[W]hen you sing in English, you may be blasting through the language barrier to reach a wider audience, but are you not abasing yourself before the Anglo-American cultural hegemony that the competition is clearly designed to rebuff? There is, of course, a middle way, as taken by the Israeli-born Carmela Corren, who sang for Austria in 1966, and changed gear from German to English halfway through "Vielleicht Geschieht ein Wunder" ("Maybe a Miracle Will Happen"). Historians of Eurovision argue that the miracle has been waiting to happen ever since the same country dispatched Bob Martin--again, not the most wistfully Viennese of names--to the competition in 1957, with his bottom-ranking ballad "Wohin, Kleines Pony."i'm so glad we're together, anthony lane.
[...]
The final act, from Turkey, tried to rough things up with a dab of hard rock, but they sounded like a school band, and the angry stripping robot at the back, who sawed off her own armor in a shower of sparks, missed her cue. As a pièce de résistance, she was meant to yank off her silver helmet to show her golden tresses, but it fell off early, and she was reduced to holding it up shyly to the cameras, like a little girl showing her parents the cup she just won for Best Handwriting.
[...]
It is a matter of tradition, almost a matter of pride, that Cyprus awards its twelve points to Greece; they would give twelve points to Greece even if the Greek entry consisted of an elderly Cretan slapping an octopus against the side of a wharf. Recent obligations also play a part; Greece itself received twelve points from Germany this year, which was Germany's way of saying sorry for bailing out the Greek economy to the tune of only twenty-eight billion dollars.
imaginary reading group discussion questions
01 any cookie recipes i should know about? this will be a fancy tea party, you see, with a variety of cookies.
02 were/are you a fan of ye olde tinned butter cookies?
03 have you ever watched eurovision?
04 are you with me on this anthony lane thing? i mean, you guys.
imaginary reading group discussion questions
01 is chevy chase in pacino-specific love with me?
02 have you ever seen merchant staged? how was it?
03 what provisions would you pack for a night of theatre in the park?
*we had tickets for its first night as well and were rained out; happily, we made it through the virtual line again this past saturday.
**L: "perdita looks just like...what's-her-name from gossip girl, you know, blair waldorf?" J: "leighton meester. it saddens me that i know that."
First order of business when I got back: to celebrate what I already have. I began with the seven hundred and forty square feet that form my share of Manhattan Island. I live in the last middle-class stronghold in the city, high atop a red-brick ziggurat that a Jewish garment workers’ union erected on the banks of the East River back in the days when Jews sewed clothes for a living. Say what you will, these ugly co-ops are full of authentic old people who have real stories to tell (although these stories are often meandering and hard to follow; e.g., who on earth was this guy “Dillinger”?).{eight months into ziggurat living, i've developed the same sort of secretive, slightly unsavory affection for said brutal '50s architecture that i have for late '80s volvo sedans. when i lived in southern california, the local drug store, my family's church, and the virulent beige cafeteria that served soapy green jell-o to which my sisters and i were addicted were all right next to leisure world, supposedly the largest gated retirement community in the country. moving to our tower was a bit like going home.}
Then I celebrated my Wall of Books. I counted the volumes on my twenty-foot-long modernist bookshelf to make sure that none had been misplaced or used as kindling by my subtenant. “You’re my sacred ones,” I told the books. “No one but me still cares about you. But I’m going to keep you with me forever. And one day I’ll make you important again.”{i've seen and will admit to giving his wall of books The Bookish Hipster Appraisal; those of you who remember last summer's frantic apartment-hunting and co-op-approval-seeking posts (deleted in a fit of orwellian paranoia when we were getting ready for our co-op interview in september) might recall my sentimental favorite, a sixth floor balcony apartment with so-so views, a renovated kitchen, and good-looking modern furnishings. it also had stacks of the russian debutante's handbook and absurdistan tucked in the closet like a litter of kittens; it was gary's, you see. we totally yoinked his clever faux crown molding technique when we painted our bedroom gray, so i think of him fondly as i drift off to sleep.}
I celebrated the low-rise housing projects crowding my immediate view, the so-called Vladeck Houses, which stand in red-brick solidarity with my own co-ops, not exactly proud of themselves, but resigned and necessary, their thousands of residents primed for summer warmth and, if I may speculate, summer love.{those houses were one of the big reasons joe was skeptical of casa de gary, actually, and part of why we didn't make an offer on it; they aren't so bad to look at, really, but they are indeed right there. though i've only run into the guy whose pit bull wears a fur coat that once.}
In my trendy old man’s getup I ambled with easy grace down Grand Street, stepping off each curb with the profound “oy” that is the call-and-response of my neighborhood.{it sort of is, actually.}
She was disappointed by my apartment, by how far it was from the F line and how ugly the buildings were. “Looks like I’ll get some exercise walking to the train,” she said. “Ha-ha.” This was what her generation liked to add to the end of sentences, a kind of nervous tic. “Ha-ha.”{OMG IT'S NOT FAR. and it's hipster-approved, fictional missy.}
imaginary reading group discussion questions
01 could you live in an ugly building?
02 would knowing an apartment belonged to an author affect your interest in buying it?
03 why d'you think gary keeps those books in his closet?
04 how was your week? work carried me around town in its mouth and buried me under the azaleas; i've missed you, internets.
*and somehow managed to hire a 93-year-old man to ferry us and two new window units from wall street back to the lower east side, a trip which was both fascinating and more than a little terrifying.
VICTOR: let the great world spin. iceland's still ahead of sweden (those inspector erlendur novels are quite meaty), and ireland's still ahead of...everyone. colum mccann, are you a cyborg?
imaginary reading group discussion questions
01 have you read any nordic crime? how was it?
02 what's the first thing that comes to mind when you think of sweden?
03 hackers was the pinnacle of angie's pulchritude: yea or nay?
04 with what shall i unseat colum mccann? i just started denis johnson's tree of smoke, but one should have backup.
05 how's your summer reading shaping up thus far?
*previous battle here.
**best sentence in last week's entertainment weekly item on how daniel craig might play blomkvist in an american version of the film: "David Fincher is set to direct to film [sic] and is said to be high on Craig." best david fincher factoid: he directed jermaine stewart's "we don't have to take our clothes off" video, a work i've always preferred to panic room.
