nsfw

Via Clarissa, who remains excellent.

Matchbox D.C.

Did I first try it after it passed the height of its glory or something? I mean, I would have sooner based on the recommendations of countless foodie friends, but there are always four million people in line, and so my friends and I would wind up eating down the street somewhere.

I dearly love pizza with fresh mozzarella and basil, but this one arrived slightly cold. The cheese didn't have the right texture at all. 2 Amys was vastly better, as is Coppi's or even arguably Bertucci's. On the other hand, my companions' mini-burgers with gorgonzola did look delectable. Two little ones paired with a salad is probably a nice blend of self-indulgence and health -- maybe I should do that next time.

David Bernstein, be warned.

quotable quotes

The passage of comparable worth legislation is likely to “accelerate the tendency among many people to regard ‘civil rights’ as a mere rhetorical cover in a seamy scramble for economic redistribution." -- Jeremy Rabkin, in U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Comparable Worth: Issue for the 80s (1984).

ephemera

In which Pnin and I receive honorable mention, alas. Note also entertaining comment thread in which there is random populist support in our favor, led by anonymous commenters who are presumably not my mother. Then also counter-comments in which we are called "smug, Koch-loving libertarians." Actually, I think "insufferable" is more accurate than "smug" as applied to me, but Pnin is nicer.

Unrelatedly, these red flats are adorable.

Freedom ain't a state like Maine or Virginia

What is odd about Jonathan Franzen's Freedom is that I think it is trying to be a novel about politics, but is actually a novel about sex.

Let me explain. There is the title, which refers to a political concept. And every couple of chapters, one of the characters gets lost in a multi-paragraph reverie about freedom and the Way We Live Now. Except that it is probably safe to say that I am more interested in freedom than about 98% of Franzen's readers, having done all those IHS seminars and all, and I can't actually remember any of the multi-paragraph reveries about freedom. It wasn't that they were bad... I remember inane things I read about freedom very well, thank you very much... but just not interesting enough to stick in my mind for more than ten minutes.

There are also political elements to the plot. One of the main characters, Walter Berglund, is a left-wing environmentalist who runs a land trust that's designed to save the cerulean warbler. His son, Joey, gradually drifts right politically. Joey also gets ensnared in a plot to send defective truck parts to Iraq. One gets the impression that this is supposed to be some kind of point about the moral bankruptcy of the right, except that I got lost wondering why none of these people seemed to have heard of negligence liability.

Anyway, the plot points about politics seemed merely to be a way of moving forward a story that is really about lust and sex. In some ways, the basic story reads like a bad post by a PUA blogger: cute girl (Patty Berglund) feels torn by desire for aloof alpha rock star (Richard Katz) who keeps eliding her grasp; settles instead for beta Nice Guy TM Walter Berglund; and then feels miserable about her choices. Somewhere, some Mystery Method disciple is scrawling "Neg opener" in the margins of this book alongside Patty and Richard's conversations. Ditto the scenes about Walter's son Joey, an alpha-player-in-embryo type who just can't help but get multiple beautiful women to fall head over heels for him.

Except the story woven here is a bit more nuanced and interesting than the PUA guys' narratives. Every time Patty is drawn closer to Richard, the hyper-abrasive aloofness gets to be too much, and she founds herself being drawn back to Walter. It happens once when Patty and Richard travel together to Chicago after college, and again, many years later, after they begin affairs as adults. It's as if the Nice Guy and Bad Boy are yin and yang, opposite sides of the same coin. Richard's admiration and lifelong friendship with Walter also make the narrative more complicated than the typical PUA blogger account of human behavior. It's evident that Richard understands that Walter has qualities that he doesn't and appreciates him for it. True, some might say that Franzen's overly rosy-eyed. But I for one found myself buying in to his creation.

(Headline reference explained here.)

Sometimes I like to think of Evil Willow as my alter ego.

I should perhaps take up watching so-bad-it's-good soap operas or teen dramas like a normal person, rather than reading so-bad-it's-good bizarre conspiracy theories about the Koch brothers. Still, some observations:

1. My feelings are hurt that my husband and I are not mentioned as a "libtard power couple." I mean, I really think that we have accomplished as much in the way of world destruction as several of the profiled couples. Clearly I am a failure at self-promotion.

2. My take-home pay went up by a bit less than 50% when I left working for my evil, evil billionaire corporate overlords masters to...uh... go do civil rights work for the federal government. Apparently I am a cheap whore. In fact, I thought of posting a link to this article to my Facebook page merely with the status "Isabel is a cheap whore," but then realized that some of my more respectable Facebook friends might look askance at it, so I did not.

3. There are some words in this article that are not lies. Among them are "a," "and," "the," and the bit that "libertarians are fucking weirdos."

In which I attempt to return to the world

So getting married is exhausting. Lessons learned:

1) Invite an economist to speak at your wedding. Basically nobody other than me has ever thought to do this. Even Pnin was skeptical that this was a good idea. But economists are interesting and original and have more entertaining and insightful things to say. Everyone loved our economist. Other people please follow my lead.

2)Workaholism is rational and totally advised. As in, like, work until 3 p.m. the day before your wedding and then show up at your desk at the normal time on Monday morning. If one is prepping for a hearing and/or screaming at Congress that they REALLY REALLY should not vote up some terrible bill, one has no neurons left to worry about whether one's thighs are fat. Yes, there are sane people who manage to banish these demons from their minds by standing in front of a mirror and reciting affirmations to themselves about loving their bodies. Or something like that. I tend to feel that if there is an American woman somewhere in this day and age who is fully secure about her looks, she ought to be stuffed and exhibited. For the rest of us, workaholism is a perfectly serviceable substitute. Besides, if you have advance planning skills, it isn't like there is that much to do anyway.

3)The New York Times lies about how far in advance of your wedding they will contact you. Do not worry (too much) if they drag their feet. Do not panic and think about succumbing to Angelo Codevilla-esque depths of populist rage just out of spite at them.

4)Do not get so distracted that you forget to eat your own wedding cake! I made the mistake of wandering off to dance and talk to people, thinking that I could always get some cake later. I forgot. The next day, everyone complimented me on how good the wedding cake was. At one level, this made me happy. At another, it made me sad. Do not fall into this trap, other people!