Sunday, October 08, 2006

Cell Phones Are the New Barbie

It is just a matter of time before I find that the simple two-outfit sartorial inventory of my own phone will have expanded to include haute phone-couture suitable for any and all events it might attend, and I also know that this is only the beginning, and before I know it, each phone will have its own walk-in closet, and a jewel safe.

Some may recall that on the recent occasion of my birthday, Madame and I were presented with new cellular telephones. This coincided with some provider changes Madame had made, for a variety of reasons, all of which can be summed up as “more services, less money.”

The telephones are called Nokia 6103 and they are very modern, little, and cute. They are so small, in fact, that we were also given devices to keep them affixed to our persons, and each telephone also has its own wardrobe of clothing. Pale pink and blue for Madame, black and brown for me.

I do not believe that my telephone needs so many clothes. In fact, the task of performing valet services for it has consistently been performed by someone other than myself. From time to time either Madame or a descendant will change its vestments from black to brown or vice versa.

Madame, on the other hand, would not even think of allowing her telephone to go through a week, much less life, with only two outfits, both leather, of all things, how the poor thing must be suffering in this heat!

And so after examining the construction of the diminutive phone-clothes, and hmmphing a bit, taking a few more measurements of her own, because fit is essential to being well-dressed, whether one is an elegant lady or a cellular telephone, she immediately set about the business of designing and creating an extensive wardrobe of appropriate raiment for her telephone, matching or harmonizing with her own favorite ensembles, and has begun embroidering at least one of them, that it not suffer the shame of finding itself under-dressed on more festive occasions.

It is just a matter of time before I find that the simple two-outfit sartorial inventory of my own phone will have expanded to include haute phone-couture suitable for any and all events it might attend, and I also know that this is only the beginning, and before I know it, each phone will have its own walk-in closet, and a jewel safe.

Speaking of jewels, as you may imagine, some of my descendants are elders themselves, and one of them was recently presented with a Bedazzler by a well-intentioned but sanity-challenged individual, and since that inglorious day, we have all been under near-constant siege, and have had to take great pains to protect ourselves from Bedazzlement, and predictably, I suppose, Madame’s well-turned out telephone is a particularly sought-after target.

Madame, of course, does not object to the idea of pearls on her telephone. On the contrary, she has already begun some sketches - but as she points out, pearls are to be incorporated into the embroidery of a piece, not Bedazzled onto it willy-nilly!

That we are a family whose history includes, in every generation, a very impressive number of very gifted practitioners of the textile arts makes the descendant’s descent into Bedazzlism all the more strange and alarming. Her siblings are conspiring to talk to her. Perhaps, they say, she needs counseling. They have arranged for her several sessions with one of the family’s most renowned embroiderers, almost in a league with Madame, who has recused herself because she believes, and with good reason, that the telephone would be too much of a distraction. Just the knowledge that it, and its clothes, were nearby would be too much for the patient to bear, even if it were not affixed to Madame’s person.

Madame has strong views on the affixing question. Politely declining the traditional “swivel clip” method, once the phone has been dressed in the outfit appropriate to her own attire, she prefers to wear it suspended from a gold chain worn round her neck. Or, of course, a silver chain, if the accessories of the day so decree, unless those accessories include the mixing of metals, and no doubt a host of other very important factors that I am too simple to comprehend, though I am sure that undertones are a consideration.

The younger descendants sneer at the new phones. The camera, they say does not have a zoom, and one can record only a few seconds of video, and with only 4 MB of memory, how is anyone supposed to download enough ring-tones even to keep current with a week of mood changes? But, they acknowledge, it is probably all right for us old folks, since in our ancient way, we use the phones mostly for talking.

Since so far, the only photos Madame and I have taken have been of each other, to make into our cell telephone wallpaper, I am obliged to concur with the young folks. They are quite adequate for our needs, and I am confident that by the time I ever get around to reading the FM in its entirety, they will have been superceded by even newer phones that are even littler and cuter and are capable of doing even more things, and we will also use those mostly for talking. And in Madame’s case, accessorizing. Cell phones are, after all, the new Barbie.

In addition to clothing and affixing-to-the-person devices, the telephones came with dentures. I suppose it is a sort of denture, because it is called a Blue Tooth. Or something is called a Blue Tooth, which I am told is a technology, and is represented on the physical plane by a device that looks like a very old-fashioned hearing aid, and I believe it is to be worn in much the same way. It enables the wearer to join the millions of people who walk around in public apparently talking to the air like someone living with mental illness, ears adorned with the old-fashioned hearing aids.

Again the younger descendants are scornful. It is Plantronics, they say, which is bogus. Motorola or somebody makes much cooler looking ones in more colors. We had been given only one, to see how we adapt to wandering around the streets conversing with the air, hands free to hold our phones aloft to photograph something, but upon hearing that the hearing aid looking things are available in a version that is little and cute like the phone, and in a variety of colors, Madame’s interest has increased. I suppose she will want to coordinate her hearing aid lookalike with the different costumes sported by her phone.

The descendants acknowledge that the Plantronics device has better sound quality, but priorities are priorities. Madame says she might not mind sacrificing sound quality either, but only if the Motorola company’s smaller and sleeker option is available in the correct shade of lilac, or if she can at least make clothes for it.

We have not yet inaugurated this new technology. We are still getting used to our new telephones and their clothes, and their being so little and cute.

Since while my vision has sunk to a level that can only be called “vestigial,” I am able to hear eggs being cracked in Fiji - I believe I will get a kick out of walking around the hood wearing something that looks like an Eisenhower-era hearing aid, so I have been reading up on the process of initializing the Blue Tooth.

It appears that the first step will be something called “pairing” which sounds like a very private process that the telephone and the hearing aid should be able to do by themselves if they are clad in tasteful but alluring hand-made lingerie and left overnight in a secluded bureau drawer decorated with a few rose petals, maybe a little Barry White on the CD player, but this is not the case. I shall have to push, in correct sequence, several of the near-microscopic buttons on the smartly attired telephones, and my thumb is still in training.

Sunday, August 13, 2006

Irreconcilable Differences, Who Started It, and Israel’s Right to Exist

Perhaps no single issue illustrates the unbridgeable gap between mainstream Americans, even bleeding out a bit on either side of that broad stripe than the bright star of “US Israel policy.”

Perhaps no single issue illustrates the unbridgeable gap between mainstream Americans, even bleeding out a bit on either side of that broad stripe than the bright star of “US Israel policy.”

Continue Reading Irreconcilable Differences, Who Started It, and Israel’s Right to Exist

Sunday, July 23, 2006

War Without Borders

The Situation that is now upon us does not recognize national borders, nor ethnic or religious divides. It is universal, it is basic, and it is absolute.

It seems that almost everything I write recently drifts into the area of gaps, of divides, disconnects, and which have a measure of bridgeableness and which do not, of wagons circling and doors closing, and others opening.

There is something in the nature of some of us, I think, that naturally rebels at the suggestion that a gap is unbridgeable, a divide so deep that no compromise, no negotiation is possible. And so we hammer away, ignoring smashed fingers, because that something in us does not want to “give up.”

There is such a fine line between giving up and recognizing that our energies are sorely needed somewhere else that many of us often miss it. In our zeal to bridge that gap, we often lose sight of the one thing any compromise or negotiation needs most: a recognition and comprehension of the other party’s point of view.

Continue Reading War Without Borders

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

You Can’t Reason With Americans

One does not hate the mental patient who believes he is Napoleon, but one would be advised not to provide him with any weaponry, and to make every effort to contain him, to prevent him from doing harm to others, to himself.

It’s the only society on earth where remote-controlled torture of their own children is considered acceptable, and as they continue to debate whether people defending their homes from a brutal invading horde of murderers, torturers and sexual predators should be granted “amnesty” for having had the temerity to attempt to protect their loved ones from harm, I notice that my non-western mail speaks increasingly with one voice: You can’t reason with Americans. 

Continue Reading You Can’t Reason With Americans

Friday, June 23, 2006

Is Angelina Jolie the New Madonna? A CultuRamble

The target audience of the Style Network appears to be young, affluent American women and girls. The shows tend to be about “ambushing” women and committing upon them acts called a “makeover.” The makeover always has three elements: hair, makeup, and clothing. Sometimes the young women look, to my eyes, considerably worse after the makeover. But they all express the view that they look much better. Many claim the experience will have changed their lives. Another element common to all the makeovers is that the ladies are obliged to put on crippling high heeled shoes, whether they had previously been engaging in this particularly grisly form of self-harm or not.

It recently came to my attention that we had changed TV satellite signal providers. Having been a DirecTV household for many years, in the course of one afternoon when I was elsewhere located and otherwise occupied, there was apparently a moment in which operatives had installed a Dishnetwork disc onto the roof, our erstwhile receiver boxes had been unceremoniously relegated to a position of low status by the dumpster, having been replaced by a thing I was told is a “dual receiver,” liberating space in my lair, but most jarringly, my remote, my REMOTE! - had been usurped by one that was - there is no kind or polite way to put this - different. As in not the same. Not the one my fingers knew, not the one my thumb called friend.

How had such a thing come to pass in my house? Am I not the head of not only it, but a stunning array of respectful descendants, an entire clan, nay nation-quality TRIBE of distinguished and noted individuals of ancient and historic lineage? Am I not addressed and deferred to daily, hourly, continuously, with flowery honorifics of such exquisite and elaborate language that old dead Fahad himself spins green with envy?

Continue Reading Is Angelina Jolie the New Madonna? A CultuRamble

Thursday, June 08, 2006

Indigenous Nudity versus White Girl Coin Slot: Racism in America

WTF? Indigenous nudity?

The other night, I had the privilege of entertaining an old friend. It is his first visit to the US, but as he and I have reluctantly acknowledged the truth of the old Mexican adage, “the years do not pass in vain,” after a day of sight-seeing, we both wished our combined young folks well as they went out to paint the town red and gratefully sank down to some Pillow Appreciation combined with Order In and Televiewing.

There was an interesting show on one of the discover and learn or something channels, about some very nice people who live in a remote area of one of the islands today called Indonesia, and after a commercial break during which re refilled our teacups and said how much we would like to go there and meet these friendly folks, a message appeared on the screen, warning us that the program we were watching “contained indigenous nudity” and therefore might not be appropriate for all viewers or something to that effect.

My guest and I exchanged bewildered looks. WTF?

Continue Reading Indigenous Nudity versus White Girl Coin Slot: Racism in America

Saturday, June 03, 2006

Understanding America the Exceptional: A Guide for the World’s Perplexed

America is without a doubt the most feared nation on earth. Feared certainly for its massive stores of weapons of mass destruction, but just as much if not more, it is feared because of its people, who present a greater danger even than its bombs.

Why is everything always America’s fault? What’s with the Blame America Firsters?

Americans are getting a bit fed up with criticism of their policies, and many are truly perplexed as to why they seem to come under such fire from critics. Do they not investigate almost every report of atrocity that makes it to US corporate press? Even western press? Have they not made a very public point of very publicly jailing the individuals who were found to be engaging in unauthorized photography in Abu Ghraib?

Why aren’t people as outraged over all those IEDs the Iraqi insurgents keep deploying against coalition forces? And what about all the renewed terrorist activity in Afghanistan?

How come so much of the world seems more alarmed by the idea of US airstrikes on Tehran - even using only conventional weapons - than they are about the prospect of a nuclear Iran, as they are by the prospect of a Second Islamic Bomb? 

Continue Reading Understanding America the Exceptional: A Guide for the World’s Perplexed

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

The Woes of the Atrocity Apologist

It’s not that people from other countries never commit atrocities, just that at this particular time in history, Americans have effectively cornered the market and nobody else can get an atrocity in edgewise.

The world has some dirty callings, but those who are charged with the defense of atrocities win the “hard row to hoe” contest hands down.

These days, they are usually Americans, defending American atrocities. It’s not that people from other countries never commit atrocities, just that at this particular time in history, Americans have effectively cornered the market and nobody else can get an atrocity in edgewise.

In fact, America has become so defined by atrocity, such a leading global producer that it is hard to imagine why anyone would see the need to go out and defend them. Or send someone to.

Continue Reading The Woes of the Atrocity Apologist