dispatch from aspen

("thank you" slide at the end of my presentation today.)

I'm here for my third and final conference for my fellowship program. I'm sitting on my patio doing e-mail rather than hiking or any of those other associated activities that I feel like I'm really supposed to enjoy but, beyond the sunshine, really don't.

Because the Aspen airport is closed for repairs, we had to book flights to Denver and then drive. My flight left early Wednesday morning. I arranged Tuesday night for the cab to pick me up at 6:45, and, unlike my usual last-minute style, I packed most of my things the night before. I still set my alarm for 5:45, and when I woke up with the alarm I thought, "I probably can be ready in 20-30 minutes. What the hell am I going to do for an hour?" So, then, next thing I know I open my eyes again and the clock says 6:45 and there is a taxi honking outside. I sit up in bed, and for whatever reason I've got a nosebleed. So, then, I put on pants and run downstairs and outside shirtless holding my nose, to tell the cab driver to wait 5 minutes. (Me, going outside shirtless, I don't know if I've done that since high school, so you know we are talking desperate times.) I run to go back up to my apartment, and I realize I have locked myself out.

And, yet, everything managed to work out okay and I was on my flight in time. Moreover, for those who wonder from my recounts of misadventures whether I am completely hopeless, my talk today seemed to go over really well.

alternative worlds

It finally rained.

That and a public holiday make a perfect reading day.

First up was Joan Didion's 1970 novel Play it as it lays. Having read her A Year of Magical Thinking recently, I had picked up a collection of her essays and this novel. Though set in the Hollywood of the 60s, it is perhaps less about the Californian sunshine than the somewhat toxic and barren Nevada and Las Vegas - the venom of rattlesnakes, the nothingness of chance on the game table, and disrupted childhoods (abortions, a child in hospital, mothers who die in the desert). Of course, there's drugs, alcohol, parties, loveless sex, depression, divorces, expired careers and suicide.

All of this would be too much to read if not for the elliptical, episodic structure - the short, brutal bursts, minimising yet intensifying the readers' contact with Maria Wyeth, our Virgilian guide into this hell, but not quite.

It is readable also because it is so distant from our tropical island - in time and space. But maybe the 2 "Integrated Resorts" will change something.

Then, a nap.

Followed by this about yet another world - Chester Brown's graphic novel Louis Riel:A Comic Strip Biography, about the life of the 19th century Metis (part French, part native Indian) leader in Canada. Exiled and admitted to an asylum before he led a final rebellion, Riel is quietly introduced into the narrative as someone who happened to be able to speak English, a reasonable young man. But he soon grows in scale until - at one point - he claims to be a prophet and the 2nd Christ who is to liberate the Metis, God's new chosen people.

And like Didion's novel, this historical biography is a page-turner! Bound by the 1.5by1.5 inch frame, Brown's story is sparse and disciplined, his lines are simple, clean; but the story and lines are energetic.

"I think one of the reasons that our history looks uninteresting is that the telling of it is left in the hands of the Canadian government," Chester Brown says in an interview.

How true! After all, it is not in the interest of governments to tell colourful, varied histories. Governments provide, or want to provide, coherent narratives - towards their own intended ending, of course. As colourful as the shades of propaganda would allow. Reading Brown's comment, I remember this book, possibly the only graphic novel about one of the most colourful periods in Singapore's modern history. There's surprisingly little written about Joe Yeoh's To Tame a Tiger (still available at Kinokuniya). A google search provides only 3-4 relevant links, none of which reveal much about the writer or the context for his book being written. Was this graphic novel commissioned - paid for by some government grant? But the story is not always a flattering picture of PAP, though mostly safe and expected in its viewpoints. Of course, maybe the impulse to mark it as being or not being pro-PAP is a problem in itself - as if PAP was our only reference point.

Anyway, this has been a perfect day for reading. And I won't spoil it by getting into island-gazing. The sheets are still cool from the afternoon rain - still perfect for reading - and sleep.

=====
Reviews of Louis Riel:A Comic-Strip Biography here and here; and to find out more about Chester Brown here.

Kincade –Mo’Reen

Kincade –Mo’Reen/You Turned My World Around –Penny Farthing Pen 835 (1974 UK)

There’s a strange story going on here…. John Carter (Carter/ lewis, Ivy League, First Class etc…) and some session guys recorded and then had a continental hit using the name Kincade with Dreams Are Ten A Penny in 1972.Only there was no band…so the label got a guy called John Knowles to front the release, but he was soon replaced by members from Octopus to mime the song on TV. Things then start to get complicated as John Knowles reappeared releasing singles under the name John Kincade while John Carter continued putting out singles as Kincade with both acts being on Penny Farthing!

Anyhow Mo’Reen is a strange beast indeed with a cool mix of acoustic guitar, handclaps and its nasal vocal performance. The arrangement and production is remarkable throughout with its out there Roy Wood/T. Rex string part and bizarre orchestration; the sound really sucks you in. I would like to know more about the lineup here –There’s a compilation CD of Kincade stuff released, can anyone share the information perhaps contained in the liner notes?

Click below for a soundclip of Mo’ Reen

Messing magnificent in "Starter Wife"

Debra Messing reportedly was determined to exorcise any trace of her "Will & Grace" character Grace Adler from her persona while shooting her mostly inspired (if a bit transparently shallow) new six-hour USA Network miniseries "The Starter Wife," and darned if she doesn't pull it off.

Messing is magnetic and alluring in the adaptation of Gigi Levangie Grazer's best-selling novel inspired by her split -- temporary, as it turned out -- from high-powered Hollywood hubby Brian Grazer. The mini is about being shunted aside for a newer, blonder piece of eye candy and having to dig deep to find one's essence once the parties stop and the high-powered life itself divorces you. Messing is more than up to the task of bringing this social death to life, effectively erasing any memory of that job she used to have on that NBC comedy, whatever it was called.

"Wife" is entertaining and bitingly irreverent, at once sweet and sour. It ropes you in because Messing is so adept at making us like her neurotic personage. If there is an abiding problem with the mini (and this isn't insignificant), it's that it actually is based on something of a flawed premise. It isn't a riches-to-rags story so much as a riches-to-riches. See, after Molly Kagan's (Messing) little weasel of a husband, Kenny (nice work from Peter Jacobson), dumps her to take up with young blonde bimbette Shoshanna (Trilby Glover), she isn't forced to take her daughter and share a one-bedroom apartment in Alhambra. She's allowed to stay in the beachfront Malibu Colony estate of a friend in secret rehab. So forget down-and-out; this is down-and-up.

Read More.......

(Source)

Keira Knightley Is Relieved To Be Done With Pirates

Movie star KEIRA KNIGHTLEY is "relieved" to be taking on a new role in latest movie ATONEMENT, because it's more of a challenge than her part in the PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN series.

The Pride and Prejudice actress stars alongside James McAvoy as star-crossed lovers in the movie, which is based on the Ian McEwan novel.

And the English beauty is grateful for the new role, because it has more depth than that of her Pirates character, Elizabeth Swann.

She tells British film magazine, Empire, "This is such a relief. Not that I don't enjoy all that Pirates stuff, but it's not about my character - it's about Johnny (Depp)'s character.

It's not focusing on emotional turmoil. It's been great just to get my brain engaged. "

rarely do people who work with large social surveys ever get a chance to actually have conversations with their respondents

The longitudinal study that I've worked with closely the last few years is a sample of people who graduated from Wisconsin high schools in 1957. Since 1957+50=2007, this is the year these classes will have their 50th high school reunion, and the project offered to send a representative to speak at reunions that were willing to have one of us.

Saturday night I drove to a certain small town in southwest Wisconsin to speak at their reunion. I invite you to reflect upon how much fun you would expect to have at a class reunion of a school you didn't attend, where you didn't know anyone (spouse attendees at least have their spouses), and in a community you've never been to before. And yet, I honestly had a very good time. Mainly because the place reminded me a lot of my hometown--only with a lot more community spirit than I ever saw in my hometown. I probably felt more comfortable and at-home there than at the average dinner party of professors I've attended. Everyone was also in such good spirits that it was infectious.

The dinner started with a prayer; the reception started with the pledge of allegiance; and it ended with "God Bless America." I tried to remember when would have been the last time I said the pledge of allegiance. Sitting beside me at the reunion were these three wives of Class of '57 graduates. The conversation at dinner was sparse and awkward until I mentioned that I studied the Medicare prescription drug benefit, and then it became far more lively.

The reunion was an all-class reunion, meaning any graduate was welcome. Different people spoke as members of different honor classes. A man from the class of 1947 (having their 60th reunion) told various stories from the good old days of their class, but one stood out. I didn't catch what it was, but there was some activity that the principal told the students he would shoot them if they did. The speaker and three other members of his class apparently did the activity, were caught, and were brought into the school. The principal pointed to one of the students and said "You first" and brought him back into his office. The speaker and his two friends were sitting there for a few minutes, and then there was this gunshot from inside the principal's office. The principal then stepped out with this smoking gun in hand. Of course, he revealed soon enough that it had just been blanks, but, said the speaker, "He still sure got his point across."

The speaker said in concluding the anecdote, "Different times," as I was trying to imagine the CNN.com story that would be playing nationwide if a principal did this today.

What you learn at art class (part 4)

longevity versus immortality versus AI

That all good things do come to an end -

OK, so endings have marked 2007 so far for us amps anyway - this passing away - and not just at art class.

Still, when I handed in a set of 6 prints on Monday for assessment, officially marking the completion of a whole year of part-time printmaking classes, there was a sense of something valuable having come to an end. I haven't written much about these classes in the last 6 months because work had kept me away from them half the time. A real pity. Because in these last few months, the classes had covered several techniques for screenprinting and photo-etching...techniques which demand a whole new level of care, focus, precision - and patience.

Even if they do take time.

I think there's supposedly a whole go slow movement in managementspeak. But it's better to ignore that universe. For me at least, art offers perhaps simpler lessons.

One evening, having rushed to class some 2 hours late, I was too flustered to do any work, so stood around observing instead the teacher A with a classmate G by the mechanical press. They were preparing an etching for print and it seemed a rather delicate design. With an hour left and the assessment deadline in a fortnight's time, G got into a bit of a rush and had left some ink on the edges of his acrylic etching. A seasoned printmaker, A had immediately noticed and stopped it going under the press.

Somethings you just got to do things real slow in printmaking, otherwise the whole print gets botched up and you end up with nothing. That's the lesson of printmaking, A said in mandarin. I overheard and replied - the lesson of printmaking is that all its lessons also apply to life. To which she laughed and proceeded to help G produce a really stunning piece of work.

Awww, tuesdays with ampulets!

=========
Some earlier arty lessons: part 3; part 2; part 1.

serves me right for trusting them

While other places have their signs that indicate the years they have won the "Best in Boston" distinction as voted in some local paper, Anton's Dry Cleaners in Somerville has a giant sign behind their count that annoys me every time I go in there: "Voted #1 Drycleaner! Everywhere, year after year." Yes, really--rather than rise to whatever occasion is needed to actually win whatever awards, they just have a sign up that simply asserts with no supporting evidence that they always win.

When I'm in there I wonder why I would trust a place with my clothes when they so brazenly lie on a giant sign. But I needed to go in there today, because there is only one day between the trip to Madison I returned from last night and the trip to Aspen I embark on tomorrow, and Anton's is the only place advertising same day service if you get it in by 9 ("READY TODAY" in a sturdy, reliable looking font is what they advertise).

I arrived there at 8:57. There was a line, though, and so by the time I got to the front it was 9:02. "It's after 9," the woman said. We can debate whether a place should honor their In-By-9 deal if you are inside the door by 9. However, "it's after 9" was actually just the second reason she gave for why my clothes wouldn't be ready, and she had told the people in front of me their clothes wouldn't be ready until tomorrow either. Her reason: "They won't get it back to us in time. We've had too many orders."

I don't know what I'm going to do about my clothes. I am never going back to Anton's again, ever, considering they already charge high prices and now I realize their service advantage is "READY TODAY. MAYBE." Using cleaners in Cambridge has been so ridiculously poor in service and high in price compared to the In-By-10-Out-By-4-Always-Forever service in Madison.

Rescue Co. No.1 –It’s Only Words

Rescue Co. No.1 –It’s Only Words/Look Out –Jam 45 (1973 UK)

Some may call it madness… I accept that this record collecting lark is a tad obsessive, but it’s not harming anyone… although my carbon footprint has enlarged considerably driving a 200 mile round trip from London to the Reading Record Fair onto the one in Stratford Upon Avon (Billy Shake?) and back again. The results? Well 7 singles for £9 including this one.

Rescue Co. No. 1 were a vehicle for the songwriting partnership of Arnold/Martin/Morrow and they released a slew of singles on Pye, Rak, DJM and Jam (including the brilliant I Want To Save You). It’s Only Words is harder hitting and heavier than most of their other more pop orientated releases and has a real ‘67 Freakbeat feel to it. The track holds back from an all out attack on the senses, but the tension builds and the Spooky Hammond at the end is a nice touch adding to the overall atmosphere.

Click on title for It’s Only Words

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NATTY NAT!








SPECIAL EDITION! NATTTTTT!!

GAY!


REALLY GAY!







today had a mini suprise birthday party
for natty.
EH NAT! TOUCHED ANOT!
superb right(:
only took a night to plan(:


haha
ate at kovan pizza hut.




NAT, DOROTHEA AND JOEY,
came my hse after tt.
came frm 4 plus til abt 8 plus.
haha.
watched spiderman.
and my brother played ball with nat.
then ate dinner at my hse,
mum ordered pizza.
haha.


so they left arnd 8.
joey and dorothea went home,
and Nat took cab to dunno what jap restaurant.
haha.


O level chinese tmr!
RAH!
and im still like playing.
hahaha.
and my chinese dictionary has NO BATT!
argh.
lol.

FRIDAY:
Shopping with patricia,
went on the yatch at night.
hannah, keith, grace , zhihong and pat came too(:
haha.

the really interesting comparison would be to test drive a camry at a saturn dealer and compare it to one at a toyota dealer

From CNN.com:

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- If you want to test drive a Toyota Camry or Honda Accord, starting next month you'll be able to do it at a Saturn dealership. General Motors is asking Saturn dealers to have one or more of the competing models in the showroom so customers can look at it, sit in it and drive it.

Rockstar –Over The Hill

Rockstar –Over The Hill/Mummy –MCA 265 (UK 1976)

A rare 70s outing by ex Move man Ace Kefford. The autobiographical Over The Hill is a solid rocker on the periphery of JunkShop Glam, Kinda like Hector attempting to do a Quadrophenia...It features some loud cutting guitar and a fine production by Steve Rowland. Mummy is pretty haunting and dramatic, the song builds and builds and is a real grower. These two tracks are compiled along with other tracks on the Ace The Face CD. http://www.acekefford.com/

Click below for an edit of Over The Hill

"it is my oxygen--though i must also have regular oxygen"

One of my fellow fellows here just came in to show me the Shouts & Murmurs from the latest New Yorker, which is about the joys of conferences. It also includes what may be my favorite simile ever: "Insights dart and flash like the doomed fish in a whore's aquarium." If there is actually some lewd meaning to it, rather than just being resplendently weird, I don't want to know what it is.

Heidi Klum's Breasts: Hear Them Now and Believe Them Later

Naming body parts is a practice generally reserved for post-fraternity types and Sex and the City obsessives, guffawing and high-fiving over "Corporal Frank n' Beans", or tittering behind a manicured hand about "the girls". So it comes as a bit of a surprise that Heidi Klum is a practitioner. She recently shared the following tale about her boobs:

"They've been an ongoing joke for, like, 12 years. It started because I was from Germany, and people always make fun of ze Germans, yah? So when I began modeling, I used to say, 'These are German breasts, one is called Hans and one is called Franz.' "

"Pump you up" jokes aside, Heidi might want to consider updating her boob names. Unless she's sticking with a theme and calls her butt "Stuart Smalley" and her genitals "The Church Lady".

Tori Amos "Strange Little Girl" Free MP3 album

PLAYLIST
1. New Age
2. '97 Bonnie & Clyde
3. Strange Little Girl
4. Enjoy The Silence
5. I'm Not In Love
6. Rattlesnakes
7. Time
8. Heart Of Gold
9. I Don't Like Mondays
10. Happiness Is A Warm Gun
11. Raining Blood
12. Real Men


Download Free "Strange Little Girl" album by Tori Amos here.

don't let the sun go down on sal

Sal is still $225 away from his goal with just a few days left. He keeps bringing up this idea of going to the mall with a bucket and a bell and wondering if he would get in trouble. Don't make Sal stand outside the mall ringing a bell! He's been training hard for this and deserves to have it come through. He's working on behalf of a good cause. If you can help, it would be absolutely wonderful. I wished I believed in karma so I could make you all sorts of promises about that. Don't make me pretend like I believe in karma! I'd rather stand outside the mall with a bell!

Sal is the kind of guy who would give you a kidney if you needed one, provided you were a match and that he hadn't already given his spare kidney to someone else who reads this blog. Because of the kind of guy his is, he would still give you the kidney even if you didn't help him now, but really that's just another reasons why one ought to help him now.

Thanks of course to everyone who has given so far. Again, the page to donate is here. To my knowledge, this is the only time I have ever engaged in any kind of fundraising on my blog--and there are no plans for JFW pledge week in the future--but I do think this is a great chance to help and do very much want to see Sal succeed because I know much energy and enthusiasm he's given to this.

Update: Sal is good to go! Thank you so much to everyone who gave!

These two came my hse today,

watched that sicko perverted movie.
haha.
Those two are pigs i tell you!
unglammmmmmm..


smiling in the sleep somemore!
and kissing and hugging on so tightly onto my hippo(:
haha.
did you DROOL NOT!?!



and after awhile,
her head fell to one side.
lol.



My cushion chair damn comfy right!
hahaha.




anyway,
today like got back all papers.
DID LIKE SHIT!
SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT!
SUPER BADDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD!!
and i didnt even get a single A.
TERRIBLE.
ELAINE RMB AH!!!
HOLS!!!!!
RAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
bu gan xin leh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!agree.?
RAH RAH RAH!!!

walk the talk, squawk the squawk

I've agreed to stand at the starting line and begin running a half marathon on Sunday. Which is hilarious is many respects, at least until I'm out there running and wishing I had prepared more and whining, whining, whining. In any case, however uncertain I am about my own fitness, I'm still sure I could trounce my original running partner right now if she hadn't been too chicken to enter. Bwawk! Bwawk!

(Is that the correct typing of what a chicken sounds like? I type the noise I make when I imitate a chicken, and 'Bwawk' seems right.)

Said running partner will always be cherished not only for her patience through times of much lower fitness, but also for allowing me to sing Kirsty MacColl's "Terry" to myself for inspiration toward the end of our runs. ("Terry wants my photograph." Really--I know few things for sure in this world, but one is: life is too short to spend it with someone who shows no interest in having a photograph of you.)

BTW, be sure to congratulate Kieran if you haven't.

67 minutes later

No semester would be complete without a round of student complaints about grades. One of the great joys of the internet is that a complaint that brings mirth to one can soon be brought for the mirth of many. So, in the whinging holiday spirit, the following e-mail was sent by a student to friend of mine who is a professor in an unspecified-but-not-sociology department at an unspecified university:

I would like to express my EXTREME DIS-Satisfaction with the grade you gave me. To the point I almsot take it as a personal insult.

I look over the individual grades you gave me for each project and I cannot understand why it all added up to a virtual "D".

[...] It almost seems to me this grade is based one what I was CAPIBLE of and not what I did. Cause in reality, my projects grades are PRETTY GOOD. But then I come to "Exhibited qualities of creative and intellectual curiosity" And you gave me a "D" ... What does that even mean? I was constently giving my ideas on projects. [...]

And then attendence and participation... "D" This I don't understand. I was ALWAYS participating in critiques.. That's one of the things I know about myself, I like to express my opinion on subjects and give ways of makeing them better. And I DISTINCTLY remember myself participating throught the semester. PLUS -- According to you, you told me I was abscent a total of 3 times with 2 latnesses. Does that really qualitify me for a "D"? Again, I really think that grade is wrong.

Then we come to your written comments which I find particularly disturbing.

"frequently abscent or late" Again, 2 lateness and 3 abscenes in 5 months means "frequent"?

"disrespectful, disruptive" Okay. This I find almost insulting. There ONLY time you thought I was being distrespectful was when I made a joke about you being "brainwashed" it's not like I made a joke about your Mother or something. I don't understand why you felt the need to even put that down.

And disruptive? When was I disruptive? I like to joke around a lot. Have a good time. Have fun. Throught the sememser I don't remember myself acting up at all. Unless your opinion of what "being disrpitive" is, is different from mine, which is probably quite the case.

[...]

So in conclusion, I'm not sure why you felt I deserved such a kick in the balls with this grade, but I am deeply saddened that after all the work and money I spend on supplies and building these projects, a virtual D is what I get in the end.

I Really REALLY stress you rethink this grade. I appologise if there was something about me you didn't like, but if you talk to any professors who have had me, they will all say I've been a pleasure.

PLEASE respond.

[name]

Follow up message from same student's e-mail address one hour, seven minutes later, without there having been any reply in the interim from my friend:

Dear Professor [name],

The previous email that I sent to you was written after I just learned what grade I will be receiving for the semester.
It was written in haste and I was very upset and disappointed. Unfortunately, I hit "send" before I had time to calm down and review the letter. Now that I have, I regret some of the things that I wrote and am writing again to you now to apologize. I want you to know that I enjoyed your class very much and learned quite a bit that I'm sure will help me in the future. Although I was hoping to achieve a better grade, I realize that I should have worked harder to earn it. Perhaps I am more disappointed in myself than the grade that I earned.
Thank you for an enjoyable and informative semester.

Sincerely,
[name]

It's unclear to me if the same person wrote the second e-mail, or if his girlfriend or Mom stepped in for an intervention.

15

us amps are happy with HK graphic design magazine idN's open policy of publishing all entries to their 15 anniversary logo design competition. J made 2, together with many many others whose names go from addison chen to zhu lei.

But on the topic of 15, friends, here's a trick I learnt about HDB lifts (or does it work for all lifts?) from a 12(?) year-old girl who got into the same lift as me, politely asked what floor I lived on, mis-heard my answer, pressed the wrong button, heard my correction, then - voila manages to clear the erroneous selection on the lift panel! I was amazed. But when I told J about it the little trick I had learnt, he just laughed with some disdain. Supposedly, everyone knows that all you have to do when you press a wrong button on the lift, say 14 instead of 15, you just have to simultaneously press all the buttons on the same row as 14 (say 13, 14, 15) and the lift resets to blank.

crap. i was worried this might happen.

I find myself, with only about two months left living in Cambridge, a Red Sox fan.

i will be very disappointed if there does turn out to be a ninth circle of hell and people who buy the 'suffering seniors' mailing list are not in it

If you are worried that you are having too good of a day today and feeling too upbeat about the world, be sure to read this story in the NYT about the mass-marketing of phone lists of vulnerable seniors.

Judging by the mail laying around when I go back to the farm, my father is totally on the "Gullible Senior Adults" lists. My father has also been nearly deaf for the last twenty-five or so years as a result of all the noise in the meatpacking plant where he worked, a situation that has been modestly (but still miraculously) improved in recent years by cochlear implants. I can be become very sad very quickly if I think about all that my father has missed out on by not being able to hear. So now I'm sitting here feeling horrible because my first thought as I was reading this story was that maybe it's not all bad that my father cannot use the phone.

don't get me wrong...

I'm still really excited to be going to Northwestern and all, but I have to admit my enthusiasm was a teensy bit diminished when Eszter announced that it would NOT be okay if Sal and I moved into the condo next door, put on our matching robot pajamas, had perhaps a little too much to drink, and sledgehammered our way through her/our wall to create a Super Social Science Wired Hipster Thirtysomething Mega Compound/Mothership. I hate when friends are unreasonable.

ELAINE! SHEEVONNE! SHEILA! HILLARY!!!..
and whoever..!!
YOU ALL MUST BE DAMN HAPPY TO HEAR THIS!
my last nail broke:(.
and now,
its like short.
hahahaha.


anw,
went to chuch ystr.
maybe one of the very rare times,
i listened to the sermon(:
yay!
haha.


i'll be going for tuition ltr.
or rather,
i have to!
cos i skipped it for like 4 times alr.
which is always the last minute.
im-not-going.
haha.
but i'll be stopping it at the end of this month.
yep.


Prom payment tmr.
to go or not to go.
i don't know either.
i don't know if i'll be arnd.
i don't know if i'll really want to go.
aiya,
ltr go tuition then discuss with elaine honey.
lol.




even if it was you,
do you know that now,
it doesn't even matter anymore.
all i want to know,
is the truth.
why can't you just admit some things.
is it so difficult to tell the truth.?
that you always end up lying,
one after another.?
That's not who you really are.
and you know it.
why must you allow others,
to make you do things, you never wanted to do.
only you would know,
if that was really what you wanted.
You've totally changed.
changed, to a point where,
the past you have ceased to exist,
you will never ever be the same again.






what i learnt ystr:
it takes a lifetime to build a friendship,
but just a moment to destroy it.

zuzu's pedals

Remember the end of It's A Wonderful Life where all those people show up and dump out buckets full of money on behalf of George Bailey? This is like that. Only buckets are not required, the reason money is needed is not because somebody's oaf brother lost it, and the money is not going to cover the debt of the Bailey Building and Loan.*

Sal, possessor of one of the finest souls on this planet, needs about $500. He agreed to raise $2500 for the AIDS LifeCycle ride he has been training madly for, and he's $500 short with a week to go. I am not here going to make some telethon-like statement of the good works done by the folks at AIDS Lifecycle, but information can be found from the links from Sal's donation page, which is here. So, give some money for people living with HIV/AIDS. If the goodness of that deed is not enough to convince you to give, then give some money for Sal, who has been working very hard both getting ready for this and in doing fundraising.** And if that is also somehow not enough, do it for me and for yourself, because Sal is totally going to owe me one if a substantial dent in his $500 is made from contributions resulting from this post, and I will be sure to collect on this in some way that will provide entertaining fodder on this blog when we are both living in Evanston. Promise.

Again, the page to donate is here. Give. I won't ask you to give until it hurts, but do give until it stings a bit. Give until it smarts.

* Something I've always wondered: all these people were giving George Bailey all the savings they squirreled away, but then the Hee-Haw guy telegrams and says he can basically advance George all the money he needs. What happens then? Do the friends take back the money? I know I would. "George, you know I totally had your back, but you don't need my nestegg now that you've got Hee-Haw Guy ponying up money he won't even miss."

** Including, if you look at his messages of support, convincing me to give twice, so my money is where my mouth is here.

nonremarkable feats of saloon proving!

All I wanted to do was sit in the bar and watch the Spurs-Suns game in peace. But, somehow, I came to be challenged as a matter of honor to prove that the square root of two could not be expressed as a fraction. Indeed, the whole honor of sociology was said to hang on my ability to do this. Without using any paper. (Actually, I'm not sure what I would have done with paper anyway, so the grander gesture seemed to assert that paper was for pantywaists.)

This involved firing up some rather long dormant mental machinery and saying "uhhh" for protracted periods, thus being unable to concentrate on rooting for the Suns and thereby possibly contributing to their loss. But, to a level of astonishment that even caused the game to pause and Amare Stoudemire to look through the screen at me and say "Whoa!", I did it!

I will delete the various durations of inarticulate hemming that came between each step:

• "So, if the square root of two was a fraction, it would be equal to x/y where both x and y would be integers."


• "That would mean that the square of x was twice the square of y."


• "So what I need to do is prove that a number that is twice the square of an integer can't be the square of another integer."


• "Well, any integer can be expressed as its prime factors, and the prime factors of the square of an integer are just going to be those prime factors twice. So the square of an integer always has an even number of prime factors"


• "Twice the square of an integer has to have an odd number of prime factors. Because its prime factors are going to be the prime factors of the square of the integer--an even number--and two."


• "If twice the square of an integer has an odd number of prime factors, then it isn't itself the square of any integer. So there are no integers x and y for which the square of x is twice the square of y. Q-E-[expletive deleted]-D."

Muff –Discotheque King

Muff –Do The Hand Jive/ Discotheque King –Polydor 2040135 (1975 German Issue)

Here’s a little something to dance away the weekend. This single Seems to have been the follow up to Muff's Sexy Sexy Lady (Bell 1380) and once more the A side is a fun piece of commercial Glam fodder, but the B side is just so wonderfully inept. There seems to be more than a slight tempo conflict going on here and the crunching handclaps/foot stomps are lagging behind the beat (it’s also rare to have Glitter handclaps on the on-beat). The effect is just bizarre and you would have to be a real Discotheque King to be able to gyrate seamlessly to this one…

Click below for a full version of Discotheque King

HELLOOOOOO
i didnt go to school ystr.
haha.
slept till 11 plus.
played played played the piano.
same old song agn.
haha.
so lefy my hse at arnd 1 plus.
went to school to meet hilly and the rest.
gave her her bady present.
a SUNFLOWER(:
lol.




Today:
got back English and Math.
i got a B for english.
yay!
haha.
but i failed my math.
BADDDDDDD.
like what's new.?
my left brain's just not functioning la.
i just cant do math and science no matter what.
heh.

Currently,
my back's damn itchy.
must be the change in weather.
always happens.
since like.. young.?
and my maids helping me to use smth to hit it.
haha. niceeeee...
lol.




oh and, this morning,
SHEVVONNE, ELAINE AND SHEILA,
FORCED ME TO CUT MY NAILS.
LIKE RAH RAH RAH!!
they were complaining abt my last nail.
which is LONGGGGGGGGG.
and i refused to cut it no matter what(:
haha.
and i still have it(:




after school went honey honey's house
with Hilly.
bought food to eat there.
and watched movie there.
haha.
then after tt she chased us away.
RAH!


so i got up the bus.
and tried tapping my wallet.
but had no sound!
so i checked if my ezlink card was there,
and apparently, IT WASNT.
so i thought: oh shit oh shit,
i lost it, and my pic's damn ugly!


and i "tong" in $1.
somemore my precious 2006 SHINY SHINY coin you noe!!!


then i called elaine.
and then hilly.
HILLY TOOK IT W/O MY KNOWLEDGE!!!.
SEE LA SEE LA
TAKE THE UGLY EZLINK CARD!
ltr you lose it,
then the whole world can see the Pri 6 pic!
RAHHHHHHHHHH. keep it well ah!.

you can take the boy out of the midwest, but you can't... wait, can you even really keep the boy out of the midwest?

I recently hit Send on one of the most terrifying e-mails I have ever sent in my life: one in which I tell my chair at the University of Wisconson-Madison that I will be resigning my position there. Wisconsin, in case you are somehow unaware, is a wonderful place to be a professor, and Wisconsin Sociology is in particular a special place if you are a sociologist.

I followed this e-mail by sending a couple other terrifying e-mails to chairs of sociology departments of perfectly splendid universities telling them that I was declining their generous offers of employment. Obviously every moment of one's life one is doing something and not doing many other possible things and thereby living one path into the future instead of many alternative paths toward an indefinite number of alternative futures. Still, it is scary to send e-mails regarding a major fork in one's biographical road--there, that future, the one some very smart and lovely people have made some very compelling arguments for how it would be absolutely wonderful, that future is not going to happen after all, and it is not going to happen because you have chosen it not to happen.*

True enough, one is extremely fortunate to be able to choose the greater of multiple goods rather than the lesser of multiple evils. Believe me, I regard myself as a truly ludicrously lucky human being. Even so, the particular act of saying no to futures one believes would likely be fabulous still seems to me a good deal more daunting than saying no to futures one is not enthusiastic about. In any case, clicking Send on these e-mails was certainly some of the most trepidly-taken mouse clicks of my life.

I said no to these alternatives because I said yes to another one about which I am extremely excited. This fall, I will begin serving as a Professor in the Department of Sociology at Northwestern University. So after sending the declinations, I was able to follow by clicking Send on a very enthusiastic acceptance.

Northwestern is a great university with great people in a great place to live, and the area also features some cherished social ties. I am not going to say anything here about particular reasons for selecting Northwestern over other possibilities. Except: I want to emphasize that I leave Madison with no complaints, and with much gratitude for the generosity and faith I have been consistently shown by people there. Trust me: Madison is special.

I'm not sure exactly when I'm moving. I have come to be firmly of the belief that if you decide your future is somewhere, you don't want to dally in getting yourself to that where. I'm not always great at following my firm abstract beliefs, though. My lease here in Cambridge is up August 1.

For people keeping track of my Big Ten Tally, the count will be five: Iowa, Indiana, Michigan**, Wisconsin, Northwestern.

Deliberating about all this over the past few months has been the most cognitively exhausting episode of my life. Part of my celebrating having it done with was to change my signature file quote to the official motto of the state of Wisconsin: Forward!

* I know common thinking in situations like this is that if you make a choice and it doesn't work out, you can always later pursue being able to reconsider taking up a future more along a path you'd foregone. Which may be broadly true but is not strictly true in that you don't get the time back and, as they say, you only get one life.

** Yes, Michigan counts. I collected a paycheck from there, had an e-mail address that strangely still forwards me spam, taught students for credit, and have ultimately spent 24 weeks of my life (in different capacities over four summers) there as part of the ICPSR Stats Camp.

crimes and misdestimation

Story on an NYT blog today about a woman in the Netherlands who may be serving a life sentence because of an error in statistical reasoning and an example of sampling on the dependent variable.

Although the physicist explaining the error makes an error of his own:

[S]uppose that police pick up a suspect and match his or her DNA to evidence collected at a crime scene. Suppose that the likelihood of a match, purely by chance, is only 1 in 10,000. Is this also the chance that they are innocent? It’s easy to make this leap, but you shouldn’t.

Here’s why. Suppose the city in which the person lives has 500,000 adult inhabitants. Given the 1 in 10,000 likelihood of a random DNA match, you’d expect that about 50 people in the city would have DNA that also matches the sample. So the suspect is only 1 of 50 people who could have been at the crime scene. Based on the DNA evidence only, the person is almost certainly innocent, not certainly guilty.

The error is that if the police had picked the person up as a suspect completely at random and found that their DNA had a 1 in 10,000 match to that found at the scene of the crime, then, yes, the person is most likely innocent. But, police tend to pick up suspects for nonrandom reasons, and the more the nonrandom reason is related to the actual probability that the person is the culprit, the less relevant the 1 in 50 calculation is and the more relevant the 1 in 10,000 probability is. Because there isn't a neat way of synthesizing this into a new probability estimate, people jump from one bad way of reasoning about the problem to another bad way of reasoning about the problem.

something about when it rains always reminds me how i need to buy an umbrella

Cardinal Point –I’m The Grand Pretender

Cardinal Point –I’m The Grand Pretender/ Lolly Linda –Philips 6012 387 (1973 NL)

Cardinal Point were a bunch ex-pat Italians living in Holland. They released an album and a few singles, but of all the tracks I’ve heard; this is the one that really stands out for me. Produced by Hans Van Hemert and co-written Piet Souer (Mouth & McNeal, Dump etc…) this is a work of pure folly. The track has pre-Bohemian Rhapsody pretensions albeit with platform boots firmly stuck in a waste-management centre and the twist and turns cemented by the stomping beat makes this a single to seek out and cherish. It’s quite readily available on the Internet and cheap to boot!

Click below for soundclip

jerry falwell dies and my first thought is...

"Oh, Teletubbies, I haven't thought about them in ages. I wonder if they're still on TV?"

i will not review your manuscript if submit i wouldn't accept it from a sophomore

10-point Arial? No indentations or other indication where paragraphs start other than that the preceding line is shorter? Seemingly not quite double spaced? No way!

(Granted, given other pressing obligations, I'm not sure I would have agreed to review the manuscript anyway.)

Linkin Park "Minutes To Midnight"-new album 2007. Free Download.

Artist: Linkin Park
Title: Minutes to Midnight
Genre: Rock
Time: 43:50
Size: 98,1 Mb
Bitrate: 320 kbps
Release Date: 15th 2007

Tracklist:

01 - Wake
02 - Given Up
03 - Leave Out All The Rest
04 - Bleed It Out
05 - Shadow of the Day
06 - What I've Done
07 - Hands Held High
08 - No More Sorrow
09 - Valentines' Day
10 - In Between
11 - In Pieces
12 - The Little Things Give You Away
Free download from filefactory

Download Linkin Park "Minutes To Midnight"

Piano arrived this morning.
actually dunnoe why my dad bought it either,
since he's the only one who can play.
and i quited piano after learning for
1/2 year in PRIMARY 1.


haas.
anyway,
Veit is at my hse now.
except that my father brought him down for
"tour".
i think his name's damn cool,
cos its spelt at veit, but,
pronounced as "FIGHT".
haha.
cos that's how they pronounce the letter v in german.
anyway, he's from germany,
and the country sent him here.
and like they provided him with a hse at orchard.
lol.
but the only thing's that he's only 19 and
he's here in singapore alone.
but he got to make some friends like on the street la.
haha.


so when holidays come,
my dad asked me and glenys to bring him on a tour around singapore.
lol.
and maybe he might go to church with us on sat.
haha.
since he's like so free everyday.


chinese for these 2 weeks.
anyway,
yesterday, argh. forget it.
not even worth.But i'll like to thank those who were there for me.
esp, YOU YOU YOU AND YOU......
who helped me forget abt FILLINTHEBLANKSYOURSELF.
and you know what people.
you're right.
i don't need such a person who's such a !@#$%^&*()_)(*&^.
and i don't have to waste my time on him.
HE's NOT EVEN WORTH MY TEARS.
&&& after crying for like almost everynight,
spending sunday crying,
skipping tuition and all.
I FINALLY THOUGHT THROUGH IT.
SUCH A PERSON IS NOT WORTH ANYTHING.
and since i said breakup,
a month and 1 day ago.
i should stick to it.
anyway, even if my results are going to be bad this term.
i should just take it as a learning experience.
Nevertherless,
i don't regret the past 10 months
together with you.
or rather, should i say 7 months plus,
after you changed.
indeed, its a stepping stone.
and I LEARNT NOT TO TRUST WORDS ALONE.
NEVER TO TRUST A PERSON TOO MUCH.
AND NO MATTER HOW GOOD THE PERSON IS,
HE MAY STILL CHANGE ANOTHER DAY.
THEREFORE,
GOODBYE TO YOU.
however, a word of advice,
change for the better.
don't go on lying anymore.
cos 1 lie, brings you on the the next lie.
and once you start, you can't stop.
You can still choose to change.
before its too late.
and when you look back,
you'll start to regret.
Really,
trust me.
i experienced it before.
well, its up to you.
your save-face character,
as well as your stubborn character.
FYI: YOU WERE STUBBORN TOO.






i don't need you no more.
but thanks for the experiences you gave.










may IT succeed(:
you know what i'm talking about.
*winks.

the boy detective surfaces

So, I succeeded in staying offline for twelve hours. When I finally logged in, less than three minutes after time was up, it felt a little bit like coming up for air.

What I did is I took my phone, my laptop, and the Internet cable for my desktop, and I locked them in the drawer of my filing cabinet. Then I took the key to the filing cabinet and stood on a chair to place it on the top of this high shelf in my office. Then I moved the chair to the opposite side of the room. I understand it would be better if I could just say to myself "Sasha*, stay off the Internet," and have that be sufficient for me stop misusing this device I must use for my work that also happens to be the most wondrous distraction device ever created in the history of man. Instead I must assemble more elaborately engineered strategies for self-restraint. Whatever, it worked.

The actual experience of being off the Internet has been quite pleasant, which may seem weird to say considering the whole problem is my compulsion to be on the Internet. The impetus for this has been a deadline for a paper I'm massively behind on, which is stressful, and yet it's also felt strangely a little like a vacation. Aside from quelling the compulsive checking itself, it also keeps my cognitive space from being colonized by any crises or other developments that can trampoline from my inbox into my brain at any moment if I'm continually monitoring e-mail.

I'm not sure what tomorrow's plan will be. Someone in the comments of the last post mentioned the problem that it's hard to work on the references part of a paper if one is not online. This is correct, and part of what I need to work on the references part. I do want to schedule in one long offline stretch though.

* Apparently Beyonce also refers to her special self as "Sasha." One more point of evidence for the theory that she and I and Sarah Vowell are soulmates.

Dog Rose – Sunday Morning

Dog Rose –Paradis Row/ Sunday Morning –Satril Sat 2 (1972 UK)

Dog Rose were Dave Johnson –Lead Guitar, Rowley Henley-Jones –Rhythm Guitar, John Amis –Bass Guitar and Andy Hunter on Drums. They are perhaps slightly better known for their All For The Love Of City Lights single that appeared on the Glitterbest comp(RPM). Paradis Row as stated in the press release is “a happy, bouncy, sunshine song” which is a pretty accurate description. The B side is a cool Junkshop Jug band number and features some cooking lead guitar. Dog Rose also released an album –All For The Love Of Dog Rose, but it remains, as yet, unheard by these ears…

Click below for a full version of Sunday Morning

Lindsay Lohan's Top Popped By Best

Lohan and her balding English man candy, Calum Best, have taken their international love to the Bahamas. Best grabbed Lohan in the water, squeezed her in a bear hug, and popped her like a 3 day old whitehead. Only instead of releasing an ivory bounty of pus, her bikini top released a nipple. Which is almost as sexy as pus. Almost.

he opening of The Cove resort in the Bahamas last weekend was so chockablock with celebrities you had to watch out where you stepped. Strolling along the jungle paths that meander past streams and waterfalls, Lindsay Lohan and new boyfriend Calum Best suddenly felt an urge to make out. A startled passerby came upon the young lovers rolling around on the ground. "Don't mind us," Best told the stranger. "We're tourists."

The tourist excuse does not work for public copulation. It works if you're apologizing for getting in people's way when you're taking pictures. Or for wearing matching T-shirts with your family. Or for complaining that all there is to eat is gross local cuisine, and where are all the Ruby Tuesdays.

the boy detective unplugged

I unplugged my computer from the network and went twelve consecutive hours yesterday without checking my e-mail or otherwise using the Internet, whether from that computer, my laptop, or my phone. Sure, I've gone twelve hours without checking my e-mail various times recently, but yesterday was twelve hours in which I actually spent most of the time working on a computer. Superhuman (or, at least, superjeremian) will and essentially constant supervision from Sara was involved.

I'm going to try the same thing today. I've taken care of my e-mails for today and resolved there is nothing that could arrive in my inbox that needs to be dealt with today (or, at least, nothing that has given me fair warning that it could arrive and need to be dealt with today). I feel like I'm taking a last lungful of breath before plunging myself underwater for some David-Blaine-like feat of human endurance.

As regular readers of this blog know, I am seeking more broadly to combat some of my more compulsive tendencies regarding the Internet. Plus I have to get a draft of this paper I'm working on done. So, world, root for me. I will let you know if I succeed or, if I fail, the gory details of my lapse of will.

resting place

At the columbarium. (our flickr sites are back up again.)

Over the weekend, J and I learnt 2 things about real estate.

(1) The most expensive real estate you can buy is in a columbarium.
Assuming the base area of an urn is 400cm2, or just 4% of a 1 square meter(sqm), 1 sqm of columbarium real estate ranges from S$15,000 to S$300,000! Our apartment, for instance, works out to be only about $2400 per sqm.

OK, the comparison is glib, but as we walked around the Bright Hill Monastry columbarium in search of a better resting place for Ma J's ashes, all there was on everyone's minds was just how much more it would cost - and why. For some of J's family, there was of course other things on their minds - if they should offend any of the spirits. There was a smell of incense everywhere, and an incessant chanting. Even in the air-conditioned columbarium room, there was chanting played over the PA. Needless to say, for me, there was nothing restful about this place.

>$600 for a 60 lease. "HDB"-style, though the room felt like one in the Cambridge university library I rememmber.


>$2,000 on a 75 year lease. An alternative collumbarium at some Taoist nunnery in Bishan. With the white concrete shelves, this felt like a quieter, airier and brighter library.


>$3,800 to $12,000 a unit for all eternity, the price varies depending on whether the location is at eye, foot or ceiling height; and the distance from a central hallwhere the statues of the Goddess of Mercy (I think) stand. Each spot is colour-coded. Gold for the $15,000 spot, blue for $3,800, so that even in death, we are marked by colour and wealth. But it still looks like a locker room.


(2) It's always about the living.
The story is that Pa J has been feeling uneasy about allowing Ma J to be cremated, against her last wish. He did not like how, after being cremated, Ma J's ashes are lying in an urn, stacked on the second row of a crammed shelf in a glass cupboard. This is despite the large paper house the family had burnt for Ma J, equipped with a paper Mercedes benz and two maids.

But once he decided that he would place Ma J's ashes in an air-conditioned room, in a locker-like spot costing $8000, the furrows between Pa J's eyes disappeared, his shoulders lifted, the red in his face lightened. He had done Ma J right at last.

This being a weekend of no rest, I'll stop and say goodnight here.

GRUDGE !!!!!!!!!

Grudge –When Christine Comes Around/ I’m Gonna Smash Your Face In –Black Label BL 002 (1973 UK)

OK, this is the last single I'm putting up on ebay for a while and you could say that I was saving the best for last...but then again...

You can find it here in any case:


http://search.ebay.co.uk/_W0QQsassZpurepop1ukQQhtZ-1

Click below for an edit of both songs

i just had a brilliant idea!

Brilliant, I tell you! I wish it was a brilliant substantive idea. Instead, it's just a gimmicky idea for this talk I have to give. Still, I'll take what I can get on the brilliance front.

(Sorry, the idea is a secret, at least for now, and forever if I can't pull it off. Actually, come to think of it, probably even if I do pull it off, for strategic reasons. Why am I even posting this then? I don't know, I'm excited, give me my moment of cryptic-brilliance-feeling.)

IM SHIFTING BLOG.
cos i realized that i actually have so many blogs.
and they were all created soooooooooo long ago.
so im gonna change it to one one the previous blog.
which i don't even remembered creating.
i had blogs in blogger, diaryland and xanga.
its like so many.
and i didnt bother to delete them when i changed blog.






was it true.?
or was it just a lie.?
only, you know better.
don't bitch about me.
the only reason why people bitch about others,
is only because they are afraid that others might bitch about them.


You called me a bitch.
based on the other incident,
did i bitch about you.?
no.
did you.?
YES.
to an extent, where some things,
others don't even need to know.
Therefore you dont have the right to call me a bitch.
Why in the first place, did you agree to follow him.
maybe you thought that that was being a good friend.
but to him yes,
to me ,definitely no.


because of you.
you made me cry in public.
for the past 10 yrs, i've never done that before.
its not just once.
but thrice in 1 day.
and only within an hour or so.
is it fair.?


why do you have to bring such matters to school,
outside and in school,
i dont see why others need to know.
are they even interested anyway.?
outside matter,
leave it out from school.


all you have to do is,
not to let outside stuff affect what's going on in school.
we don't necessarily have to talk.
but,
keep such stuff out from school.
cos its already stressful in there.
you dont bitch abt me.
and i won't.
that way,
its fair.
and there wont be problems.
dont add so much stress.





--------------------------------------

seriously, its too stressful in there.
with my school people knowing you.
one by one,
problems arise.
somehow these problems always link to you.
thats why i didnt want you to mix so much with my school people.
.

video killed the ratio star

Check out Chris's post about the Harvard Economics Department's graduate recruitment video and associated parodies. I was maybe thirty seconds into the real video before I realized that it was not, itself, some kind of joke ("Whoa, they really found someone who looks like Ed Glaeser... Wait, that really is Ed Glaeser, you wouldn't think he would have such a spectacular ironic sense of humor... Wait, this isn't supposed to be funny.")

Lindsay Lohan Canoodles with Calum, Hikes up Skirt, Is Backseat DJ

In the grand tradition of Spears and Federline, Spears and Howie Day, and Minnelli and Gest, Lindsay Lohan is now dating beneath her. Rush and Malloy report:

Lindsay Lohan locked lips with British scene-maker Calum Best at Wednesday's Nylon Magazine party - despite the frowns of some pals. "This isn't a serious relationship," one friend tells us. "He's a piece of shit. He's a wanna-be celebrity. Lindsay trusts people until they hurt her." Whatever their future, Lohan was in fine form at the Tenjune bash. "She was lifting up her skirt, and sending people over to [her friend, deejay] Samantha Ronson when she didn't like what she was playing," said a spy.

Man. Not only does Samantha have to suffer through her sexy friend only deigning to hook up with her when no available man-pork presents itself, she must suffer the humiliation, as a professional DJ, of Lindsay sending her minions over to critique her beat-matching and demand that she play more Fall Out Boy. Rumor has it that Lindsay also likes to hang around operating rooms, murmuring, "could you make the incision over there instead? I dunno, it's just prettier."

jello shots

In my inbox of recently received comments on posts:

Syd Vicious has left a new comment on your post "jello operator":

I know this blog [sic] is terribly old but this story got brought up today and I did a google search for evidence because no one belived me.

My brother was a coroner in Alameda County CA (the county that Oakland is in) and dog gonnit there WERE twins with these names. My brother picked one of them up one cold night in the coroner van. I CONFIRM LEMONJELLO AND ORANGELLO!

The post in question describes how the book Freakonomics mentions African-American twins named Orangejello and Lemonjello (pronounced o-RANJ-el-o and le-MOHN-je-lo), how I was deeply skeptical that twins with these names actually existed outside urban legend, how I was surprised to look in the back of Freakonomics and see that the source credited for the story was the sociologist Doug McAdam (who is said to have met the twins in a grocery store), how I was even more surprised when I e-mailed McAdam and he vouched for the anecdote, and how various cursory efforts of mine to use sources online to verify the existence of the twins had proven fruitless, although I could find other people who had made other claims about the existence of these twins in other places and other times.

Naturally, the person who left the above comment didn't have an e-mail attached to his blogger profile so I can ask for verification from his coroner brother.

If I were independently wealthy, I think I would just offer a reward to anyone who could provide me verifiable evidence of the existence of these twins, sort of the way people who are skeptical of the supernatural claims have a reward for anyone who can produce verifiable evidence of supernatural abilities.