Doctor Benway

how i spent my birthday:

1) did some calligraphy for my future/current boss for an e-holiday card. good fun, challenging, nice to feel like my fine motor skills make a difference.

2) had a chicken baguette sandwich for lunch at quite a nice little coffee shop that i frequent: french/vietnamese, a nice combination of culinary heritage.

3) watched a bit of the borat movie dvd that i picked up on the street corner; however, it was dubbed (permanently!) into russian, so i only understood a few "strashna lublvu's"... waiting for an english copy, i suppose.

4) sat in a wine bar in an easy chair, reading sherlock holmes and sipping on the ol' black label, in my velvet jacket and houndstooth pants. Ella Fitz on the stereo and the light of the (albeit likely replica) tiffany lamp over my shoulder.

5) dinner at an indian restaurant with the latest girl. she didn't like the samosa, but loved the tandoori.

6) drinks at the gold mango bar with my boss, his friends, and various other millionaires and men-about-town. stoli shots, to be exact, and a game of darts.

7) met my brother (trying to be a big guy!) for drinks at the cave bar, met some girl who i made some effort to ensure an interest in liasion with [him]. charming, the girl had a decent time too.

8) went to the venerable, members-only, blue note bar, for vodka shots upon vodka shots, and a good time to be had by all.

9) got home, called my daddy in USA and chatted for a bit, and now sit smoking cigarettes in my leaopord print robe on the balcony.


not a bad birthday, as far as birthdays have gone. i am quite pleased. not telling anyone really made it more enjoyable, oddly enough.



good night, and good luck.

So, I had a party last night at the office, which was catered by one of the 5-star hotels in town. I invited officials from various consulates, chambers of commerce, and a very nice guy who heads the French Trade Commission (I want LVMH in South China).

The food was sort of Sino/European fusion. The wine was a very nice French vintage. Here is the playlist that I concocted for the evening:


Disc 1

Tout Le Monde - Carla Bruni
Looks Just Like The Sun - Broken Social Scene
Cup Bearers - Dizzy Gillespie
La Noyee - Carla Bruni
Good Bait - Dizzy Gillespie
November Afternoon - Dizzy Gillespie
Walk on the Wild Side - Lou Reed
Sweet Jane - Velvet Underground
The Day After - Dizzy Gillespie
Chanson Triste - Carla Bruni
Medley: I can't Get Started / 'Round Midnight - Dizzy Gillespie
Le Plus Beau Du Quartier - Carla Bruni
Life On Mars? - David Bowie
This Love of Mine - Ella Fitzgerald
This Lovely Feeling - Dizzy Gillespie
The Girl From Ipanema - Frank Sinatra

Disc 2

Blue Velvet - Julee Cruise
My Way - Frank Sinatra
Goodnight Julia - Seat Belts
Moonlight Serenade - Frank Sinatra
It's Only A Paper Moon - Ella Fitzgerald
L'amour - Carla Bruni
Who Loves the Sun - Velvet Underground
Dizzy Atmosphere - Dizzy Gillespie
Stephanie Says - Velvet Underground
Don't Need the Sunshine - Catatonia
Early Mornin' Blues - Dizzy Gillespie
Quelqu'un M'a Dit - Carla Bruni
J'en Connais - Carla Bruni
Ballrooms on Mars - T.Rex

Disc 3

Teenage Wildlife - David Bowie
That Certain Female - Charlie Feathers
I Don't Know - The Beastie Boys
Help Yourself - Tom Jones
Slipper Sleaze - Seat Belts
Love Will Tear Us Apart - Nouvelle Vague
Albuquerque Lullaby - Dan Bern
Song for Junior - The Beastie Boys
Anagrama - Sonic Youth
Theme from Symphony No. 5 - Takeshi Terauchi & The Surf Bunnies
Eight Line Poem - David Bowie
International Lover - Prince
Rabbit Fighter - T.Rex

Now obviously, the third disc was the hit. People really enjoyed themselves. And a lot of business was done. I am absolutely gushing because it was such a successful party with so many setbacks. Hell, my boss didn't even show up, but I think people appreciated it because we weren't shoving business down their throats-- a tiny little somewhat sophisticated underground expat party in the middle of enemy territory. I'm tickled to death.

You wake up to a girl wearing fishnets and a Hello Kitty t-shirt shaking you.

>l

You are in a hotel room. It is most likely yours. You are most probably still in Beijing, where you were yesterday. The curtains are drawn and there are clothes- some of them yours- on every surface. There is a pair of pants you don't recognize draped over the television. Your telephone is on the bedstand and your suitcase seems to be upside-down in the corner, with a tie hanging out of it like a regimental-striped tongue.

"Don't you have to be at the airport now?" says Hello Kitty.

>l phone

Your moblie phone seems to giggle at you as the clock reads 12:45PM. The alarm is still set, but doesn't seem to have gone off.

>i

You currently have:
Birthday suit
Hangover

>get pants

You stand up on the second try and retrieve your pants from the television. In the pockets are: your wallet, your passport, a very-nearly-empty pack of 555 Internationals, a pink thong, and a matchbox that reads "Grand Hyatt Beijing".

>oh shit

You light your last cigarette.

>l girl

This is the girl you met last night at the wedding party of the British Diplomat from Cambridge that you joined at some point last night. Her name is "Eighty-eight". She mentioned, you realize, that she worked at the Belgian Embassy, and that she moonlighted as an informer to the Chinese Ministry of State Security. She notices you looking and winks. "Such a Gentleman," she gushes.

>?

Shouldn't you be getting to the airport?

>oh shit

"What time does your flight leave?" asks Eighty-eight. "Didn't you say two?"

>pack

You right your suitcase and begin to frantically stuff clothing into it. Eighty-eight manages to remove the various feminine articles before you zip it up, and graciously finds a shirt you missed and helps you put it on. Cufflinks are a bitch when you're seeing double, eh?

>leave

Eighty-eight opens the door and heads downstairs with you. In the elevator she scribbles a number down on your arm and gives you a wink. Upon leaving the elevator she also reminds you that you should probably check out.

>check out

You put your credit card on the desk and wait. The clerk gets a message on her walkie talkie and asks if you want the umbrella?

>what umbrella?

You don't know. You say you don't want it.

Somehow, things happen and you end up with an invoice to sign.

>leave

You and Eighty-eight find a taxi. She shoves you in, gives you a kiss, and floats away. Inside, you tell the driver you need to be at the airport fast.

>bribe driver

You tell the driver if he gets you there in 20 minutes, you'll double the fare.

>pass out

Still drunk, are we?

You wake up to the driver yelling at you. You even remember to grab the receipt so you can go to accounting when you get back home...

>run motherfucker run

You run relatively straight, amazingly, and manage to check in with one minute before they close the flight. Hot damn.

"Films should contain musical masterpieces like [My Heart Will Remain Faithful]," Kim Jong-il writes in his book, "the fusion of noble ideas and burning passion." He spends most of the book entreating actors and directors, whom he compares to generals, to master their craft. How? Sheer party loyalty.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otCRlRzIBhE

This guy is a good friend of my best friend from Beijing, Danny Urli. He's in Helsinki right now. The doppleganger in the video is in Brazil. And I'm convinced that Ben has somehow secretly perfected a device to be in multiple places at once, and speaks fluent, well, everything.

wtfpwnd

so how does one spell, 'uncomfortably formulaic, predictable and obnoxious'?

apparently, with 's', 'a', and 'w'.

While Siddhartha sat beneath the Bhodi tree preaching the Dharma, Socrates could have been found on the other side of the deer park, at the crest of a hill. In his hand, he held a garden hose, with which he wetted the slope until the grass and mud were slick and impossible to climb. Those who lost their way to the Bhodi tree sermon came across Socrates, looking in every way to be as learned a man, and asked him questions about truth, justice and the human condition. Whereas the Buddha preached, Socrates asked each man in turn what they believed to be true. As each man attempted to articulate his feelings, rather than guide the debate, Socrates would casually step behind them--perhaps humming a little ditty--and give them a right nudge, sending the men unwantingly down that slippery-ass-slope and crowing in victory as he watched them wipe the mud from their clothing, dejected, and in a worse place than they had started.

There exist multiple ethical or metaphysical realities simultaneously, each much like the others, but ruled by different tendencies or forces. The protagonist exists in the reality most familiar to the audience-- for all intents and purposes, 'normality'. The protagonist foretells their eventual crisis when they show an interest in the other realities which are somehow revealed: places that most people are unaware of, or ignore, or are frightened of; places which are populated not by characters, but the personification of skeletons in the characters' closets, where human interaction is motivated not by a need for sociability, but by a collective anxiety over dirty little secrets. This other-world is so compelling, so different, that it eventually claims the protagonist, causing a collision between the world and the other-world. The protagonist cannot and does not exist in one or the other, but is torn between them violently, causing intense disorientation and trauma. These events come to a head in the form of a third reality, a separate place in space-time which is an elaborate and deceptive maquette of the world, but in which the physical, temporal and ethical laws that shape the human experience are broken-- a purgatory of sorts. The protagonist is doomed to live in non-time until a heroic event can take place: a symbolic decision or action which anchors the protagonist in one reality or the other, allowing him to escape the fundamentally upsetting ethical and physical ambiguity for a more coherent reality.

I have had a very strange week.

I decided that I would like to work in the security industry, although my programming skills are rusty at best. I am clever, observant, and clean up nicely. I do a bang-up job of social engineering. tiger-teaming. that sort of thing.

I also decided that it is imperative for me to buy a pair of Gucci loafers. I have a particular appreciation for fine footwear, and they would take me back to my time in Florence every time I put them on.

I ran into a friend today, who told me to 'write it all down' and then walked away without any explanation, as if she were precogniscant. Indeed. Dance dance dance. Keep dancing 'till the world spins.

I have received two emails from an obfuscated and cryptic source in the past months that have been oddly personal. Both are related to music.

I feel like I'm wearing glasses that aren't mine.

I realized that another friend of mine hangs out at XIII on a regular basis, where I believe minervae works. And a that man that used to harrass me at work has killed himself. And that my family's history seems inexorably tied to strange parts of the federal government.

I have foiled a stalker.

I had a song stuck in my head that I am reasonably certain has never been written.

I wrote a zen poem without realizing it.

I believe I have been neglecting my subconscious for too long, and now it's come with an agenda.

Follow the signs, write it down, dance dance dance.

i repeat. petunia is dead.

Does anybody with the appropriate imaging software feel like scaling this down and making a user icon for me?

xxx

( An hour on the Internet, in photos. )

( This woman has the sexiest voice I have ever heard )

A drink to the author of the best conspiracy theory involving the CEO COM LINK...

( fuck quizilla )

( Tonight, while walking to work, I was nearly hit by a car. )

We now proceed to explain the nature of personal identity, which has become so great a question in philosophy, especially of late years, in England, where all the more abstruse sciences are studied with a peculiar ardor and application... The identity which we ascribe to the mind of man is only a fictitious one and of a like kind with that which we ascribe to vegetables and animal bodies.

Hume, A Treatise on Human Nature

Hume is fucking hilarious. He is so bitter and skeptical and goofy. Too bad they stuffed one of his colleagues instead of him-- he'd make quite the imposing conversation piece (of furniture).

Something old

Something new

Something borrowed

And something blue

I do not condone any of what my come of this post.

Ed was either in on the joke, or he was not just inept, but posessed a fundamental misunderstanding of what movies are supposed to be.