Fosc Olives Tapas

Greetings, my friends. I fear that I will be testing your loyalty this week. This will be a difficult week for me work-wise (you know that thing I do that [barely] pays the bills?). But rather than abandoning you entirely to the uncivilized wilderness of most of the non-Fosco Lives! internet, I will be offering a selection of very brief posts this week in lieu of the more traditional FL! features. Call it "blog tapas"--which is, not coincidentally, one of the best ways to savor olives (including Fosc Olives).

Because we usually talk about music on Mondays, allow me to offer you today several photographs from the recent Bruce Springsteen concert in San Jose that I attended with my friend Todd. These photos were taken with my pathetically inadequate cell phone camera; however, at least I didn't hold a digital camera over my head for the whole concert like the jackass standing in front of me. Tradeoffs.

We were actually standing pretty close, no?

Also, I may have been standing next to tween sensation Zac Efron during the set. Judge for yourself from this surreptitious photo:

Okay, it probably wasn't him. But what if it had been?

And the wiener is...

Fosco hasn't watched the Oscars in five years (ever since he moved from Charlottesville and consequently lost his invitation to the best Oscar party on the planet). But apparently, the Academy keeps awarding the statuettes anyway. This year, the host is the supposedly charismatic Hugh Jorgen (say it out loud--dirty!), apparently as part of his X-men Origins: Wolverine publicity tour.

Fosco hasn't seen any of the "Best Picture" nominees this year, but that won't prevent him from offering his dear readers (you!) a chance to participate in an Oscar poll. Look to the top of the righthand column and cast your vote now! Let's see how accurately Fosco Lives! readers can predict the future.

Of course, the suspense of the whole thing has been effectively killed by super- egghead Nate Silver, who has already used logistic regression to predict the winners. He was right about the election (among other things), so I'm going to take his advice on this.

If the Oscars plan to outdo the Grammy's this year in terms of drama, then one of the stars needs to be assaulted by his/her significant other. I wouldn't be surprised if the Academy has already contacted Dame Helen Mirren and asked her to "take one for the team." Personally, I think Dakota Fanning has gotten a little cheeky lately and could stand to be knocked down a peg. Plus, as she's dating Sean Penn, it's only a matter of time...

Or, if you'd rather just ignore this year's Oscars and complain about the year that your favorite movie (Hint: "I wish I knew how to quit you") lost to some undeserving celluloid trainwreck (or car-wreck...), you can check out this article about the greatest Oscar mistakes. The biggest one? Hint: "I'm the king of the world!"

Bridget Jones's Senate Seat

Today, in a surprising move, New York Governor David Paterson named chirpy actress Renée Zellweger as the junior senator from New York.

Senator Zellweger is expected to bring a refreshing dose of her winning awkwardness to the role, with a steady program of embarrassing pratfalls and teary self-acceptance.

Celebrity Love!

E! Online breaks a celebrity engagement announcement with this picture:

Based on this picture, Fosco would like to congratulate Far From Heaven's Julianne Moore and MSNBC commentator Rachel Maddow. They make a lovely couple.

Pictures of 2008: Frigid Baseball

Fosco recently realized that, by only blogging for three months last year, he never got to share tons of pictures with you from the rest of the year. So, for the next week or so, Fosco will offer a series of brief posts with some of his favorite pictures from his adventures in 2008. Check out the whole series here.

Last August (note the month), Fosco and Oz went to a Giants home game at AT&T Park in San Francisco. It's a really nice park (as you've probably seen on TV) with lots of amusements and concessions (including garlic fries! Yum!). However, it is also right on the SF Bay and, when you're sitting in the bleachers on a foggy night it gets COLD. Like really cold. Fosco had a coat and a scarf and still froze.

One neat thing: the Giants were playing the Dodgers that night, who had recently traded for dreadlocked All-Star Manny Ramirez (a trade that would propel them into the second round of the playoffs). Our bleacher seats were in Left Field, so we got a nice view of Manny:

By the fifth inning, we were popsicles (in August!) and so we left (as if we care about the Giants). This was a view of the ballpark as we walked to our car (in the howling wind):

You can even tell from behind that Fosco is freezing. In August!

Or was it?

You may remember last week, when Fosco posted a camera-phone photo of Patti Smith in his review of her concert. Look familiar?


Fosco will be the first to admit that he lacks the camera equipment and motor skills of, say, Herb Ritts or John Mackey (seriously, have you seen his camera work?). Looking at the above picture, it occurs to Fosco that you (Dear Reader!) have only Fosco's word that the blurry figure is indeed Patti Smith.

Who/what else could it be?

• Lindsay Lohan
  
• Eddie Vedder
  
• Johnny Storm, the Human Torch
  
• a solid gold idol of Baal
  
• Patty Smyth
  
• Our Lord and Savior, Jesus H. Christ
  
• Hannah Montana
  
• an Edwardian fairy

Getting to know me...

Fosco's been tagged again. As far as blog memes go, "Seven Things You Don't Know About Me" isn't a bad one (although it does raise some epistemological questions that I really don't know what to do with... I mean what do "you" really "know" about me anyway? But let's bracket those issues). It's certainly a preferable meme to

• Ten Things I Hate About You. (N.B., #3 is the way you always try to embarrass me at cocktail parties.)
  
• 8 Simple Rules for Dating my Teenage Daughter. (N.B., #5 is not to make me angry, as I have a congenital heart defect.)
  
• Five Places to Dig Up Family Treasures. (N.B., #2 is my pants.)

But anyway...

1. I don't really like movies. The last movie I went to in the theater (excluding art installations) was in calendar year 2005 (hint: there was "no day but today"). There are indeed movies I love (and I do tend to follow which movies are in theaters), but I can always think of about 15 things I'd rather do than watch a movie (including making out with Lindsay Lohan).

2. I've met Pat Buchanan not once, but TWICE. Let me insist that I am not proud of this fact. You know how some people use college as a time to experiment with drugs and lesbianism? Well unfortunately, Fosco experimented with fascism. I have since repented and am working on my redemption--redemption is a long process. I wish I could say the same for Buchanan. And what is that stuff he's covered with? Banana cream?

3. I have been to 41 of the 50 US states. And by "been to," I mean "spent non-trivial amounts of time in." What am I missing? Alaska, Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, Montana, North Dakota, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas. Luckily, at least five of those states will be worth visiting (guess which won't be).

4. My favorite flower is the grape hyacinth.

5. In one of his former academic incarnations, Fosco published a journal article and a book chapter about nonverbal behavior and deception.

6. In January, I sat next to Florence Henderson at the bar at Jean-Georges in NYC. She looked lovely. At first I thought it was a woman who looked like her, but when she spoke to the obsequious maitre d', it was clearly her.

I guess that was before she started dating that handsome-looking ear.

7. In college, I once worked for an entire summer at Au Bon Pain. Remember: it's not fast food--it's good food fast.

Here's hoping that this list doesn't become "Seven Things You Now Hate About Fosco."

Fosco tags... no one. Unless you want to do it. Then consider yourself tagged.

God Hates San Francisco

Fosco does like the occasional author talk, although unfortunately any future talks at Bookshop Santa Cruz are now totally out of the question, thanks to the store's nasty opposition to raising the Santa Cruz minimum wage. (If you're a Santa Cruzian, join the boycott!) But it was Fosco's personal assistant Geoffrey this time who dragged a worn-out Fosco to the Capitola Book Cafe last night to see geological (and more) essayist Simon Winchester.

Anyone who has read Fosco's recent journey across the country on I-80 (see Achives "2006-07-09" and "2006-07-16" below and to the right) knows that Fosco is fascinated by geology--especially the violent kind (sedimentation is, let's face it, a little snoozy). However, Fosco is a bit of geology snob: he prefers Princetonian and Pulitzer-Prize-winning John McPhee to "bestseller" authors like Simon Winchester. Of course, the problem is that Fosco has never actually read Simon Winchester... But Geoffrey has, and so there we were last night at Capitola Book Cafe, where Winchester was promoting his book about the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

It turns out that Simon Winchester is really smart and entertaining. If I had known he was British (and an Oxonian), I wouldn't have resisted reading his books for the last few years. I'm not going to summarize his whole talk, which, interestingly, was a talk and not a reading (talks being preferable to readings, in my book); however, I will note three points he made:

• He characterized the governmental response to the 1906 earthquake as something of which Americans should be "proud," in contrast to the governmental response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 (of which Americans should "ashamed.") He also noted that the governmental response to the next San Francisco earthquake (and the clock is ticking) is likely to be bad, unless we start preparing now.
  
• He traced the historical accidents by which the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake could be blamed for the rise of American Christian Fundamentalism. Apparently, one of the most influential Pentecostal ministers in LA made a prediction three days before the Earthquake that God was going to send a sign. The next week, his church was overflowing and the Pentecostal movement was born.
  
• Sometime in the next 2500 years, the volcano under Yellowstone Park is going to explode, completely burying the entire Pacific Northwest under tons of ash. Of course, as Winchester notes, the human race will be extinct by then (even Americans!).

The thing that made me saddest about the 1906 Earthquake (I mean, other than all that death...) was that it destroyed the 1000 room Hotel Nymphomania. It seems that SF was Fosco's kind of city even then.

Here's a pic of Winchester preparing to sign a book for an aging hippie (ah, Santa Cruz...).


Oh, and here's a startling tidbit: according to Winchester, there is a 67% chance of a 6.5 magnitude (on the Richter Scale) earthquake occuring on either the San Andreas or Hayward fault by 2025. The San Adreas quake would flatten San Francisco; the Hayward quake would destroy Berkeley and Oakland. Assuming that Fosco remains in Santa Cruz for the next six years, basic probability theory explains that there is a 33% chance that the devastating quake will occur while he is here. Of course, either quake would be much less damaging in Santa Cruz, but still... Yikes.

"Did a shadow pass?": Learning to fear Kaja Silverman

The problem with graduate school (well, okay, one of the problems) is that four times a week (on average), there is a talk on campus that Fosco would like to attend; however, due to Fosco's workload (or frequent need for restorative naps), he almost never makes it to any of them. His good intention to attend a talk almost always replaces his need to actually attend one. However, every so often, a talk strikes Fosco as unmissable... such as last Wednesday's visit to UCSC of Kaja Silverman.

Anyone familiar with Fosco's interests may find strange his desire to attend a Kaja Silverman talk--after all, he doesn't do much Lacan and absolutely NO film theory (in fact, Kaja Silverman probably watched as many films last month as Fosco watched in the last five years). In addition, Silveman's topic seemed almost deliberately obscure: a (long-past) video installation by Irish artist James Coleman (an artist that, incidentally, Fosco has never heard of). So why would Fosco want to go to this talk?

Because Fosco was Kaja-curious.

You see, Kaja Silverman is not just some Lacanian film theorist: she's a full-fledged Star in the Theory firmament. Kaja Silverman and Judith Butler are the Endowed Chair-holding Titans of that Powerhouse of Interdisciplinarity known as the Berkeley Rhetoric Department. So, regardless of whether Fosco was going to be able to understand a word she said, there was no way he would miss out on an opportunity to see a genuine Theory Rock Star! (Just as Above The Law likes to pretend that judges are rock stars, Fosco likes to do the same with theorists... Hmmm. Now do you understand why we were college roommates?)

And what did Fosco learn from this Kaja Silverman talk? Well, for one thing, she is brilliant. Although that's not a huge surprise--Berkeley doesn't just give you an Endowed Chair for being sassy (that's really more of a UC-Merced kind of thing...). The big surprise is that the talk was actually extremely interesting: Fosco forgot how much he enjoys art criticism talks. But this was no normal art criticism talk--she also managed to provide an extremely complicated meditation on time and space, drawing on Bergson and Deleuze. Did you know that you and I can both be living in different presents? At the same time? Wait... that sounds strangely familiar...

Okay, okay--all kidding aside, it actually was a really amazing meditation on space and time. I don't feel like saying any more about it though, as this blog is what I do when I don't want to explicate theory...

But here's the most interesting thing I learned about Kaja Silverman: she is SCARY. No, really! SCARY! Some of my compatriots in the audience have speculated that she might have hooves, but I don't know--I think she was actually wearing black ballet shoes and I would think it might be hard to get cloven feet into those.

How is she scary? Well, for one thing, she has this habit, during the question and answer period, of shadowing your question with "uh-huh"s until she feels that she fully understands the question; then, she cuts you off to answer it. None of that "wait until the questioner is done asking the question before answering it" stuff for Kaja Silverman. That would waste valuable seconds! The freaky art installations of the world aren't just going to explain themselves, dammit--Kaja Silverman has things to do!

You might think I'm making too big a deal of this, and I probably am. But, I guess I'm still a little surprised at it all. I watched her do it to FACULTY for christsake! Tenured faculty! She was clearly on a level above the mere mortals in the room and wasn't thrilled to have to suffer their questions.

I'm also pretty sure that I saw her outside on my balcony last night. [shiver]

Recent Advances in Beethoven Studies

Apparently, one cannot listen to My Chemical Romance every day for two weeks without eventually desiring to hear something different. (No offense is meant to MCR: I am looking forward to the new album more than any other recording released this year.) But, for a change of pace, the other day Fosco was playing through his classical discs...

And then he had an inspiration!

You see, a number of years ago, Count Fosco was the host of weekly radio show in Charlottesville, Virginia, devoted to contemporary classical music. Probably the station is one of the few in the US that would allow such a show to exist (as the audience for contemporary classical is, um, not large). He did this for almost five years, and he loved it. So many good memories:

• chatting occasionally with a regular listener who also happens to be a well-known conservative cultural critic.
  
• playing John Cage's 4'33" live on the air. Actually, as I recall, it was fund-raising week and my cohost and I gave our fundraising pitch for 4 minutes and 33 seconds. I suspect Cage would have approved.
  
• following on air a rock show hosted by his pasty-faced Majesty.
  
• causing a station-wide obscenity crisis by (naively) playing a musical setting of Allen Ginsberg's Howl. Silly me: I thought works of art were immune from obscenity rules... (This is SO not true, it turns out--stupid Supreme Court.)

Ah, good times, temporary layoffs...

But the thing I always wanted to do the most on that show I never did. You see, I heard once (and in the last 10 minutes of Google searching, I have been unable to track down a reliable source for this--if you have one, pass it along) that John Cage once played recordings of all nine Beethoven symphonies simultaneously. Several times during my radio years, it occurred to me that I would love to play such a "mashup" on my show. However, at the time, the technical difficulties of mixing the symphonies seemed a bit too daunting for me (i.e., I had a 386 with no sound card and no speakers) and the logistical difficulties of doing it "live" seemed to offer a problem as well (i.e., there weren't even nine working channels on the station's mixing board...).

Time has passed and I now have this MacBook that comes with (pre-installed!) some program called "GarageBand"--which is basically a mixing board for complete idiots (like me!). And so, flipping through my Beethoven discs last week, I realized that I am now fully capable of listening to ALL NINE BEETHOVEN SYMPHONIES SIMULTANEOUSLY.

And, to tell you the truth, it's even better than I thought it would be.

It's not the sonic mush that you might expect (at least if you, like me, can't imagine what to expect). And, believe it or not, it is quite catchy in parts--the beginning in particular.

Because I am Fosco and I love you, my Dear Reader, I want to make this experience available to you. If you want to hear this, you can download the sound file right here.

BEFORE you start downloading, here are the qualifications, caveats, etc:
1. This is a large file. 167 MB. It will take a bit of time and bandwidth.
2. The file format is AIFF. Why? I don't know. I'm not an expert at these things: just consider yourself lucky I could do this at all.
3. This is only the first movements of all nine symphonies. To go beyond that would be too complicated for me right now.
4. Do you know how hard it is to find a free filesharing site that will allow huge files and unlimited downloads and that will work with a Mac? It's hard, so I am using RapidShare. The downside is that, to download for free, you must A) choose the FREE download button and then B) wait like 3 minutes to begin (they even have an annoying timer). Alas.
5. For copyright reasons, I'm not going to tell you which recordings I've used. Just know that they are all the same conductor and orchestra. Does the conductor's last name (sort of) rhyme with "to-mah-to"? Could be. Does the orchestra's geographical location rhyme with "Merlin"? Maybe. I ain't sayin'.
6. Is this a travesty? Bite me.

Isn't contemporary music fun? And do I even need to tell you again to visit Osti Music to listen to some of John Mackey's compositions?

Field Trip Week: San Francisco Treat, Part 2

[Read Part 1 here.]

After the spending spree at City Lights, Fosco and his personal assistant Geoffrey window-shopped their way through the Market St shopping area (why does the H&M at 150 Post St only have women's apparel? Women's clothes don't fit Fosco.)

Looking up, we were discomfited to see the spooky wraiths crowning the mansard roof of 580 California St. (see pic at right). Later research reveals that:

• the building was designed by Philip Johnson.
  
• the statues are "corporate goddesses" and were designed by Muriel Castanis.
  
• they are twelve feet high and HAVE NO FACES (note the hint of rising panic in Fosco's voice).
  

With due respect to Ms. Castanis, Fosco prefers to disregard the artistic intention (corporate goddesses? whatever.) in favor of a much more sinister reading of these figures. Clearly these figures mean harm (and are eerily reminiscent of Peter Jackson's Ringwraiths in his LotR trilogy).

Fosco has but one request for the 580 California wraiths: "Please don't kill me."

Fosco and Geoffrey decided that the best place to hide from the wraiths was inside the SFMOMA. Fosco will have a separate entry on this visit (including a full review of the Matthew Barney film and installation in an upcoming post).

After the museum, we decided to play tourist for a bit, with a visit to the sea lions at Pier 39. Despite the frigid grey weather, the sea lions were out in force and they were spunky.

I must admit that I'm quite fascinated by sea lions. I like that they sleep in big piles of bodies. I also think it is cute when they scratch themselves with their hindflippers--like they had fingers or something. And did you know that they are evolutionarily related to bears? And who doesn't like bears?

And then something weird happened at Pier 39: I walked right past my freshman-year roommate Chuck Kapelke, who was pushing a stroller. I hadn't seen Chuck in almost ten years, but I recognized him easily (as he did me). We hadn't been in touch, but it turns out that he lives in the Bay Area and has an adorable daughter named Dahlia. He's a freelance writer, and it seems he has co-written a book, which is exciting. Even more exciting, according to the amazon.com text stats, is that his book is written at a much more advanced level than is Rick Moody's Garden State (for example). Awesome work, Chuck!

Watching all those sea lions made me hungry, so it was time to head to Chinatown for dinner at the famous dive, House of Nanking. Yes, there are no frills and no atmosphere (and you can be in-and-out in under 30 minutes), but it is still worth a visit. Surprisingly, the executive chef, Peter Fang, (dressed casually in a rugby shirt) was actually taking the orders himself when we were there. Maybe he needed a break from the kitchen. He was not exactly "friendly"--in fact, he arched an eyebrow at one of the dinner selections we made, for reasons which we don't understand (nor probably ever will).

The food was exceptional:

• Steamed potstickers in a red peanut sauce.
  
• Nanking scallops were crispy on the outside and smooth on the inside, each one served on a bed of lemon and eggplant.
  
• Stuffed mushrooms (listed in the vegetable section of the menu, but don't be fooled): filled with ground beef and pan-fried, then covered with a brown sauce. These were addictive--I will order them every time I return.
  

As we were finishing, I looked toward the cash register and spotted football star Warren Sapp waiting impatiently for a takeout order. In spite of my better judgment, I like Sapp a lot--I think he gives an extremely entertaining interview. He's actually not as big as I would have thought (I didn't realize he is only 6'2" and 300). He was dressed in blue/white Nike Jordan shorts and sweatshirt, large white leather soccer sandals, and some nice bling (big gold watch, chain, bracelet). He was chewing on a toothpick and seemed a bit peeved that he had to stand in front of the whole restaurant for 10 minutes while he waited for his food. He kept checking his cell and his pager. I'm pretty sure that I'm the only person eating there that recognized him (this wasn't exactly a sports-loving crowd).

And no, I didn't say anything to him--I just smiled, nodded and went back to my mushrooms. I would love for him to be gay, though. Sigh.

All-in-all, a full day in San Francisco, no? On the drive back, it became apparent that the South Bay had enjoyed a beautifully sunny day. As we drove, it was quite cool to watch the fog return to slide down the Eastern slopes of the mountains:

The fog here is certainly like no weather I've encountered before. It's actually a bit like that "nothing" from The Neverending Story. Great, now I'm hearing Limahl in my head. See you in hell, Limahl!