did a thing @Classical again, in which I watched all the commercials during an NFL game and compiled my feelings about it in pseudo-essay form.

“There are so many conventional ideas in the world,” Nadyezhda Fyodorovna went on, “and life is not so easy as it seems.”
[...]
Before going out for the evening she had tied Laevsky’s cravat for him, and that simple action filled her soul with tenderness and sorrow.
[...]
She would live in some far remote place, would work and send Laevsky, “anonymously,” money, embroidered shirts, and tobacco, and would return to him only in old age or if he were dangerously ill and needed a nurse.

did a thing for Classical

[cranky football writing that was originally meant for other, richer-in-chlorophyll pastures. welcome home, cranky football writing.]

[Redact] the NFL. It’s unwatchable, stop-and-go mock-warfare served up by a weird confederation of already-rich [epithets] for their obscene profit. The NFL, as a phenomenon, would prefer that adult humans with families and notional lives of their own to epoxy themselves in front of the TV for 12 hours a week. That’s not counting pregame shows or ignoring your family and work to invest Talmudic-level intellectual interest in DVR-ed episodes of State Farm NFL Matchup. Or seven other shows. Or ironing your Troy Polamalu-jersey-and-white-turtleneck combo before Sunday services.

Imprecisely speaking, not counting Johannesburg-armored-SUV-tax-bracket “premium luxury” seating, it costs $75 to get into the stadium to watch an NFL game in person. I don’t really look at my paychecks or do math, but that’s more, at least in ready cash after taxes, than I take home every day. I can’t even afford cable TV or living-room furniture, so I am not going to give the NFL the cash equivalent of two weeks’ worth of groceries to sit through seven TV timeouts surrounded by drunk, shrieking 53%ers in Eli Manning jerseys.

But forget all of that griping. Watching football is magical and good for you. The NFL is the best kind of football. Like D. Roth teaches, it is a socioculturally appropriate snack food for the American soul, 2011 edition. Good on the NFL for not sucking as much as NCAA fb/bear-bile-farming operation-at least the playoffs in the NFL aren’t openly rigged. I really like the NFL a lot, despite starting this article with “[Redact] the NFL.”

So despite my lack of furniture and my whiny bull[cuss] about how only white-collar douchebags can actually afford to be fans in the modern middle-class 1080p fullness of that term, I watch the games any way I can, because I want the medicine they bring. No cable for me, but I can usually find an extralegal stream of the Browns game. I’m usually not that entertained because the Browns are tragic right now/since 1995, but there’s a larger, systemic flaw here: NFL football is unwatchable. An NFL game is like watching [streaming adult content] on a 56kbps connection.

Every other play features a replay review, a false start when HGH-addled motor skills backfire, a TV timeout, a concussion or spinal-column injury. That’s not even counting having to listen to Rich Gannon or Phil Simms extemporize, which is like having hot [crude language] put in your brain with a frosting gun. Sure, the Red Zone Channel fixes some of these problems, but it uproots the game from any kind of narrative logic, scorching away geography, personal preference, and tradition in favor of a gangbang supercut. There’s probably an argument to be made for the Red Zone Channel as empowering, but let’s don’t right now.

The NFL is stepping on its product so hard that I’m not getting high enough to ignore the bad parts. Like the fact I’m sitting on broken furniture I found in someone’s trash, hunched over an old laptop that’s probably lowering my sperm count through leaking battery radiation or something. Don’t [redact] with my high, Roger Goodell.

We need a slogan. “Don’t [redact] with my high, Roger Goodell” isn’t bad, but maybe we can tweak it a bit. How about: “[Redact] the NFL back”? Both partners should enjoy this sex metaphor!

energy bar review installment 002

Met-Rx Big 100 Colossal Meal Replacement Bar, Peanut Butter-Pretzel format

having consumed one of the other flavors of this specific kind of gross workout-freak food last week, I decided to never eat them again. But then I saw there was a flavor with whole pretzels embedded in it like rubies so I bought one. It was terrible but it did look cool. Do not eat unless you are desperate or have some kind of metabolic disorder where there is a literally a fire in your stomach and you have to throw dense wads of matter into it constantly to avoid baking yourself or just exploding or something.

items found and mostly discarded during desultory housecleaning, 9/11/11

:: Ticket for Continental Airlines flight 1126 from EWR–>MDW, July 4, 2006

It was a very clear night, and you could see July 4th fireworks going off all across the country for most of the flight. Actual non-forgettable visual experience, top five in life, in all honesty. Reaffirmed a personal article of faith: always, always get window seat.

:: 3/31/2008 5:02 PM credit card receipt for $14.12 for copy of William Vollmann’s ARGALL from Powell’s on 57th in Chicago, found at page 15 of William Vollmann’s ARGALL.
I was broke then and had an inchoate plan of moving away from Chicago to achieve critical distance on my mid-twenties (and because I was bored at work). I am broke now and have scaled-back inchoate plans of purchasing a stairmaster or maybe only eating carrots and brown rice for the rest of my life.

:: Bookstore bookmarks:
- St. Mark’s Bookshop, 31 Third Ave, NY, NY
Currently circulating a petition asking that shop’s landlord lower monthly rent, on the basic premise that “bookstores are nice.”
- Borders(R) Cleveland Area Stores
Chain went out of business earlier this year.
- Citybooks, 1854 Coventry Road, Cleveland Hts., OH
I thought this bookstore had a different name. If this isn’t the same store that used to be called Mac’s Paperbacks then I am not sure if I have ever been in this store.
- Strand, 828 Bway, NY, NY
Still there. They have since upped their “miles of books” claim. I have resolved my longstanding prejudice about people with Strand tote bags. One of the 3.5 sentences in this paragraph is a half-lie.
- Unnameable Books, 600 Vanderbilt, Brooklyn NY 11217
This was in the replacement copy of SWAG fka RYAN’S RULES by Elmore Leonard that I bought to replace the one that I gave back to Stephen Witt after borrowing for five years. During those five years, I tried several times to relocate Unnameable Books on foot, which used to be in Park Slope, but moved without much ceremony to Prospect Heights. Since it didn’t really have a name, no one knew what I was talking about when I asked where that bookstore was.

:: Save-the-date postcard for a November 2010 wedding in Puerto Morelos, Mexico involving my stepcousin.
Said wedding was called off approx 1 month after I received this card. I wasn’t going to make it, because I was broke then and I didn’t/don’t have a valid passport.

:: Heavily faded receipt for chicken fajita burrito from Chipotle at 10 E. Jackson, Chicago IL, 3:54 PM, January 27, 2006.
Not sure what I was doing downtown in the middle of the day on a Thursday. I had a 9-to-5 job at that point. Also, said burrito cost $6.17 with tax. Price of Chipotle is increasing way way in advance of real wages at least in my life.

:: Amtrak ticket stub for train #318, Chicago IL to Indianapolis, IN, June 1, 2005.
I think I went to see the Formula 1 race/get out of Chicago. I was extremely unemployed at that time and would not have had any money, so I am guessing Ashley paid for my ticket. Which was only $20, it warrants mention. This train was delayed by a stopped freight for something like 2 hours IIRC.

:: Promotional card to download a sampler from Southern Lord Records, 2008.
Not sure what Southern Lord Records is but the graphic design (and label name) suggests instrumental metal.

:: 1985 Topps football Reggie Camp card, poor condition
This was in unread, yellowed copy of Margaret Atwood/THE HANDMAID’S TALE.

:: Postcard of fresco from chapel of St. Francis at Assisi
Unmailed but written on by college-era girlfriend, delivered by hand as bday communique 2010. It says “29! Shit! Here is a fresco from St. Francis of Assisi’s chapel to cheer you up. Happy birthday [heart] T”

:: Receipt from yupscale sandwich place in Manhattan dated 6/21/2010
It’s itemized, and the items read in entirely “LAMB $9.00 DIET COKE $2.00″

1) produce livery

2) energy bar consumer reviews

Met-RX Big 100 chocolate chip Graham cracker flavor
Four thumbs down

Pros:
Contained calories

Cons:
Had to be placed on or around my taste buds to exploit said calories

Unaccountable:
Tasted weirdly of bourbon

neoclassicism

give us a penny/some pennies