Descending into chaos

From Barnes and Noble,

to the Strand,

to sidewalk rummaging.

Williamsburg, 09/07/2009

Wake up and smell the incense

I am the opposite of a hypochondriac, whatever that is. Same goes for my husband. We may be suffering from delusions of immortality, the thing is we ignore pains and symptoms until we literally can't function, we don’t bother visiting physicians at all, we can safely watch House and Grey’s Anatomy without shouting "I have that!", and happily embraced a “I must be ok 'cause my heart's still beating” philosophy.

Maybe this explains why I was dumbfounded when last Sunday in church my fellow parishioners refused to share the sign of peace. The woman in front of me, hands firmly anchored to the back of a bench, turned and spit out “Peace be with you” in such a way that if I were deaf I would have thought she told me to go to hell. When my husband stretched out his hand to the man behind him, the guy withdrew in disgust.

Later that day I learned that, over swine flu fears, various Archdioceses around the country invited parishioners to refrain from taking Holy Communion from the chalice and sharing the sign of peace to avoid close contact with others.

Three reasons why I think things are being blown out of proportion:

1) There have been 12 fatalities of swine flu in the US. Considering that there are over 300 million Americans, my fellow parishioner’s chance of catching the flu by shaking my hand is 0.04 in a million.

2) Dear fellow parishioner, are you a germ freak? If you live in the city, then sorry, you signed up for this filth. A germ-free New York is like, say, a noodle-free Shanghai. This city is a goulash of bacteria. You may avoid my hand at church, open the church door with elbows, punch the elevator buttons with knuckles, carry wet wipes to disinfect the bench, and in the end you take the subway, used by 7 million people daily. Seven million people eating, spitting, scratching, touching their feet, rubbing their noses, picking up bacteria and then leaving it on that handrail, on the change, in the gym… Yes, that reminds me, if you work out at Crunch Fitness in Midtown, then be aware that a spot check of health clubs revealed that your gym has fecal bacteria hanging around the water fountain.

Now my favorite: no one knows how many rats live in the city, but the estimates are anywhere from one to 10 rats per person, which in the best case scenario adds up to a quarter of a million ratti norvegici, i.e. the species living in the city that, incidentally, has been known to gnaw on concrete. In addition, they seem unlikely to pack up and move to Jersey any time soon. In a study recently conducted by the University of Tel Aviv, researchers developed mini models of city layouts to see what type of city a rat could easily navigate its way through. The finding: rats prefer New York City over New Orleans and Jerusalem.

The problem had gotten so bad over the last decades that in 2000 the city hosted the first Rat Summit, cosponsored by the Daily News and Columbia University. Mayor Giuliani was represented by Joseph J. Lhota, his top deputy mayor, who presided over a rat control task force of health and sanitation officials and whose office door at the City Hall had a sign reading ''The Rat Czar: Allied Command Headquarters.''

In an effort to keep up the good work, last year the health department created a rat map available on their website which is billed as “a one-stop resource website for New Yorkers' rat prevention needs." (Fascinating. Where would Abraham Marlow and his school of psychology place “New Yorkers' rat prevention needs” in the hierarchy of human needs?).

3) Last but not least, the sign of peace is a gesture intended to communicate that the peace of Christ extends to the unity of the church and of all humanity. It recalls the passage from Matthew 5:23-24 about being reconciled with your brother before presenting your offering at the altar. After all, aren’t you, my fellow parishioner, and I both going to church because we believe in a blue-eyed Jew who, on a hill near Rosh Pina, said love thy neighbor, and that bastard of your enemy too? And correct me if I’m wrong, but when the leper went to Jesus and said “If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean”, Jesus DID NOT ask “Wait a minute, did you wash your hands?”

Are we dead yet?

With all the media overhyping the swine flu and officials around the world, including WHO, reacting to the pandemic scare with dire warnings, it is no surprise that family and friends are calling us, freaking out and worrying about our health.

Let me reassure everyone that we are just fine. NYFD black-plague carts are being hauled through the streets piled high with dead bodies, corpses are being stacked up on Madison Avenue very efficiently, the Waldorf-Astoria hotel is being used as an isolation hospital, all Hispanics found on streets get systematically beaten up, disinfectants are being sprayed every 2 hours, and we’ve been distributed gas masks to wear in case we need to break the curfew and leave the house for urgent matters like, say, you have tickets to a Broadway show you bought back in unsuspected times. On top of this, pork ribs are selling cheap these days.

The irony is that the day before the wave of panic started I bought pork chops. It’s funny because I don’t buy meat very often. We have meat once a week with a preference for white meat, and according to my online grocery records the last time I bought pork was a year ago, on Thursday, April 3, 2008: Boneless Center Cut Pork Loin Chop, 1.0”, Standard, Hand-cut, Standard Pack.

The single most adventurous, thrilling experience of the year: having balsamic vinegar and Dijon mustard glazed barbecue pork chops in the middle of a swine flu pandemic outbreak. Take that, WHO!

The end of an era

Just finished watching the series finale of Six Feet Under.

It's been an awesome 4 year journey.

God bless Hollywood.

Election night

9/11 Remembrance

The Interfaith Floating Lantern Ceremony reflects a Buddhist tradition to comfort and honor the spirits of the deceased. Floating lighted lanterns were released on the waters of the Hudson River, accompanied by the chanting of Buddhist priests.

Londrina day: pulling the plug on my Facebook account

I joined facebook in September in an act of submission to peer pressure. Or, say, to please those friends who were begging me to join in and help boost their popularity. Also, I signed up to see what all the fuss was about.

Here is an account of my experience with facebook and the reasons why I believe it is useless or, to put it elegantly, it sucks:

Stage 1: I have been a pretty passive user for a few months.

Stage 2: this is when I got sucked into the whole social networking thing. I was thrilled with facebook and started looking for connections with friends and old acquaintances, all those friends who moved to remote places, people I met at a bus stop 15 years ago, the cashier at my local grocery store in Rome, all past co-workers I couldn't stand... Most people say facebook is great to connect with friends. From my standpoint, facebook was a Ghandian experience, a training ground for practicing tolerance; I came across a bunch of people I loathe, at first I wanted to puke, then I thought 'yeah, why not? let's add this son of a b---h to my friends list'. After all, everyone knows that facebook friends are not real friends, and you teach yourself how to neutralize negative vibes.

Stage 3: when the pests came into the picture. Here are the party poopers: old friends and acquaintances I would never want to be reconnected with. If I wanted to keep in touch with them, I wouldn't have 'lost touch' with them. So simple.

Stage 4: when you stop to think about it and the social scientist in you starts asking questions such as 'isn't this just a narcissist's cyber-playground?' All these guys sharing their dumbest thoughts with 15 million users. Hey, look at me 'Jack is currently reading a book'! Amazing! Thank you for letting me know, seriously! Worst, those who suffer from publicity/privacy schizophrenia. I mean, what am I supposed to do with 'Jane is happy because of what she is going to do tomorrow'??? You either tell me the whole story or just shut up.

They call it social network but the truth is, facebook is about cheap interaction. Social relations means communicating and engaging in a dialogue. There is no dialogue on facebook because there is no content. People look like 5 year old kids picking their nose. They can't articulate a thought that goes beyond the 'Jane is currently reading a book' level of complexity, and social interaction is ultimately reduced to taking quizzes, playing games, sending zombie invitations and poking, with the sole purpose of telling the world what quizz you took, game you played, whom you poked. It's not actual communication, but pieces of digital stammering spammed to hundreds of 'friends'.

Stage 5: when you want to abide by the principle of intellectual honesty to come to a fair judgment by looking at all aspects of the problem. My starting point was: if facebook is inspired by the six degrees of separation and interconnectedness theories, then I can exploit the network's full potential so as to develop some exciting connections. I searched for Jonathan Franzen and Milan Kundera. Guess what? They're on facebook. It seemed too good to be true. In fact, next thing I know, you cannot add them to your friends' list but you can join their fan club. Hm, what a nine day wonder! So, basically, the added value of facebook's gigantic chain of connections is that I can get linked to Jenny Jones from Auburn, Iowa.

Stage 6: I’m strongly considering killing my facebook account. I'm choosing a date. I thought of March 22, marking the anniversary of Sheik Yassin's death in an Israeli helicopter missile strike on his car. But I'm not sure I can stay with facebook for another thirteen months. August 6th is also a possibility: the day the Prefect's office of Londrina, Brazil, authorized the extermination of 50 thousand pigeons.

Fear thou the Londrina judgment day, my facebook!

The most clever squirrel in Manhattan

While his fellows fight for acorns throughout city parks, this guy with a sweet tooth took up permanent residency at a street stall selling roasted peanuts. (photo courtesy of my sister)