Murakami

Glad to see Murakami has been hard at work.  I see his latest book, 1Q84, is 3 volumes, all only available in Japanese for the moment.  Each volume runs 500+ pages, but I wonder now if that is significantly different based on the language.  Does Japanese take up more, less, or the same amount of space as English?

Anyway, I’m glad Murakami has been working on something.

Where I’ve Been All My Life

It started and ended with the spelunking under the basement stairs: the cobweb cough, the must, the earthen harvest. The hacking cough. The cloudy vision, corneal permafrost. The bitter, biting cough. The taste of metal in my mouth. An insatiable love of silk – lacy underthings, the finest bedsheets.

The basement stairs were thick oak or pine – maybe pine. Yes, it smelled like pine. So the pine steps, and under them darkness, as if someone cut a piece of darkness in the shape of the underside of the stairs and left it there, forgotten, and it grew, somehow, even darker out of its, say, woundedness, its angst over being abandoned. And so into it I crawled, as if into a grave, and when I came out, the cough. The thick cough, the infernal cough, the never-ending cough. The damned cough.

The things under the stairs: a stack of National Geographic magazines that I rifled through in hopes there would be a picture of my friend Gelbart’s mother, naked, like some sort of misplaced specimen; old toys whose wheels pressed into my sweaty underfoot; some sort of engine or pump that belonged in a Texaco station, catching the light of the reflecting red star; a smell that can only be described in a single word: green.

And then there was the corner in which I found the little pine door. My fingers traced the catenary curve of its top, the hinges like cigarettes, the cast-iron loop of a door handle.

Before I opened it, it was full.

After I opened it, it was empty.

The thing it was full of (and then empty of) was this cough, and now I can’t get rid of it, and everyone will know where I’ve been all my life.

Final Jeopardy!

In catching up on yesterday’s Jeopardy! episode, something seemed off about the Final Jeopardy clue whose category was “Countries”.  The clue was:

“In only 2 cases can you add 2 letters to one country and get another country; Austria/Australia and this pair.”

The intended answer, which no contestant got, was Niger and Nigeria. However, my first thought was Mali and Malawi. I don’t understand what’s wrong with my answer, as it adds two letters (a and w), in consecutive order, no less, in the middle of the word, just like the a and l added to Austria to make Australia.

I thought it might have to do with the countries’ official names, but according to Wikipedia, the official names are Republic of Mali and Republic of Malawi, which doesn’t change a thing. People that post on Jeopardy! boards seem to agree that Mali/Malawi is acceptable, and that occasionally the writers overlook an alternate acceptable answer, but this seems egregious.

Well, anyway, in other news, Jeopardy is going to have a computer as a contestant.

Ways to Tell It is a Good Day

1. You started the day started with 3+ sets of tennis, which you won 6-1, 6-1, 6-3, 4-1 with different partners for 3 out of the 4 sets. The common denominator of awesomeness is: you. (I tried to come up with same way to, like, mash the words denominator and awesomeness together, like denawesomeinator, but it didn’t really work.  Obviously.)
2. You had four olives stuffed with feta cheese with lunch.
3. You finished off the last of a 1.75L bottle of Captain Morgan.
4. All of the above has happened and it is not yet 1:30PM.

List of Disappointments

1. That work is getting in the way of me playing video games.
2. That I don’t really seem to be updating this website thing.
3. That I can’t think of anything else to go on this list. I am crying out to be disappointed.

(Someone Else’s) Thoughts on L.A.

To: Adam Carolla

From: Me

Re: Your piece in Los Angeles magazine where you said:

“Everyone does this thing where they go, ‘You can get to the ocean in 25 minutes. You can get to the mountains in an hour. Isn’t that wonderful?’ I guess the answer is yes. But the school system is unusable, the traffic is horrible, businesses are fleeing. I don’t give credit to Villaraigoso or the city council for the mountains or the oceans. That has to do with plate tectonics. I give them credit for a graffiti problem that’s so bad, the street signs have to be covered with barbed wire. I give credit to God for doing a fair-to-middling job creating the place and to Villaraigosa and the city council for fucking it up. Potholes and a-holes. That’s Los Angeles.”

I could not have said it better.

Sincerely,

Me.

PS. Portland is going to be much better.

Civil

Text of note left on neighbor’s door:

“Your dog disturbed my work day. I work from home. Imagine a dog barking outside your cubicle, office, or wherever you work. This is a continuing problem. Letters and complaints will continue to be filed with Animal Services – expect to hear from them (again) soon. Please be a responsible pet owner and neighbor and teach your dog to be quiet.”

I particularly like to part about having them imagine a dog barking at their workplace, but like, even more, the imaginary world where their dog is quiet.