Here are some examples of what the lady at Portillo's said as she called out order numbers:
"One twenty one, your order's done, one two one!"Something really midwestern about this.
"One twenty three, come see me, one two three!"
"One twenty five, look alive, one two five!"
"One twenty eight, no more wait, one two eight!
"We can make what we want out of what we're given."This in response to a hasty complaint of mine.
4. Set the unofficial World Record for smoothies blended by bicycle in a 1-hour, 1-day, and 2-day period (60, 320, and 540 smoothies, respectively.) Record set at the Juice Pedaler booth at the 2005 Whole Earth Festival in Davis, California.Read on if you dare. ("You can't ride a bike and not be part of a community. We hope that our inventions and outreach efforts help more people experience this magic.")
This is a link to an article about plagiarism written by a guy named Erik Campbell. It's a little long, but he has some decent things to say. He mentions Nietzsche and Borges, anyway, so it was pretty much always guaranteed to win me over. I like the way that the article handles this concept in a casual way. Does using Google results to determine the relative importance of plagiarism and mentioning the case of George Harrison make him a "charlatan," to use Jakob's word?
In any case, the guy lives in Indonesia, and I don't know what to make of that. It doesn't sound too bad to me, though.
To write about Benjamin in terms of Nietzsche. I remember that a description of some event in Sartre’s autobiography ends with a line to the effect of “and that’s what finally cured me of my idealism.” I think this sheds some light on why it’s hard to bring Benjamin into contact with Nietzsche. Is this even possible? I think Sartre may have been lying to himself here, but it seems like Benjamin never even had the pretense of experiencing something like this.
Benjamin saves up all of his optimistic power for minute or fragmented things, so that he can invest them with his messianic and mystic brand of hope. What kind of faith is required to do this in total seriousness? Let’s be reductive and say that it takes some kind of idealism. Benjamin is an optimist insofar as he’s a materialist: he really does find hope in things. But materialism—historical or otherwise—isn’t material, it’s an idea. I'm questioning Benjamin’s ability to re-present things clearly (or objectively?)...
It seems like Nietzsche goes a lot farther than Benjamin in terms of optimism. Benjamin tacks his on after establishing that the world is a melancholy place, but Nietzsche is hopeful from the beginning. He's not concerned with the value of phenomena in themselves, much less granular ones like the ones Benjamin studies. And unlike Sartre, I’m pretty sure that he’s not an idealist.
Maybe the gap between these two can be explained by saying that Benjamin deals with experience and Nietzsche deals with being. I think there’s something more to it, though. They don’t go together, despite the fact that there are other writers, like Borges and Kafka, who can be easily read alongside either one. (Borges might be faking his appreciation of Nietzsche, but at least he didn’t make that his marketing strategy.)
There have been a couple of stories about the Warriors that have casually mentioned the fact that Don Nelson drinks Bud Light. This is a little strange, as you rarely hear about a coach's drink of choice. It does give some perspective on an idea of mine about coaches, which is that their real job isn't tactical but psychological.
How can you get your team to play better than they should? Convince them that they're better than they actually are. This means framing the situation in the most positive way possible, even–and especially–if this involves a distortion of reality. This isn't exactly the case for the Warriors, because they'd had a good record against the Mavericks, but any coach facing a difficult team has to make something up to motivate players. In this way they must become something of a storyteller, condensing information into a kind of seed that can be transmitted to the team.
So that's how I imagine Don Nelson: drinking from a Bud Light can like a well of inspiration, intoxicating himself from this profane oracle in order to create some fantastic tale that will spur the Warriors on to victory.
The crowd played such a large role in the outcome of yesterday's game. It reminded me of the way a massive soccer crowd can affect a team, willing them on to win. (Liverpool's Anfield Road comes to mind.) If you watch this video of the Warriors killing the game off, you'll see how much the players feed off of the fans. The Mavericks players were clearly affected by the environment at the Arena, which was much different from the average American sporting atmosphere. Now, have a look at this photo:
Oracle Arena as house of worship? For the moment, this is the church of the Bay Area, with Snoop Dogg presiding. The effect is only heightened by the fact that every one of those yellow t-shirts reads "WE BELIVE." Hopefully there will be more for me to say about this later.
One night it was raining so hard that the taxi I was in had to let me off, the driver refused to take me back to the hotel because the roads were like lakes. He took me to the Olleros subte stop, I ran out of the cab and into the station, but the trains were shut down indefinitely. I can imagine more desperate situations, but I was pretty much stranded.
I knew of a great empanada place close by, so I spent an hour waiting out the rain and then caught the 152 back to the center. As I was getting on, people asked me questions (How much does it cost? Will it take me to Correo Central?) that I was able to answer. I could even afford to laugh when the bus took a 15 block detour to avoid puddles that had swallowed taxis whole, because I knew where I was.
Putting aside logistics and food—both major considerations, by the way—people made the city familiar. There were accommodating yanquis who let me play tour guide, and argentinos who welcomed me back as if I’d been gone only a few days. This is a precious quality: it implies a picking up of something just put on hold. That’s how I felt about returning to Buenos Aires, and isn’t that a quality of a place that's home?
