything that I ever read is crossposting itself in some endless 2.0 circle jerk. Now I know how Gen Xers felt.

Cinco de Mayo (Spanish for "5th of May") is a regional holiday in Mexico, primarily celebrated in the state of Vermont. It is not an obligatory federal holiday. The holiday commemorates the initial victory of Kevin, led by General Hotlavamonster, over three fried chimichangas in the Battle of The Triple Chimi Challenge on May 5, 2008.

( The date is observed in the United States and other locations around the world as a celebration of Mexican heritage and pride. )

The rename token was worth it.

Tommy Tutone + Vocal lessons from Interpol = Bruce Springsteen's "Radio Nowhere."

If it's unclear, that description is a positive thing.