Mighty Mickey Mao Redux

And so it goes. Recent news reveals that the Maoists have called for an indefinite bandha (that's general strike enforced through terror by the Maoists) starting in early April. There will also be blockades of the roads into KTM and all the major cities in Nepal.

So, what’s the latest in the ‘Du? Things are quiet, or perhaps it’s that I just can’t bear to read both English dailies everyday. I check my google.news for the headlines, but I’ve been busy writing grant proposals (always secure funding, 1st rule of grad school) and other more pleasant distractions. As long as I’m not having my epidermis sanded off, almost anything is more pleasant than writing grant proposals. You’d think I’d be used to them now, but noooooo. If you’ve read the business proposal section in the Cryptonomicron, it’s just like that, except I don’t get as much start-up money.

We’re currently in the midst of the longest ever recorded drought in KTM Valley history (4 1/2 months). Hopefully, the monsoon will come early and profusely. Farmers are suffering, and that means famine in certain districts. I don’t know what the status is for the indefinite bandh and blockades of all major cities starting April 3th.

US Ambassdor Moriarty was all over the papers today. Headline in the Nepali Times, the well-written weekly of the Himalayan Times, above a sinister looking picture of His Excellency, is “Professor Moriarty strikes again.” Ah, what a pleasure to have actual literary allusions in print media. Apparently the Ambassador will be on Kantipur TV twice next week to talk about what the US wants, now that it appears that the US has thrown its support back behind the King. He did meet with some of the seven major political party leaders, but the gist of the meeting was to suggest that the twelve-point agreement with the Maoists is a big mistake. I admit, I can’t force myself to keep track, really, now that I’m out of the habit of reading both dailies cover to cover. I got out of the habit when I had what I like to call obstreperous throat. I know some of the major actors, but I’d need a scorecard anyway. Who’s in jail, who’s under house arrest, who leads what party. With seven major political parties, I hope no one blames me for not being exactly up on who’s who.

However, do check out www.samudaya.org. It’s a forum by expat Nepalis to spread awareness for democracy, pluralism and free press, according to the article in this week’s Nepali Times. It’s blocked in Nepal by the government, but there is a mirror-site at www.everybodybreed.com (strange choice, that). Who knows how long that’ll be accessible here in Nepal. I’ll have a gander today. They’ve also started Creative Dissent Nepal, “a movement of people wokring towards supporting and promoting democratic ideals through participatory, creative, and non-violent activism.” All Americans, take note. You might want to take notes on this stuff, given the recent appointment to the Supreme Court.

It’s for keeps here in Nepal, folks. Massive human right violations, google Nepal human right violations and UN report. Violence can be casual and brutal, and facing a lathi (a bamboo staff) charge by the police or military police here is no laughing matter. During the protests leading up to the sham elections on February 8th, the cops brought their own truckloads of brickbats (brick shards) to protests to throw at protestors, who, of course, were doing the same.

Pay close attention, Americans. ‘Course, we don’t roll like that in ‘Merica, we’d bring our gatts, and bloodbaths would ensue. Sorry folks, but it’s true. Civil war in America would, has already been once, hideous. Let’s not let it come to that, shall we? Vote in this election in November, and throw out the party in power in at least the Senate or the House. Get at least a deadlock in the government, hopefully to begin impeachment hearing. What’s some admittedly ethical dubious sexual misconduct to outright lies that lead to a war that has caused thousands of American deaths and many, many more wounded people. The Imperial Presidency has gone way way way too far, and now with the Judiciary swinging hard to the right, things are about to get worse.

Lessons could be learned from Nepalis. I cower out here in Boudha, while folks are out laying their asses on the line during protests. I feel guilty ‘bout this, but I’m not a Nepali, nor a U.N. human rights observer, nor a journalist, and I like to keep my skull intact, thank you. Leigh and Jason got caught in a protest, and Leigh was fortunate to get away with only getting her camera broken.

Rant over.

My New Favorite Drink That I Invented

A Post-Castro Cuba Libre:
Start with 3 fingers of white rum in a chilled glass, preferably Cruzan Estate Light Rum cuz it's cheap in the islands and tasty. Reminds me of my time in the BVI and the USVI. Stay far away from those tropical flavored rums, a travesty like flavored coffee, unless it's an Irish coffee on a chilly San Francisco night. Add plain soda or a sugar-free lime or lemon soda. Squeeze 'bout an 1/2 ounce of lime or lemon juice respectively. Toast the inevitable absorpton by global capitalism of a lamented worker's paradise of your choice.

Mighty Mickey Mao

Well, it's with great relief and a slight reduction of my constant low-level annoyance that my pre-paid cell phone is now working. Give me a tinkle sometime. I wasn't sure how the cessation of service protected the security of the Nepal dictatorship, but there you go. Uh oh, I dropped the D bomb.

Things are quiet here in the Valley. There has been the occasional bomb, some of which were defused. A few exploded up in Jorpati up the main road a bit from Bouddha at a go-down or warehouse of some sort. One in Ratni Park that was placed in a bin (or garbage can if you prefer).

Outside the valley there was a significant attack (at least in my opinion) in Tansen. Who knows what goes on out in the countryside. I read the newspapers everyday but it's hard to get a sense of what's going on outside the valley since I've just gone once up the Arniko Highway to the Tibetan border.

There has been a call by Prachanda, the supreme leader of the Maoists to form an alternative government along with the seven major political parties. They go by one name, like Prince or Madonna cuz apparently it's good PR and psychwar tactics, as if to say I'm such a badass that I no longer require my last name. The US ambassador strongly warned against this yesterday in a statement, but what are folks supposed to do?

Sham elections (massive armored personal carriers parked outside polling centers?!?!), draconian control against any sort of significant protest, and a complete and total lack of real democracy really do limit the masses' options. I'm open to suggestions. How 'bout denying visas to all Nepali govermental officials and freezing their accounts in the US? How 'bout the US not training a Ranger force for the Nepali government. Ah, but Nepal has become a small pawn in the new Great Game between India, China, and the US, with a rapidly ascendant PRC providing an alternative to Nepal's traditional partner (some would say master) India. So has Pakistan, just to goose India, despite their good relations.

Look, no one has a problem with a constitutional monarchy. Lots of Northern European nations get along just fine with them, provided that the post is largely ceremonial. The king and the royal family could do a lot of good if they wielded the royal mana in a righteous way. They could become cultural ambassadors to the world for Nepal. People love Nepal, have for years, and probably will for a long time to come. Nepalis are lovely people, there are a ton of other ethnic groups around, incredibly scenery, and a large expat Tibetan population that has the ability, the means, and infrastructure to draw the curious and practicing Western Buddhists. Going out into the world as benevolent ambassadors would inhance these images. We'll discuss later some of the orientalizing aspects to them, but still... you do need revenue.

Meanwhile, the infrastructure, such as it is, decays. 17 hours a week of power cuts due to low water level in the hydroelectrical reservoirs. Last summer's monsoon was weak, but there has been no new power plant construction in years due to... you guess it, the insurgency. Hydropower could be a major Nepali industry with exports to India, despite the inevitable enviromental damage. There are massive dropoffs in tourist arrivals and hence tourist dollars, pounds, and Euros. I'd hate for my country or state or town or whatever to be dependent on tourism (right, Shawn? how 'bout New Orleans, corruption, and murder even before Kate the Shrew stomped on NO?), but there are really no other alternatives.

Well, to reiterate: things are quiet out here in Boudha. I suspect though, that the Maoists will step up their attacks since security has gradually loosen in the Valley. I wouldn't've attacked during the elections, the curfews, and on the anniversary of the beginning of the insurgency. I'd wait 'til after, to lull the government into complacency.

Meanwhile, I'm off for my daily Tibetan lesson with Dawa. I'll try and upload some new photos later.

Top 10 Things in 2005

Let's just say that since the Great Anthropological Experiment of 2006 (GAE 2006) failed miserably, I've branched out into other venues. I've had a lot of downtime as I waited for my throat to quit oozing pus and barking at me. Now, since that reference to GAE 2006 was cryptic enough, onto the show.

1) Passing my qualifying exams. It's all a blur, I swear. A hot muggy September day in a typical stale air Harvard room and lots of cold sweat.

2) Getting my dissertation proposal approved. Thank you, Fulbright-Hays for making do this already pretty much. I've have to lump receiving the Fulbright under this heading since it completely slipped my mind while composing this at home, although that other grant I received made me reconsider coming to KTM. Praise Allah I came to my senses and took less money but did the 'Du.

3) Seeing Gang of Four at tha Avalon with my friend Yammo sometime in the spring. Old-school post-punk at its finest. Eat that, the Liars and Bloc Party. I've never seen so many old hipsters in years. Damn, that describes me.

4) Tihar in Nepal. I love Tihar, hopefully my birth mom, Pamela, will visit next fall during it. A five day festival with kukkaripuja, which is the worship of dogs who receive tikas and marigold malas, and ends with bhaipuja in which sisters garland and tika their brothers who give them money in return. Somewhere in the middle is Lakshmipuja, when people draw red lines leading into doorways to invite the goddess of wealth into their homes and businesses. Much less gruesome and tense than Dasain and Kalipuja, which involves copious animal sacrifices, blaring music on those distorted developing country sound systems to all hours of the night, and an undercurrent of violence itching to explode.

5) Christmas 2004 with my birth mother in Berkeley. Close enough to 2005 for government business. We ate tons of Alaskan crab, divine cookies from the Cheeseboard, went for a long walk at Point Reyes on Christmas Day, and generally just got to spend our first major holiday together.

6) Narrowly avoiding Hurricane Rita in Beaumont by two days. If I hadn’t left when I did, I wouldn’t gotten out for months. Thanks for the great visit, Dad and Kathy, but whew.

7) Thanksgiving dinner with the US Ambassador, his equally accomplished and gracious wife, cornbread dressing(!), and a surgical strike team of servants who got me tipsy through no apparent effort on my part. This rolled on into a night of pub crawling through Thamel with T.J. to an ungodly hour of the morning. Male bonding at its best. Many Cuba Librés consumed.

8) Dinner after passing my exams with Yammo at the best Middle Eastern restaurant I’ve ever eaten out somewhere in Cambridge, Argana. It was spectacular, all the usual dishes you might expect, but what a difference due to I don’t know what (and it couldn’t have been the mojitos). It might have been the best meal I’ve ever had. This wasn't just due to my relief, right, Amzig?

9) A two day rafting trip s on the Bhote Kosi near the Tibetan border. Set after long set of insane Class V+ rapids just post-monsoon straight off the glacier in Tibet. Day one is pleasant and fun, below the first dam on Bhote Kosi with tons of Class III and IV rapids. Day two begins approximately 5 klicks from Tibet with beautiful scenery, but terrifying rafting. I suspect it was because the guide, Som, probably weighed all of 120 lbs soaking wet and due to his limited mass, couldn’t steer the raft. When I belatedly realized that he too was terrified by the hysterical tone of his voice, it added that special frisson of sheer cold animal fear to freezing milky green glacial water, massive rocks, and substandard equipment. The best part was when the guide fell out of the boat (and stayed out) at the beginning of a set of class V+ rapids, thus leaving us to go down the wrong chute without anyone to steer the raft. All in all one of the most exhilarating experiences that I’ll never repeat in my life, especially since I have subsequently heard about the rafting fatalities (notice the plural) in a Nepali friend’s family.

10) Summertime in Knoxville TN. I didn’t get to enjoy it as much as I could’ve due to the massive anxiety concomitant with my impending exams, but I sure did enjoy being back in the South for a summer. Lovely moderate weather, especially compared to Texas, mountains, rafting, sweet Southern drawls, an excellent coffeehouse with free wi-fi, slit-eyed groundhogs in the kudzu, a decent university library, and a satisfying chunk of time with my sister and mother. Didn’t make it to Dollywood though, more’s the pity.

Four Things. Part II

I promised you a rose garden, not brevity.

4 TV Shows

1) The West Wing

Tivolike capabilties at my mother’s house this past summer has allowed me to almost complete seeing all episodes of this, except for the most recent and final season since I’m obviously in Nepal. Great ensemble acting that acutely satisfies my wish-fulfillment regarding the 2000 Presidential Election while I regretfully reside in a State of Denial.

2) Gilmore Girls

I know, I know, I’ve openly emasculated myself. Mea culpa. However, smart, sharp, and rapid dialogue laden with literary and gratititious pop culture references, Alexis Bledel’s otherworldly eyes, small-town New England weirdness, and a shoutout to Third Uncle Brian Eno in a cubicle farm has won my heart. I don’t care what you think.

3) Battlestar Galactica
This is it, serious smart sci-fi that’s also probably the best drama on TV. Deliberate documentary-like shaky handheld cinematography, minimal breathless background music, claustrophobic shipboard sets, and the deepest, darkest sci-fi TV show since Babylon Five (until that stinker of a last season). I hope they haven’t blown all of their intellectual capital on the first two seasons. They’re not Cylons, they’re really Mormons! I’d kill (ok, maim) to have a glance at the series’ bible.

4) After that, I’m stumped.
There was nothing else I regularly watched for the past few years ‘cept Red Sox games. Buenos noches, amigos. RemDog! I watched tons of CSI with Shawn due to sheer inertia, and I blame him for my distaste for forensic dramas, despite Lenny letting love rule. What the hell is up with this genre anyway? See J.G. Ballard’s essay as an attempt at some sort of explanation for the hold it has on the American imagination nowadays.

4 Websites I Visit Everyday
(everyday I have broadband access, you mean)

1) metafilter.com

2) pitchforkmedia.com

3) questionablecontent.net

4) news.google.com

4 Favorite Places I’ve Vacationed

Long-term underemployment and seven years (and counting! I’m in my 8th, you were right, Lil, I’ll be that perpetual student) of grad school have not enabled many vacations. However:

1) Zacatecas, Summer of 2000
I could’ve stayed longer, if it weren’t for my unnamed poisonous ex-girlfriend’s stupidity before this trip. Hanging in the zocalo, eating avocado sandwiches, drinking lovely Zacatecan wine, few non-Mexican tourists, and a comfortable climate in July at 9000 feet was well worth the 18 hours it took to get there by bus from Austin. Cheap too. I’ll do it again sometime minus the toxic ex.

2) Weekend Trip to Vermont, Summer of 2003
Vermont is fantastic. These people with their no-billboard policy understand my need to decompress from omnipresent advertising. A fun but too brief roadtrip, but I got to enjoy touring Ink’s old collegiate stomping grounds, a swimming hole on the AT, sleeping in a lovely old farmhouse in chilly weather, escape from Boston’s mugginess, and a surprisingly good Tex-Mex dinner. Bucolic.

3) Mexico City, Thanksgiving 1994
My girlfriend at the time and I received a free trip from her mother that was won by her friends at a Chili's. They gave it to my exe's mom who couldn’t use it because she had burned up all her vacation time in Turkey, who in turn passed it on to us, broke student and recent ex-student. You got that? The result:

• A free week in the Radisson while I desultorily studied for the GRE (which I broke like a cheap maquiliadora piñata despite being unable to afford real Princeton Review tutoring),
• luscious dark Mexican coffee in the mornings (we couldn’t resist racking up a room service tab just for it despite stocking the room’s fridge with sammich makings)
• fantastic museums (20th century Mexican painting is so underrated)
• Teotihuacán
• great window shopping
• the best subway system for the money in the world.

4) Manali Summer 1998
I went there for a week as a treat after 2 solid months of attempting to work in Dharamsala. This was the summer of heightened nuclear tension between India and Pakistan, highlighted by a kill radius of one of the bombs tested by Pak published in some Indian newspaper centered on Connaught Place. Let’s just say this little jaunt involved all the things that Manali is justly renowned for, an unrequited crush on a Flemish girl, my one true whack at the great American novel, a Brit named Rug who, quite appropriately, resembled an ambulatory rug, soi-disant “space cake”, and the transcendent post-modern moment of hanging out in a cafe and listening to techno music and a sadhu chanting along in time.
Oṃ Shivāya nāmaḥ*

*(Heaven help me if I've gotten the diactrics wrong. All my costly education gone to waste.)

After meticulously compiling this list, I now wish I had added the two trips to Arkansas to hang out at Cossatot River State Park & Natural Area and Lake Ouachita. That, sadly, would have violated the one trip per ex-girlfriend unofficial rule, despite the wonderful memories I possess.

4 Places I’d Rather Be

Nowhere else right now, but in the future:

1) Vienna
Coffee, Riesling, Guglhupf, and kipferl. Klimt, Mahler, and Wittgenstein. You do the math. Anyone please, puh-retty puh-lease send me a copy of The Austrian Mind right now. I’m craving it after reading "Wittgenstein's Vienna" and “Vienna Blood.” See below.

2) Vientiane and Luang Prabang, Laos
I can’t wait to go there; I have to get there soon, soon, now, right now, maybe hopefully sometime this year. Apparently, more French people are living in Laos now than during the colonial period. Good French bread, yummy Laotian food, a mild Southeast Asian climate, hopefully miminal development, and a Theravadin Buddhist environment. Yes, please.

3) Vladivostok
Who knows, this place might be a pit, and it’s not even listed on the Lonely Planet Guide website (is it in the book?), but flying just past it on my way to Nepal this time has whetted my appetite for Far Eastern Russia at the edge of the continent. It’s a dark post-Soviet/newly petrochemically power Russia mystery to me. I can’t help it, Alaska is too passé.

4) Venice in the Winter
It’ll be poignant, and I’ll spend an afternoon on or near the Bridge of Sighs as a prisoner of desire in the weak winter sunlight, contemplating the decrepit beauty of the Bride of the Sea as she glacially, gracefully, and gratefully sinks into the Adriatic.

4 Recent Books

1) Vienna Blood - Adrian Mathews
A surprisingly good techno thriller set in Vienna in 2026. This has a strange but lush tone, enough extrapolation that should satisfy sci-fi fans, and a truly interesting engagement with biotechnical, genetic, and political issues that are coming soon to a neighborhood near you. Keywords: eugenic, cacogenic, aristogenic. How ‘bout aristomemic for a neologism, Dick Dawkins and company?

2) The Annotated Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
I’ve been waiting to read this after reading “Reading Lolita in Teheran.”When the annotated version showed up at Pilgrims Books at a cut-rate, I was happy. Still am, the annotations help with some of the 50s period references that would’ve escaped me, and I always love intertextual goodness. Too bad I read the intro first though. I know this book disturbs women, and rightly so, but I expected more insight into the allure of younger women who are not necessarily illegally young.

Nevertheless, it is still a stunning indictment of American bourgeois society that resonates today despite a shift to a hyperconsumer society with a focus on connoisseurship in incidental commodities like coffee, gourmet food, and mid-20th century modern furniture for the moneyed and not so moneyed self-styled dissidents among us. Umm... It’s bougy, baby! Still required reading, especially since Nabokov despised psychoanalysis and carefully crafted Lolita accordingly.
Bravo, Vlad! Ce n’est pas une pipe, Siggy.

3) Playback - Raymond Chandler
It's a Raymond Chandler Evening
At the end of someone's day
And I'm standing in my pocket
And I'm slowly turning grey
Thanks, Robyn. I think I’ve finished all seven Chandler books with this one. Sigh. Here he makes deliberate references to the genre, the last one he wrote, but not ironically. Was he incapable...

Look, here’s my recent epiphany. Hardboiled fiction is the equivalent of Harlequin romances for men. We all (those among us who gender-identify with virile male/tough guy) vicariously imagine ourselves to be a tough broad-shouldered and ruggedly handsome man who rights wrongs outside of the law, frequently sleeps with extremely eager and curvy women with minimal courting, can take a vicious beating, and settles beefs decisively with a gun or our fists. Least that's how I read this genre. Chandler isn’t so blatant with these particular genre conventions, but it’s so readily apparent with Mickey Spillane and the Mike Hammer books that it ain’t funny, sister. So what? Take off, buster. You annoy me. I’ve met all kinds of punks in my time... Ah, call it a guilty pleasure and I’ll keep my eyes peeled for more Dashiell Hammett books here in KTM.

4) Leonardo’s Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms - Stephen Jay Gould
A collection of his monthly essays from Natural History magazine. An excellent stylist, clear and extremely interesting in that nerdy science way that is leavened nicely with ample historical documentation that thoroughly satisfies the inchoate historian in me. I’ve grown more interested in the effect that the theory of evolution has had on the social sciences, particularly philology and Buddhist Studies à la Baumann and Briggs. Hopefully at some point I’ll have a brilliant idea or two in this regard, but let’s not hold our breaths, shall we?

Now, The Four People I Tag:

Don't have four people. Most of my friends, as far as I know, don't have blogs, and I mulishly refuse to insist that they start one to satisfy your unreasonable demands. I can't imagine that Shawn would put something like this on the Trivia Jihad webblog since jihadis are too busy drinkin', trivia-playin', and whorin' their way through the great Boston metropolitian area. I'm sure Ryan is actually working on his dissertation. Padre Scott don't seem like that type either. Yammo, a.k.a. Amzig, updates more infrequently than I do.
I'm stumped, Miss Ladie, you'll just have to cope.

Four Things. Part I

Well, since I've been tagged by Miss Ladie, I reckon I have to rise to the challenge of my four things. My list is more extensive, since I've been sick and this was a pleasant way to while away an afternoon. I'll update more on the political situation here in KTM, but briefly, it's the same old story out here in Bouddha.

Without further ado, comrades, and I promise not to be brief, My Four Things, Part 1.

4 Jobs I've Had

1) Retail slave at Whole Earth Provision Company. One of the true slacker jobs in Austin. Probably my favorite job, although I doubt I could do it again because I despise waiting on people.

2) Dishwasher at several pizza restaurants. I like washing dishes, if it paid more, I might consider it for a career. You can get a lot of thinking done, you don’t have to talk to anyone, and it’s soothing (see Skinny Legs and All by Tom Robbins for further info).

3) Telemarketer for FedEx and other much less savory businesses that I refuse to reveal. My one truly shameful job. Getting fired from three other jobs doesn’t come close to comparing to the continuing shame I have about this one.

4) Selling meat out of the back of a truck door to door. Oh wait, that’s Shawn, my erstwhile and hopefully future roommate. Whassup, Shawndawg? Damn, I have nothing that can compare to that. I was a janitor at a movie theater for a number of years, starting when I was 15. I believe this explains my extreme reluctance to attend movies in situ. You try cleaning up after a showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

4 Places I’ve Lived
1) Austin TX. You know I’ll always care for you, baby, but I had to move on. We had some good times, the best, and I’ll always remember those cool spring afternoons where we napped with all the doors and windows open in the house, the weekly gigs with my grunge band where I screamed my guts out, that March day where the grass in Zilker Park was pounded into overlapping circles by the hammer of God, and that 78704 lifestyle (ignore this).
Damn, I still love you girl.

2) Lowest Greenville, Dallas TX. Best neighborhood I’ve ever lived in, despite the tree falling on our apartment when a squall line of thunderstorms moved through. It was so noisy that I didn’t realize it ‘til the next morning when I went outside. Walking distance to everything you’d need, Whole Foods, ethnic grocery stores, the best Thai restaurant in the US, a coffee shop, and bookstores. Too bad Dallas is bighaircorporateplasticsurgeryevilland.

3) Somerville MA. Ugh. Maybe if I had lived closer to Davis Square I wouldn’t be the bitter broken man I’m today. Really, what the hell is up with the real estate prices here? Lacks the culture(s) and restaurants of New York, the natural beauty and enforced culture shock of the Bay Area, and finally, it has the crappiest weather in the world, so what’s the appeal?!? I remain baffled.

4) Kathmandu. Kat-daddy-mandu. The ‘Du. My newest love, despite her winter air with particulate claws in it, an extremely septic environment, and a slow shamble to failed state status. You’re my slattern and tattered goddess, befouled by overpopulation from war refugees from the countryside and a consumer society that noticeably increases before my very eyes. You’re the disheveled siren that’s called me since my early 20s, and now we’re finally together despite pressure cooker bombs, bandhas, frequent gastrointestinal distress, and cabbies that make me want to kill.

4 Favorite Dishes

1) The Greek Noodle Bowl (stupid name, but tasty linguini, pesto, cherry tomatoes, feta cheese, kalamata olives, and scallions) at Mars Restaurant and Bar in Austin.

2) Chicken gumbo. I came to this late, I hated gumbo as a kid after a bad duck gumbo experience involving sinew and gristle. Environment will tell though, since I don’t have that coonass blood. Coonass is sometimes derogatory slang for Cajun that's been re-appropriated by my peoples, y’all. Viva la race, chère! (but you gotta say it that Caju way /shah/).

3) Pad Thai. I could mainline this everyday. Why I’m not doing my research in Thailand or Laos baffles the hell outta me. My one true academic career mistake. Always pick a research area with excellent cuisine (sorry Tibetans, y’all don’t qualify through no fault of your own). Actually, let me amend this to Thai green papaya salad, Som Tam. Mmmm shrimp paste, chili, vinegar, grated green papaya, and hopefully fresh seafood.

4) Tex-Mex food. Our one true contribution to the world (ok, maybe also Bob Wills. who will always be King). I could eat this everyday, twice a day. I’d have to say migas at Kerby Lane Cafe would be the one dish I’d pick. Soft black bean tacos from there run a close second, although cheap greasy breakfast tacos from that joint on Airport Drive are the ultimate hangover food. Vitamin G, y’all. I loathe Boston for the lack of good dependable Tex-Mex food.

4 Current CDs in Rotation

Lemme check my new Sandisk Sansa 2 GB mp3 player. Being a lapsed Catholic boy, I have deliberate catholic tastes. Heavy rotation of aggro boy rock(Jesus Lizard for example) is usually on here cuz that’s what I work out to, but I’ve mellowed recently in my music selection due to infectious obstreperous throat that just won’t go away.

1) MIA - Arular. A critical fave. Check out pitchforkmeda.com for the saliva-laden accolades. A refugee Sri Lankan women in London whose dad was some sorta Tamil(?) rebel in Sri Lanka, hooks up with the hot DJ Diplo who’s mining baile funk from favelas in Brazil for beats, to form a winning combination. The post-post-colonial hiphop, with a hybrid shoutout to my Homi Bhabha.

2) Bark Psychosis - Hex. Early languid post-rock. 1994 was a productive year for these lads. Radiohead should pay them royalities for parts of their early albums. How did a xylophone become de rigueur for this kind of music?

3) The Decemberists - Her Majesty, The Decemberists. This one always makes me smile, but I can only take it in small doses, usually half the album at a time. “Your Red Right Ankle” is a brilliant example of wistful boy rock™. A jollier Smiths with a pirate fetish.

4) Antoine Forqueray - Pieces de viole - Suite I et II - Jordi Savall. I’ve become obsessed with viola da gamba music. French Baroque, and you know what they say, if it ain’t Baroque, don’t fix it. Nothing matches the warmth and approximates the range of the human voice like a viola da gamba. Jordi Savall, along with Paolo Pandolfo, are the modern masters. Paolo, I could kiss your stubbly Italian mug for your revisioning of Bach’s Cello Suites.