Monday, June 27, 2005

|Summer and Capitolism Go Together Like H and 2O.|

One summer evening, years ago when I was five or six, my brothers and cousins and I were all at my aunt's house in one of the many inconsequential black suburbs of D.C. on the Maryland-side of the beltway. That night, it was hot, the kind of humidity that water-bordered cities are known for during the summer months and there was a blackout. In a neighborhood where A/C is as mythical, even in houses, as the legendary El Dorado, the only option on a black out summer evening for a houseful of black people without any ability to modify the interior atmospheric conditions is to retreat to the front porch or the back patio and tell stories.

(Black people, like black color, tend to absorb and retain heat -- there's a reason why any Southern Baptist Church service is a disaster without hand-held fans -- especially when they are having a good time.)

The kids in the neighborhood that night, as kids often do when disaster strikes, congregrated together at the first sniff of an entrepreneurial opportunity. My memory fails me so many years after the fact, but someone had the brilliant idea that we could capture the lightning bugs which seemed to be buzzing around in droves that evening in jars and then sell them at clearance sale prices (since there was no original output cost, nothing would be lost by not gouging our customers) and turn a hefty profit.

The plan was genius. And fail proof. Those who were assigned to gather the bugs into jars found quite a few of the insects and wrangled them into the jars with amazing success. Those who were given the task of setting up the selling stand and advertising were not as successful in their endeavors. It suffices to say that not a single lightning bug was sold that evening.

At the time, I thought, "Oh well." But now I think, why didn't the adults in the neighborhood, all of whom were sitting outside doing nothing at all, indulge us in giving us a few cents for our lightning bugs? I mean, we were imaginative and can-do kids -- why not endorse that?

I am willing to bet a king's ransome that that is precisely where my low self-esteem syndrome began... with a few lightning bugs and a dream deferred.


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 18:22.
0 comments

________________________

Saturday, June 25, 2005

|I'd like to write a story.|

I'd like to write a story. The conventional, nearly garden-variety sort of story that proliferates today about urban (read: Manhattan) socialites, in the same vein as "4 Blondes" and "The Dirty Girls Social Club," (both of which I adored). I'd like to write a story about a woman who shops. She shops so much, in fact, that she does not wear a watch. "Why wear a watch," she'd respond quizzically, "when receipts always have the exact time?"

I'd like to write a story about a woman who shops and never wears a watch and is accused of murdering her husband, a man with upwards of $2 billion in liquid assets and a penchant for getting slight mentions in the back of the society section. Well his mistresses (and occasionally his house boys) do, at any rate.

I'd like to write a story about a woman who shops and never wears a watch who is accused of murdering her wealthy husband, only she swears she has an alibi for the established time of his death: she was shopping, and she has the receipts to prove it.


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 12:08.
0 comments

________________________

Friday, June 10, 2005

|What color is the sky in the East Village?|

As many of you didn't experience, last night was a Great City Plan event. With no offense at all intended to my friends who have attended previous events, I would argue that this was perhaps the greatest GCP event to date. It crystallized to precisely what this whole program is intended to be. From having been introduced to a musical group by a friend and then told that they were having a show, to inviting people, to going and seeing that friend who'd made me aware of the show plus people she'd invited plus friends that friends I'd invited invited, to hearing and seeing a really great show to walking through the East Village to ending up eating and lounging in a cool-but-tiny Japanese restaurant owned by a kind South American (Chilean?) man discussing the evils and merits of Ben and Jerry's, how to design an "organic" nightclub and the best place to end your month-long hike across the width of the continental country of Australia.

This event grew and evolved -- chaotic and biotic and organic and unbounded. And it did not end when I left. And it spawned plans for another evening which may involve "the greatest three hours of [your] life."

I was taken and rolled by the experience and the after-experience of walking through the East and West Villages with Liz to our respective subway stops. I enjoyed the night -- the air was cool, the humidity had broken and my iPod had plenty of juice.

And, where I could without fear of being mowed down by a bus or pedicab, I walked and looked up. Over Columbia the over-head is red. The clouds are maroon and the sky is a plum. I had begun to forget that such coloring may be specific to Columbia.

The coincidence of the lives of two Aussie dudettes who ooze Peter Pan Syndrome from every pore and strawberry-infused sake and brilliant friends and the city has imbued me with a re-invigorated sense of senses.

Corn Flower, by the way.


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 09:36.
1 comments

________________________

Thursday, June 09, 2005

|Wishes and paperwork.|

I got the fee waiver, by golly! I just found out and I can hardly tell you how ecstatic I am. I don't know if I was more thrilled when I got into the Paris program.

And I owe it all to the package of paperwork (bank records, payment invoices, letter from the Paris program, letter from my dean, etc.) inundating the LSAC office that I sent last week and to a strict and steady wishing on any and all dandelion parts I could catch.


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 02:11.
0 comments

________________________

Wednesday, June 01, 2005

|The French say "Non."|

The French say non, and I say oui. The Dutch will likely say nee following the French, and I will say ja ja.

Thanks to the general French disbelief of Adam Smith's invisible hand, the value of the euro is going down faster than a dime-whore who spots a $10-bill on the sidewalk. I need an estimated 4,000 euros to get by in Paris. Two months ago that was $5,184. Now it's $4,921.

C'mon baby, papa needs a new exchange rate!


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 08:55.
1 comments

________________________

|Septimus Warren Smith 2.1|

I went to an Ivy League undergrad.
I go to a top NYC law school.
I date men (well...).
I live in Bed-Stuy.
I don't need more to say,
just more room to say it.
Etc.

|Archives|

August 2004 September 2004 October 2004 November 2004 December 2004 January 2005 February 2005 March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 January 2007 June 2007 October 2007 November 2007 December 2007 January 2008 March 2008 May 2008 June 2008

|Nouvelles Fleurs|

How I Met Your Mother
Pushing Daisies

|Les Invités|

Big-Brained Opposable Thumbed Bipedalism
La Troisième Queue
The Search for Love in Manhattan

|Human Nature|

Ivy Blues
DubDub
Knitty
Listen Up
Wish You Were Here

|Credits|

Host: Blogger
Layout: Blogskins
Background: Microsoft (but altered)