Love & Texting

Provoking piece in the Styles section of the Times today. They've been doing this "Modern Love" series for a while and this column was one of the more interesting installments I've read so far. It's about an American student who moved to Thailand to teach English shortly after graduating from college. One of her students (college-aged) fell in love with her and the story is about their interaction while there and then after she returned to the States. An excerpt:

Text messaging and chatting are the modus operandi, and everybody seems to consider it a tragedy of modern romance that these forms of communication make it so frighteningly easy to say nothing at all, to forge a relationship out of little more than a few well-timed expressions: “Where r u?” and “Want to meet up?” Maybe...expressiveness seems strange to us, or pathetic. But it has something to teach us, too, about the note of cowardice embedded in our romantic culture, about the intensity of emotion we have a right to, about everything we could say, but don’t.

...Word.

Hard Times

Months ago, The Economist reported that we were in a depression, not a recession. More and more financial analysts are saying that the current state of the economy reflects something bigger than just a recession.  This morning on the news, I heard that Warren Buffet is saying that the economy is going to continue to be "in shambles" throughout 2009, and probably well beyond that. 

So let's take this opportunity to make a prediction. I'm guessing that the economy will start stabilizing around March 2010, and then get itself back on track by the following June. Put your prediction down in writing here, and then we'll check back in a year to see who's the closest. That person will then get a prize (maybe dinner if the majority of us are still employed by then). Place your bets. 

Photoshop 101

What's wrong with this picture?

(Photo by Annie Leibovitz of Kate Winslet and her husband, Sam Mendes in Vanity Fair)

Is It A Hoax?

I haven't spoken to anyone about this yet and I'm so curious as to what people think about this whole Joaquin Phoenix thing. In case you're not familiar with the story, Phoenix has decided to quit acting in order to pursue his music (read: rap) career. He's supposedly working on an album with Diddy, and his career thus far consists of one on-stage performance featuring an inaudible 'song,' a half-assed booty shake and his falling off the stage. As I'm sure you've seen or heard by now, he made a vacuous appearance on David Letterman a few weeks ago. He was not only supremely out of it and absurdly cryptic, but also pretty rude (like when he stuck his gum under Letterman's desk). 

Casey Affleck is reportedly making a documentary about Phoenix's transition from actor to, umm, rapper. But the rumor is that the film will actually document Joaquin's wholly absorbing bout of Andy-Kaufman-style performance art, and that this bearded rapper is just his character. I've read in some places that Affleck was backstage at that Letterman show, but Phoenix's glazed-over catatonic-ness seemed pretty real to me. But then again, I do think he's an incredibly talented actor and could pull this off convincingly, if it is in fact a hoax. 

So on one hand, he genuinely seems like he's entrenched in some gripping drug abuse. On the other, he's super talented—and isn't it weird that Affleck, a friend of Joaquin's, would stand back behind the lens while his buddy's obviously in need of some serious help? I haven't seen Two Lovers, the film that he was on Letterman to promote, but I've read in various places that he gives a riveting and poignant performance in it. Can the transition to Alice-in-Wonderland madness be so quick as to make us believe that Letterman stunt was genuine? 

Check out the clips and let me know what you think. Is the real, present-day Joaquin Phoenix picture A above, or picture B? If it's not a hoax, I think it's a terrible shame that such a capable actor is wasting away in this sudden and self-made delusion. If it is a huge joke, then it's genius. Not only is he pushing this rumor that he's a rapper, but he's performing songs, consistently appearing on talk shows and in public in character, and really just fooling the world. The documentary is slated to be released next year, so we might have to wait until then to know for sure. 

Weekly Weigh-In

So I've been away for a while and I need to get back into the blogging habit. I'll start with a weigh-in. Among the most irksome of my texting pet peeves are the following:

*When you text someone to tell them know you're on your way or you'll call them later or something like that, and they reply with, "k." I hate one-word text messages to begin with, but one-letter ones are abominable.

*When people use numbers to abbreviate words, i.e. l8er, gr8, 2morrow, etc.

*Text message forwards ("Send this to all your friends in the next 5 minutes or you'll be ugly and loveless forever!!)

*When people text when they should be calling, resulting in 20 unnecessary messages back & forth, or call at inconvenient times when they could just text.

Do you agree or disagree with any of these? Any others you would add?

Weekly Weigh-In

I recently got my hands on a Viewmaster. Remember those? It was like your own little private show filled with splashes of technicolor and funny little cartoon characters from the old days. (I just turned 24 and I'm having a mid-twenties crisis.) It got me thinking about all the cool stuff from my childhood, like snap bracelets, Rainbow Brite, the Saturday morning TV lineup (California Raisins), Tamagotchis, and how all the cool kids in elementary school used to bring in Now&Laters and the more colors you had, the cooler you were. If you had the flavor that just came out, you were basically King of the World.

What's your favorite thing from your childhood, or the thing you get most nostalgic about? A TV show, movie (Land Before Time, anyone?), food, candy, toy...give it to me.

Weekly Weigh-In

Do you get annoyed when people read over your shoulder? For example, if you're on the train and you open up the newspaper and someone standing behind you or sitting next to you starts reading your paper, too.