stick around folks, we'll be right back

Today is like those nights when the talk show host finishes his monologue, shoots one last smirk to the bandleader, then says what he does every night, those tired words that barely trigger neurons to fire any more in his brain, his mouth operating nearly out of reflex (and he flashes to those moments of cold panic during recent tapings when he's hosted a young, edgy comic, a transparently earlier and hungrier version of himself), except that this night he knows that both guests are reliably entertaining, even intelligent, and the musical act is one he has heard and actually liked at one time, a few girlfriends ago, and so he turns to the camera and says with a trace of real emotion and anticipation: "Folks, we've got a great show for you tonight."

First, the news. For the remainder of the year, you can forget about scanning those USA Today vending machines and MSN homepage news-in-brief updates. 2006 has already had its most outrageous headline: Baltimore Is Named Fittest City in America. I especially like the double entendre in one resident's comments: "I think it's probably the most mis-fit city in America." When I lived in Baltimore, there was an urban legend about the City's agreement with Viacom to maintain and renovate bus shelters. The story goes that Viacom initially installed their standard bus shelter seats, then had to remove them and replace them with doublewides because the locals were so well-endowed. Interestingly, "Fittest" is what you might hear if I tried to say "Fattest" while my mouth is full of fried chicken. (I've tried it.)

Today's genetic curiosity, from Matt Ridley's excellent book Genome: "The result of...an experiment by Claus Wederkind and Sandra Furi was the discovery that men and women most prefer (or least dislike) the body odour of members of the opposite sex who are most different from them genetically." I'm remembering ex-girlfriends who liked the smell of the pillowcases the morning after I'd stayed over and ex-girlfriends who were mostly indifferent. Apparently, it has to do with genetic variability conferring better immunity against certain diseases. Your AA is better off crossing with a BB than another AA. For the sake of the kids, who'll be AB. Geneticists always jump straight to the mating.

This morning, I went to the Recycle Shop, a great Boston resource at the Children's Museum (also in South Boston). They work with New England-area manufacturers who donate surplus to the store, which sells everything for cheap. (With a student discount, a buck-fifty for a popcorn bag-ful; $5-something for a supermarket paper bag.) Barrels and barrels of old foam, financial ledgers, calling cards, compacts--you name it. I like bulk junk.

Finally, a reason not to blog:
"Narcissism in the clinical sense diverges from the popular idea of love of one's own beauty; more strictly, and as a character disorder, it is self-absorption which prevents one from understanding what belongs within the domain of the self and self-gratification and what belongs outside it. Thus narcisissism is an obsession with 'what this person, that event means to me.' This question about the personal relevance of other people and outside acts is posed so repetitively that a clear perception of those persons and events in themselves is obscured."
--Richard Sennett, The Fall of Public Man

Looking for Sennett links, found this nice little evisceration of the man's career, writing, and thought.