Choire Sicha

Thursday, June 26

he Problem with Airplanes

Tonight, I'm riding on an airplane for the first time in 12 years. Probably. If I start throwing up before we board, I might not get on. I don't really want to get on the plane, but really, I'm tired of being the person who doesn't get on planes. Know what I mean?

I've got a pocketful of clonazepam and a really cute pair of shoes. And someone's hand to hold. I'm going flying. Probably. No, I am. I'm going flying. Please think kind lighter-than-air thoughts at me. Gah.

→ read the full story. [published june 26, 2003]

⊕

Goodbye. And I hope these aren't my last words. I always wanted my last words to be "Hey, that's not the Slurpee I ordered." Or maybe "This beef jerky is totally utterly tasty!"

Philo: odds of being killed by a dog, 1 in 700,000. odds of dying while in the bath tub, 1 in 1 million.

Choire: ooo this is good.

Philo: odds of being killed in a tornado - 1 in 2 million.

Choire: i love that movie.

Philo: odds of being killed by falling out of bed - 1 in 2 million.

Choire: it's a miracle i'm still alive.

Philo: odds of being killed by poisoning - 1 in 86,000.

Choire:they do keep trying.

Philo: on average, there are 178 sesame seeds on each McDonalds BigMac bun.

Choire: sd;jlfdsafjl;assadof7lojdkf

Philo: odds of being killed in a car crash - 1 in 5,000.

Philo: odds of being killed by lightening - 1 in 2 million.

Philo: AND

Choire: drumroll!

Philo: odds of being killed in a plane crash -

Philo: 1 in 25 million.

Choire: that actually made me feel better.

Philo: yeah, about the equivalent of getting killed by space debris.

Philo: you do things every day that are far more risky than getting on an airplane.

Choire: like making fun of the homeless?

All this from a man who's recovering from a far worse trauma than I will experience.
⊕

The homosexual agenda: who uses that phrase anymore? Oh right: Antonin Scalia.

Like a hydra at battle with itself, members of the Supreme Court have actually made accusations that the Court has taken sides in the culture war. Which culture war was that again? Is he talking about like the one from the 80s, with like Karen Finley and whatnot? Or maybe the culture war where they installed the President? Or... the culture war from earlier this week in which Clarence Thomas turned himself inside-out and revealed that his exquisitely tortured psyche is exactly what induces him to political evil?

So, tonight I'm boarding a private jet to Texas. I'm gonna have dirty gay anal sex behind someone's closed doors. Enjoy your sodomy, my friends: for the first time we live in a country where two people in private can touch themselves with their own bodies in any way they agree. Let's put aside the disturbing thought that this fundamental act of freedom has only just been granted, or that it must be granted at all. ⊕

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Wednesday, June 25

The other night I had the misfortune of being assaulted by The Theatre. I'm not an enemy of The Theatre per se; but when The Theatre attacks me, I must defend myself.

The play in question was an adaptation of Aeschylus' The Persians, the earliest surviving play in "Western literature." (Let the scare quotes signify whatever you like.) Staged by the fine National Actors Theater at Pace University, this version (in which the text but not the plot is quite different from the Robert Potter translation), we are told of the Persian empire's misguided and failed attack on Athens. This crisis marks the end of Persia and the rise of Greece (ancient Greece, foolish cherished symbol of all Great Ages). Over the course of the play information trickles back to the Persian court about the battle at Marathon. Persians wonder why their royalty and their deity have failed their massive empire. All involved variously declaim, rend hair, and let the red sands of the desert pour dramatically through their fingers. (Uh, literally. Sand on stage. Alert. Alert.) Near the end, for no apparent reason, the dead King is risen, hears what a mess things are, and then goes back to hell. Sadly, that awful particular theatrical invention is still with us (cough Alan Ball cough).

In any event, the play is interesting for the fact that Aeschylus actually fought for Greece in the battles discussed in the play; like all embedded reporters, his treatment of the war is undoubtedly propaganda of a sort. At least he got to kill people, something I'm sure lots of Fox News crackers were sad to miss.

Although obviously mounted as a political parable for These Times, no apparent analogy dominates or even really becomes clear. Is this a warning of what will become of the cocky Bush empire? Is it a meditation on the endless history of the Middle East, of power changing hands, religion and dynasty washing over the land? Is it a humanization of Saddam Hussein? Despots and murderers, after all, have feelings too. In the end we are only left with the injunction that war is, like, painful. Apart from that, no allegorical sense could be made. I would love it were that actually the point -- that history and brutality are unfathomable, and along with it, that the only thing we can learn from history is that people are awful. Instead, we were left with the bafflement of a 470 B.C. story told by actors wearing contemporary battle fatigue camouflage. Argh. Indeed: kill them.

Apart from, oh, the content, the most painful offense was the Constant! Dramatic! Declamation! The direction was in a stranglehold by Ken Russell circa Salome ("Bring me the head of John the Baptist!"), while the Queen of Persia's dramatic hand gestures were obviously stolen from early David Byrne. (She has already given me a stock hilarity routine: try on lines like "I... reside... in a Haaaaallll of Mirrrorssss" while slowly raising your hands like a demented crossing guard. Think Maggie Smith on methaqualon. (Seriously: I loved the actress. She was fantastic, but the river between camp and drama is something only to be forded with an expert guide.)) Unfortunately for me, my brilliant seatmate reduced me to tears by whispering "Wrath... of... Khan" during the first twenty minutes. I never recovered.

An hour and a half of this torture -- with no intermission -- is only an argument for, not against, horror. ⊕

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Tuesday, June 24

I'm just gonna keep on weekending it. Have you ever gone to Brighton Beach in a downpour for caviar with boy geniuses? Danced on a tabletop to a Bulgarian band with a tuba? Hidden out in a mirrored-ceilinged bolthole on the Lower Upper East Side where nobody knows your name? (It's a slice of heaven on earth up there, downtown kids. Don't tell anyone. Uptown is the new hotness.) And then it's off to the beach, as we deservedly enjoy 48 consecutive hours without a Biblical rain. Anyway, as someone who's lived in New York for a decade, I firmly believe in my right not to go to work until Wednesday or so. Or Thursday. Whatever. How could I care? Quit your jobs, go back to college, move to Iowa, have a sex change, you need a CHANGE, you really do. God knows I did. It's summer, and this summer is mine. Have a little trust.

I'm writing this from a penthouse solarium high above the city, everything a dull whoosh of sound. Just an atonal background roar, with a truck bassnote. Millions of windows far and near contain people or no one, without my glasses I can't see or care. I hope they like my boxer shorts. I know I certainly do. Hello, New York.

Three things about falling in love (I know, like you care):

1. You want to sleep with their recently worn shirts on your face because they smell better than tiny lovely puppies.

2. You want to eat their spleen. Don't worry. I won't. That's illegal.

3. You will go anywhere they are going, even if you can't. And you will. ⊕