In translation. In writing. In speaking. In e-mailing. In IMing. In a text message. In gesture. In a glance. In a gaze.

(Pleasure/Bliss: terminologically, there is always a vacillation – I stumble, I err. In any case, there will always be a margin of indecision; the distinction will not be the source of absolute classifications, the paradigm will falter, the meaning will be precarious, revocable, reversible, the discourse incomplete) (4).

Roland Barthes. The Pleasure of the Text. Trans. Richard Miller. New York: Hill and
Wang, 1975.

My steely resolve melted like that plastic flower Pepa was holding when she realized she'd accidentally set her bed on fire.

Carmen Maura in Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios

"Why can't I be you?"

Sometimes, when I don't want to think about anything else, I take these quizzes...



Which sopranos character are you?

Your Result: Tony Soprano

 

 

Macho, alpha-male, heartless (but this is not sure).You're a boss to the others, not to much to yourself: you need some peace, that you can't find, or can't allow yourself to find. There are some issues that you need to explore in your mind, with the help of doc. Melfi.

Carmela Soprano

 

 

Christopher Moltisanti

 

 

Anthony Junior Soprano

 

 

Adriana La Cerva

 

 

Meadow Soprano

 

 

Paulie Walnuts

 

 

Which sopranos character are you?
Make Your Own Quiz

Or better yet...

...with a novel as brilliant as this one by Jesús Díaz, it's not "doing the reading for class." It's "curling up with a good book."

A really really good book. And, yes...someone who doesn't know Cuban literature can quite easily be seduced by las palabras de Las palabras perdidas, I present, case in point...myself...dispensing with greetings, declarándome perdídamente enamorada de esta novela desde la primera página, segundo párrafo hasta el final.

"So quitcher bitchin'!" o "Una nueva perspectiva"

It finally dawned on me...my 'job' consists mainly of reading novels!

"I see your blogs have seen the effects of 'busy' too," he wrote.

What 'busy' looks like.

In fact, I'm afraid my head is going to "stay like that".

No las hacéis allá como las hacemos acá...

Tortillas españolas

Aquí no lo hacemos como lo hacéis allá...

It's different now.

The view is slightly different now. One of the trees in Sproul Plaza lost a substantial branch when winds reached speed and intensity way above the norm. Earlier, I'd asked if I could open the window and for some reason added that I really like the wind...I felt the breeze for a few minutes and then had to close the window so we could hear ourselves and each other. Not long after we'd gone back to reading, I heard the crack and looked up from the Guzmán text in time to see the slow-motion fall. "Was anyone underneath?" he asked. "No." From the office we watched people six stories below stop to look or to take pictures with their phones. It wasn't until today that I thought, with utter relief, of the quartet that sometimes played there underneath...

. They are slightly different now. More than simple M.A.stery of facts,dates, names, and characteristics of authors, movements and moments...those extra letters after our last names are a manifestation or a proof, perhaps, of a love and respect for the language and its literatures sufficient to make us want to offer the most careful study we can.

To be continued...

"Here, I brought you this article about hookers!"

At least it doesn't have the same creepy, sinister ring as, "Here, I brought you this article about torture."



Having an extremely hard time with Nancy Gúzman's Romo: Confesiones de un torturador. Santiago: Planeta Chilena, 2000.

By some miracle or warp in the time-space continuum, I actually left the house on time.

Unbelievably, the clock still said 8:14 as I gathered up my stuff. For the first time this quarter, it looked as though I'd meet my stated leave time of 8:15. I rushed out the door with the strap of my schoolbag digging into my right shoulder and a few articles under the arm. In my left hand I held a coffee mug and my gym bag (which, even at that early hour, I harbored no hopes of opening, given the qué horror of today's schedule). In the right, a fragment of granola bar and a Blue Dog Bakery dog treat. I knew it was inevitable that I'd make the horrifying mistake someday... and my last thought before spitting that bite through the gate (where it landed at Stella's feet) was, "It's actually not too bad!"

...I just hope it wasn't one of the ones with a face!

BrittleStars

I've always loved starfish...

 

Tiny starfish inhabit undersea volcanoes

By RAY LILLEY, AP

Posted: 2008-05-19 10:55:31

Filed Under: Science News

 

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (May 19) - Marine scientists surveying a large undersea mountain chain were amazed to find millions of tiny starfish swirling their arms to capture food in the undersea current.

 

 

 

NIWA / AP

Unusual Animals

1 of 12

New Zealand marine scientists found millions of tiny starfish trying to capture food in a large string of underwater volcanoes. The "sheer volume" of the starfish "challenged what we as scientists thought we knew," said one researcher. Click through the photos to see sightings of other rare creatures.

An expedition by 19 scientists, including five from Australia, studied the geology and biology of eight Macquarie Ridge sea mounts. They are part of a string of underwater volcanoes - dormant for millions of years - that stretches 875 miles from south of New Zealand toward Antarctica.

The scientists also investigated the world's biggest ocean current - the Antarctic Circumpolar Current - amid expectations they would find evidence of climate change in the Southern Ocean.

While the expedition's cameras found a wide range of corals, a high density of cardinal fish and the huge coral, the vast collection of brittle stars was the highlight of the voyage.

"I've personally never seen anything like this - all these animals, the sheer volume - all waiting for food from the current," expedition member and marine biologist Dr. Mireille Consalvey said Monday. "It challenged what we as scientists thought we knew."

Expedition leader and marine biologist Ashley Rowden said starfish usually cover only slopes away from the top of the undersea mountains.

"It got us excited as soon as we saw it," Rowden said of the site, dubbed "Brittle Star City."

The starfish are about 0.4 inch across, with arms about 2 inches long.

The expedition began March 26 and returned to port in New Zealand's capital Wellington on April 26.

Melbourne-based marine biologist Tim O'Hara, a brittle star specialist, said the vast collection of brittle stars, or ophiuroid ophiacantha, is "like a relic of ancient times."

"Normally fish would prey on them and eat them ... so for whatever reason there's a lack of fish predation there and it's seen this particular animal flourish," he said.

O'Hara, who was not part of the voyage, said the speed of the sea current in the area may partly explain why fish were not feeding on the tiny animals.

The Circumpolar Current merges the waters of the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans and carries up to 150 times the volume of water flowing in all the world's rivers, oceanographer Mike Williams said.

Australian oceanographer Steve Rintoul, who was not involved in the expedition, said there have been few measurements of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, which "strongly influences regional and global climate" by carrying vast amounts of water and heat across oceans.

Fewer than 200 of the world's estimated 100,000 sea mounts that rise more than a half a mile above the sea floor have been studied in any detail.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.

2008-05-19 09:58:17

"You were right."

Decrease in income - $$,$$$.

Increase in commute time and fuel cost - countless hours, $6,000,000.

Going out to lunch more often - $8,546.54.

Bookstores/Navin's Copy Shop/Photocopy machines - $5,345, 975,824.

- Ya saben...

Últimos capítulos...

About eight years ago we began the sporadic after-dinner ritual of rushing into the living room and flinging ourselves, Simpsons style, all onto the brown couch and always in the same order:
person/dog/person/dog/person.

The brown couch has long since replaced, and we've each staked our claims on the purple couch (him), the yellow chair (her), the red love seat (me) and several dog beds (them, not their choice, really). But the other elements of the ritual remained. We always watched the entire opening sequence for the first episode. After the first episode, intermission for dessert and someone asking "¿Uno más?" Then, the next day, swearing much more than usual.

We watched on VHS and DVD, waiting impatiently for the second and third seasons and without such urgency for the last three. I managed to not find out too much about the last season, so the end was a surprise. Or perhaps the surprise was that after a second or two of initial disappointment in not knowing what happens I actually appreciated the last episode's unconventional ending. I suppose for real life situations, like on the job or in any other kind of relationship or some less excellent TV series I'd prefer an unambiguous ending, "ripping off the bandage...no anesthetic" but this conclusion was a refreshing change, as was the first episode...And, as after the gran final of most series or telenovelas, there is a letdown. I'll miss the characters and I'll miss the ritual.

"La bien pagá"... "Tell me somethin' good"...

1. "...y esas joyas que ahora..."

2. "¡Hombre!" she exclaimed. "Acabo de dejarte un recado en tu oficina..." And before I knew it, I was standing behind her in the doorway of the admin's office, but their conversation ensued as though I weren't. "And what rate of pay do you want to give her?" "The highest there is." "OK, that's an Assistant III..." "That's not the highest, ¿is it?" "Um...no. I'll see if I can put it through as a blah blah blah..." "You do that. Thank you."

3. "Hey, look! They sell it by the ounce!" I ordered, "Can I get a dollar's of spumoni?" A smile and a conspiratorial nod/wink. "Let me get you some from the good bucket."

4.

The message you'll get as you look in the mirror above the sink in the bathroom at Delta of Venus (B St. Davis)

mechanical reproduction

Perhaps it does lack the aura of the original. But for me, it retains its emotional impact.



Even when I look at its reproduction each day.

Food Diary

I know, it's not supposed to be lunch, but you can eat a whole bag and it's only about 120 calories!

BREAKFAST:

3 cups coffee with 1/2 'n 1/2 (¿300 calories?) sipped leisurely in home office while answering 15 e-mails from work, watching screeching Goth (¿Industrial? ¿Hard-core? ¿Scandinavian?) YouTube videos sent by brother-in-law, and looking at pictures of Reinaldo Arenas, Edward Said and me with my henna tattoo that never really soaked in at all, by the way.

1 Fruit 'n Nut granola bar (¿120 calories?) eaten very very carefully in the car on the way to school

1 sliver of what I thought was an almond that dropped from said granola bar that I picked off my skirt (¿25 calories?) I popped it into my mouth in order to avoid putting it on or in any of the newly pristine surfaces or orifices of the car. Too late I realized it wasn't actually an almond, but some of the all natural lip balm I keep in one of said orifices. I couldn't even spit it out as it was so hot in the car and inside my mouth that it immediately melted and I was stuck with the unctious taste for 15 miles.

LUNCH:

1 Bag microwave popcorn, expiration date March - yes, this year! (¿120 calories?) It was what I had in my desk.

1 cup coffee with 1/2 and 1/2 (¿100 calories?) Purchased at Cargo Coffee, earning me the 10th stamp on my "Buy 10 Get One Free Card"!

DINNER:

1 slice Tony's Special (¿1600 calories?) Leftover from dinner out on Saturday

1 bowl assorted leftover Chinese/Malaysian food (¿56 calories?) Leftover from lunch out on Saturday*

1 huge hunk chocolate cake with pink frosting (¿450 calories?) Last piece from Saturday's big sheet cake that I only offered to take home so they wouldn't feed it to the dogs.

1 glass Cupcake Vineyard Chardonnay (0 calories. I'm sure of it) Excellent, and I don't even like Chardonnay.

*We save a fortune on our grocery bill by eating out!

Default Setting #6

Default restaurant

Escribo desde/I write from: mi oficina/my office
El tiempo/Weather: Soon in the 100s/Próximamente...los 100
Estoy luciendo/What I'm wearing: The blue sundress I bought in (I can't believe I'm about to type this) "el chino" on Vitoria Ave. in Burgos, perfect for the heat of any desertic city/el vestido azul que compré en (casi no puedo creer que yo voy a decirlo así) "el chino" de la calle Vitoria en Burgos, perfecto para el calor de cualquier ciudad desiértica
Conmigo/With me: Stella
Estado de animo/State of being: tranquila, a pesar de todo/calm in spite of everything
Estoy leyendo/What I'm reading: Antes que anochezca, Viaje a la Habana de Reinaldo Arenas y varios artículos críticos del autor; El infierno de Luz Arce y varios artículos críticos de la autora
Música: "L-o-v-e", de Nat King Cole, la última canción que tocó el Disco 6 en el coche/"L-o-v-e", de Nat King Cole, the last song that Disc 6 (in the red car) played
Vi a/I saw: Los de siempre and every single professor I've had at UCD/The usual suspects y cada uno de los profesores que he tenido en UCD
Hablé con/I spoke with: Muchos... la comida con Emily...pláticas telefónicas...unas fracecitas apuradas con los de la oficina...un recadito pegado al artículo sobre prostis que dejó la profe C./Many... lunch with Emily...telephone calls...a few quick phrases with the officemates...a note attached to the article about hookers profe C. left on my desk
Antojo/Craving: agua fresca/cool water

"What part of 'read a novel that has nothing to do with your studies' didn't you understand?"

Fanon
Wideman, John Edgar. Fanon. Houghton Mifflin, 2007.

From its cover: A philosopher, psychiatrist, and political activist, Frantz Fanon was a fierce, acute critic of racism and oppression. Born of African descent in Martinique in 1925, Fanon fought in defense of France during World War II but later against France in Algeria's war for independence. His last book, The Wretched of the Earth, published in 1961, inspired leaders of diverse liberation movements: Steve Biko in South Africa, Che Guevara in Latin America, the Black Panthers in the States.

Fanon

Wideman's novel is disguised as the project of a contemporary African American novelist, Thomas, who undertakes writing a life of Fanon. The result is an electrifying mix of perspectives, traveling from Manhattan to Paris to Algeria to Pittsburgh. Part whodunit, part screenplay, part love story, Fanon introduces the French film director Jean-Luc Godard to the ailing Mrs. Wideman in Homewood and chases the meaning of Fanon's legacy through our violent, post-9/11 world, which seems determined to perpetuate the evils Fanon sought to rectify.

So far, 5 pages in, I note the following: author's presence in the text, blurring of genres, intertextual dialog, poetic structures, fragmented at times...

In other words, I've missed the point. Again.

Pachucha and other extremes

Most years I'm fine. Today I was selfishly isolationist and inexplicably immobile, even during the run.

Around sundown, though, I didn't feel as fragil anymore. It happened somewhere between the second sentence of Emilio's essay on Arenas' autobiografía and the second straight episode of Grey's Anatomy. A phone call from a friend, a shiny clean red car, a glass of red wine, someone else getting sucked in to my telenovela and chocolate cake with pink frosting also combined to lift the mood. I wish that easy, non-medical prescription would work for everyone...and I hope that everyone has something similar for those times when she/he está pachucha/o.

¡Damn Yankees!

Ginger howls. She lives with three other dogs, a bird and two people. Her people have satelite radio and listen almost exclusively to the showtunes station. I'd probably howl at the showtunes myself if the house and the company and the conversation weren't such pleasant distractions. Usually, the music just floats in the background.

At one point tonight Ginger lifted up her head and howled just like Stella, only there weren't any sirens working as catalysts to the cathartic sounds. "She hates this song," explained R. "What song is it?" He looked a bit incredulous that I'd asked, but what with the howling, I didn't recognize "You Gotta Have Heart" (From Damn Yankees). I wonder how Ginger would react to the "Jewel Song"...

"Se-ño-ri-ta, tus aretes no hacen juego." "Se-ño-ri-ta, your earrings don't match."

Esta semana me di cuenta de que no sentía la necesidad de serle amable y respondí, "Según dices tú."
This week I realized that I no longer felt the need to be nice to him and responded, "According to you."

"¿Cómo que 'según digo'?" La risa falsa, despectiva. Y siguió, despacio, como si estuviera hablando con una alumna de su clase del segundo año de español. "No hacen juego porque son dos aretes di-fer-en-tes."
"What do you mean, 'according to me'?" That false, mocking laugh. He continued, slowly, as though he were speaking to one of the students in his second-year Spanish class. "They don't match because they're two different earrings."

"Sí, son diferentes...sí, hacen juego."
"Yes, they are different...yes, they do match."

Cualquier otro lo hubiera dejado (o porque me conoce bien o por respeto).
Anyone else would've dropped it (either because they know me well or just out of respect).

"Pero, ¿cómo pueden hacer jue-go si no son i-gual-es, señorita?" Ahora intentando enojarme. No le dije que me llamara por mi nombre ni le dije que no soy señorita porque no quiero que sepa nada de mi vida personal.
"But how can they match if they're not the same?" Baiting me, now. I didn't tell him to call me by my name nor did I tell him I'm not a señorita because I don't want him knowing anything about my personal life.

Ya me harté de sus indirectos y sus comentarios bien bitchy. Fue el colmo y sobre-reaccioné tal como la ocasión lo mandaba. "No te debo ninguna explicación, güey, pero por razones personales, para mí, estos dos aretes siempre se llevan juntos.
Ha-cen jue-go. Y punto."
I was sick of his indirect, bitchy comments. This was the last straw and I overreacted, just as the situation demanded. "I don't owe you an explanation, dude, but for personal reasons, for me, these two earrings, always get worn together. They 'match'. Period."

..................

We'd been in town two days before we were able to go to the house. The detective from Homicidios said that no one would be allowed inside until the results de la autopsia came back... that we'd have to identify...sign a lot of forms. Our passports or drivers' licenses would be useless as ID for many of the trámites, he'd explained, en México the only valid form of ID is often the Acta de Nacimiento, the birth certificate. "En mi país," I told him, "solemos usar carnet con foto. No llevamos las actas de nacimiento en la cartera, las guardamos en un lugar seguro. Las nuestras estarán en la casa de mi mamá." He looked at us for a moment, opened a drawer, extracted and then pushed the house keys across the desk without looking at them.

And so, that first time anyway, we were careful not to disturb the crime scene tape placed across the front door. We stood staring, wondering how we'd get in without setting off the alarm, or if they'd re-set it. My athletic brother put one palm on the fence to the right of the garage, and like the hero of a TV action series, vaulted himself over, and walked around back, looking from side to side. I stood still and watched him for a second, then walked up to the garage, put my palms against the door and pushed it up into the ceiling. I walked, slowly, through the empty garage and then through the door that connected to the tiled main hallway. The alarm didn't sound. I kept my eyes toward the back of the house and saw my brother walking up to the glass door, the ocean behind him. As I opened the door, I read his lips, "But, how did you...?" "The garage door wasn't locked." "Oh," he gave the little chuckle he gives. The dogs rushed in immediately behind him. Something gave way and I dropped to my knees, trying to embrace or touch all five of them. Some of them licked at my tears before someone thought to feed them and when they'd gone off to eat, I stretched out flat and face down on the carpet.

After a minute, I raised myself back to a squat, then jumped to a stand, looked at my brother and said, "We have to get the metal box. Our birth certificates should be in there. She said that if anything ever...there's a letter for each of us..." "Do you know where it is?" "It's in the top drawer of that dresser in the end of the hall that's by the bedrooms." We moved to that hall. The dresser was there, but at a strange angle, not flush against the wall like it should have been. "Why is it like that?" I asked. "La camilla...cuando la llevaron..." Luis tried to articulate it and I imagined the stretcher, medics in white, el bulto debajo de las sábanas. I pushed that verge of out-of-control feeling away. I opened the top drawer of that dresser and stared down at an empty space the size and shape of the metal box. We knew exactly why that was. "That asshole... he must have taken it. Thought there was something in it for him." "He shows up again, I'll kill him." The red look in his eyes was the same that had been in mine two months earlier. ("I should have," I thought, "I should have tried, but I thought it would have been worse...") Pushing away guilt and out-of-control I entered the bedroom and went up the main dresser.

I picked up the Bustamante pendant, turned my hand over and stared at the sun face and my fingers closing around it, squeezing it tighter and tighter in my palm until two of the points punctured my skin. I finally opened my hand and then dropped the chain around my neck, the heaviness of the pendant quite physically grounding me. "You always asked to wear that," my brother said. I nodded. "And she always let me, every time, for the whole time I was here or she was there." I opened up the small white box with the artist's name on it and took out the ring. Along with my brother's smile, its contact with my skin felt comforting and I wanted that more of that contact. I removed the earrings I had in and replaced them with the first two I felt when I reached into the jewelry box.

The best part of the morning was that the coffee I spilled on my skirt didn't have any milk in it.

Bulb out...

Writing presentation...excerpt of which follows...

Brison, Susan. Aftermath: Violence and the Remaking of a Self.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002.

Uds. se acordarán de la mención de Susan Brison la última vez que tuvimos clase. Ella es profesora de filosofía en Dartmouth y es la esposa de Thomas Trezise. Aftermath es en parte su relato “testimonial” depués de ser violada en 1990. Pero también lo que hace es utilizar su experiencia personal para exponer un trabajo sobre trauma en sí y sus efectos prolongados, especialmente como afectan el “yo” o el propio ser, “the self.” Ella se define como filósofa, y como tal, en partes de su libro parece medio resistirse a combinar la experiencia en primera persona con el análisis crítico. Tal vez temió que las voces críticas tacharan el libro como demasiado emocional, demasiado particular, e indica en el prefacio que el segundo capítulo, “On the Personal as Philosophical" “…is a development and defense of the methodology used in the book” (xii).
Y este libro no carece de filosofía ni de teoría. Su experiencia personal parece servir como punto de partida a las cuestiones filosóficas/teóricas que cubren la gama de lo epistemiológico a lo metafísico de lo estético a lo político. Pero su enfoque principal es el “self.” Insiste en que los eventos traumatizantes le quitan hasta las creencias esenciales que permite impiden que un individuo (un sujeto) funcione.
"When the trauma is of human origin and is intentionally inflicted, the kind I discuss in this book, it not only shatters one’s fundamental assumptions about the world and one’s safety in it, but it also severs the sustaining connection between the self and the rest of humanity" (40).

"The work of Borges, written in a Spanish difficult to read without admiration, is one of the American scandals of our time,"

writes Fernández Retamar in "Caliban"*, in which he posits Caliban, rather than Ariel as the symbol for Latin America. He (15 years) later states in its follow-up, "Caliban Revisited" that his canonical and incredibly well-developed essay was written "...in a few days, practically without sleeping or eating, feeling myself pressured by people for whom I have the highest regard, are responsible for a number of loose ends in the piece that gave rise to misunderstandings" (54-55)

I don't believe that his comments and criticism of Jorge Luis Borges were "loose ends", but they may have given rise to misunderstandings. Certainly, I found them a bit surprising, having only ever read, heard and probably uttered or wrote gushingly positive observations about JLB. Fernández Retamar is respectful yet assertive (y muchas veces acierta) as he critiques the author who has been for so many and for so many years, untouchable. Granted, Fernández Retamar is a revolutionary (¿marxista? ¿comunista?) and writes from and for the revolution. It was nonetheless interesting and illuminating to read his assessments of the author argentino who may or may not have foreshadowed the Internet in the short story "El aleph"... I'll limit my discussion to citing just a couple of those assessments. Fernández Retamar does acknowledge that JLB does not pretend to be a leftist (he stops short of saying that Fuentes does), but also points out on several occasions a kinship between Borges and Sarmiento, for whom neo-colonialism might have been a delightful possibility.

"Borges is a typical colonial writer, the representative among us of a now-powerless class for whom the act of writing - and he is well aware of this, for he is a man of diabolical intelligence - is more like the act of reading. He is not a European writer; there is no European writer like Borges. But there are many European writers - from Iceland to the German expressionists - whom Borges has read, shuffled together, collated." And a little más adelante, "The writing of Borges comes directly from his reading, in a peculiar process of phagocytosis..."** (28).

All of this and more says the man who persists in using characters from Shakespeare to symbolize América.

*Excellent translation by Edward Baker in this edition, Caliban and Other Essays, published by the University of Minnesota, 1989 with a forward by Jameson)

**If you click that link, you'll be directed to a site where you can see what this looks like at the cellular level.

180º on I-80

Today I tried to transmit, all the way to PA, a thousand silent apologies for each time I winced or rolled my eyes in response to his use of the expression torture-porn when I came close enough to read the bumper sticker on the gigantic SUV with out-of-state plates, "I heart waterboarding."

But yeah, still...

100-tantos

Fin de semana de amigos. Un compartir de celebraciones, trabajos, ideas, luto...

No, Hell hadn't frozen over...

...but I did some yardwork anyway.

¿Cómo se llama esa autora...?

Music emergency

A couple of decades ago (unfortunately, that's not as much of an exaggeration as I'd like you to believe) I was getting dressed when I heard from the bathroom, "Help! Help!" Not exactly the kind of thing you want to hear an overnight guest yell from the shower. His tone didn't quite match his words in urgency, but I opened the door fast and barged in anyway, asking, "What's wrong?" "Will you change the station?! Now!" "Sure...but why?" The radio sitting on the closed toilet seat was blaring Tom Jones' "What's new, Pussycat?" He replied, "I can't stand this song. Please change it!" I had an equivalent experience this morning, but was I alone and had just squeezed shampoo into the palm of my hand when I heard a song that I now know is called "100 years" (normally I'd like that because of its association with Cien años de soledad/Hundred Years of Solitude, which I will always love, for the record, no matter how fashionable it is to trash or dismiss GGM). I had no choice but to suffer through it and continue with the shower routine, wondering whatever made Pandora.com think that I would want songs by the Dave Matthews Band in "My Stations" (and, yes, now I do know that it wasn't even the Dave Matthews Band). The song lasts forever...I guess I should just be glad that the annoying falsetto makes it almost impossible to discern the lyrics.

And, borrowing, the annoying catch phrase used by Sex and the City's protagonist, Carrie every time she narrates one of the columns she writes, "I couldn't help but wonder what song(s) would elicit from you, trapped in the shower, far from your towel, a plea for rescue from auditory assault?" Really. I want to know. Leave a comment. Porfa.