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The Real

This is the archive for The Real.

• Spending money abroad

  This summer I return to Lithuania for the second time in as many years (and will be back again next summer), so part of my trip preparation has been stressing over how to most economically turn my dollars into litai. This research is using a trip to Lithuania as a specific baseline, but I think […]

• Posted on Jul 22.08 to Lithuania, The Real   

• I love LA

  I have this suspicion that I’m the last person in the world to read City of Quartz–isn’t it like taught in every LA high school? Nevertheless, my adviser suggested I get hip to Mike Davis as my dissertation proposal gets more and more located within questions about urbanity. So, in preparation for a trip to […]

• Posted on Jul 13.08 to Snobbery, The Real   

• Dilemma

  Via CTA Tattler, I have signed up for a CTA SMS update thing. And though it is generally useful for nothing other than getting anecdotal details about how the CTA can’t make it 48 hrs without collapsing in some serious way, it did prove useful surrounding the two recent CTA calamities: the Blue Line evacuation […]

• Posted on Apr 29.08 to The Real   

• More Conclusions in Male Fantasy Sports

  The quarter is over, and that means that Male Fantasy Sports is also over. Since I wrote up the baseball section, I should write up the soccer section.
  The first book we read was Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby. The book annoyed me to no end, largely because Hornby comes across as an insufferable poser, bragging […]

• Posted on Mar 12.08 to Baseball and Sports, Snobbery, The Real   

• Der Hitlersmiley heutzutage

  Sometime comrade-in-arms but allthetime Virginian Whet has been decrying the Tribune’s hiring of Jonah Goldberg for a while, now, and he enjoys reminding readers every time that Goldberg’s cover image for his book Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning—a smiley face with a toothbrush mustache—comes […]

• Posted on Feb 11.08 to Politics, The Real   

• A Way of Thinking It Through

  I’m micro-teaching next week, and I’m having my classmates read selections from “Winter Dreams,” which, if you know me, you’ve probably heard me go on about. In preparation of teaching this, of course, I’ve been rereading parts of Gatsby—for the first time in years. This passage really struck me, from the closing pages. Tom has […]

• Posted on Nov 10.05 to The Real   

• Die a Little Death with Me…

  I guess I should have known all along about my involvement with Neighborhoodies, but this shit broke my heart:
  From: @neighborhoodies.com
  To: @uchicago.edu
  Subject: You’re invited: Chicago store opening party Saturday!
  A couple months ago I asked you for store location suggestions. The most popular choice was — WICKER PARK You had to choose just about the priciest place, […]

• Posted on Oct 29.05 to The Real   

• Mini Hiatus

  There’s nothing really I can possibly say about Katrina right now that isn’t, after a fashion, just Glenn Reynolds-esque passing along links with “shame if it’s true” or “heh” after it. Except with swear words and hatred levied at the hardon private property still gives everyone (the very idea of a “shoot to kill” policy […]

• Posted on Sep 05.05 to The Real   

• Warning! May Cause Awkward Memories

  I guess about 2 months ago, the ads for Axe started showing up on television. Considering about 90% of the TV I watch is sports, it was probably during the sports telecasts. The ads struck me as astonishingly offensive: the guy sprays the shit on his neck, or whatever, women stick to him […]

• Posted on Jul 26.05 to The Real   

• Entitlement Attitudes on the CTA

  Now, I do a fair share of CTA riding these days (though I only take the X49 when I’m going to Daddy’s, but whatever), and I’ve gotten a good feel for it. Like, for example, the language you’re most likely to hear, after English and Spanish? German. German tourists love them some public transportation to […]

• Posted on Apr 12.05 to The Real   

• New O. C. Tonight!

  Who knows what’s been going on. I’ve been studying a ton, and it feels like I haven’t had anything to talk about or time to read much on the web, anyway. I could brag that I read the first three “books” of Jicoténcal in Spanish two nights ago, reaching for the dictionary 0 times. I […]

• Posted on Apr 07.05 to The Real   

• 10 Things I Do Terribly

  I was a little inspired by this site, but, also, it’s just a few things that have come up recently. Maybe others can take up the banner and post their own lists?

  Microwave popcorn.
  Play basketball.
  Collect the resources to write.
  Turn my back on people that by any rational metric deserve it.
  Draft fantasy teams.
  Drive.
  Manage to score as anyone […]

• Posted on Mar 22.05 to The Real   

• ¡O sombra de remedio inconstante!: ser en mí lo mejor lo que no es nada!

  The internet can’t give me a good image of Juan Boscán to go along with the above line, which is from the sonnet that Electrelane then turned into the song “Oh Sombra!” But the question here is more a rhetorical one, and perhaps, as such, carries an ethical element. So we know how friends, family, […]

• Posted on Mar 14.05 to The Real   

• How Long Can We Maintain?

  I’ve had my two biggest heroes of my early college career die in the past two months. I’m not quite ready to talk about why I think Hunter S. Thompson was maybe the most important journalist of the second half of the 20th century. Nor am I quite ready to talk about his inheritance of […]

• Posted on Feb 21.05 to The Real   

• Happy Valentine’s Day!

  Steve beats me to the punch on wishing his readers a happy Valentine’s Day. And he stole my thunder… First, he explains how much he likes Valentine’s Day despite not being involved with anyone. And, second, he offers beats. The nerve!
  I, too, have been a pretty big fan of Valentine’s Day lately. Sure, over half […]

• Posted on Feb 14.05 to The Real