Dwayne Carter Jr

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=WPF2KJ42

Two Tribes

Los Angeles

Los Angeles requires periodic examination like a patient with high blood pressure. And because of a growing consensus that it represents an urban typology of the future, the frequency of those checkups seem to be increasing. While these vary in scope and relevance, few if any test the condition of contemporary architecture there in any detail, or the degree of probability with which it may be assumed that it has any connection with the massive changes now affecting the city. There will undoubtedly be an attempt, at some point soon, to use charts and graphs to trace historical and stylistic cross-currents which, however well meaning and skillfully done, will be off the mark. Good diagnosis requires intuition as well as statistics, and architecture in Los Angeles today is about issues as well as influence. Those issues, in this admittedly selective sectional slice through the LA corpus civicus at the moment, seem to revolve around the shifting perceptions of the growing multitudes who live there about the character of their city, and the reaction of the established residents among that group about the changes that are out of their control. Los Angeles seems doomed to legitimacy: the mother of 'edge cities' everywhere is reinventing herself again, and this time she wants respect. Her past, however, is predictably embarrassing, and now persists, to haunt her.

As its most visible and pervasive remnant, freeways arguably remain the most characteristic and memorable feature of a city now determined to circumvent them. As historian Paul Zygas has said: 'despite the clarity of the gridiron and (the) prominence of the urban set pieces in Los Angeles' downtown, neither coalesces in our minds as a memorable Gesalt. By contrast, visitors to Los Angeles most often remember its freeways, either with admiration or disgust. And for better or worse, it is the freeways (rather than individual buildings, or grand avenues, or public spaces) that remain ineradicably associated with Los Angeles. Because the freeways create the total Los Angeles context and because they condition the perception of Los Angeles' architecture, eclectic or not, we must give freeways their due.

If the freeways condition the perception and memory of visitors, they are even more of a psychological determinant for the people that must use them during every day they spend in the city. The local axiom that everywhere you go in Los Angeles takes at least half an hour by car, should be extended to include the guarantee that the majority of that time will be spent on the freeway. Rayner Banham, in his now canonical Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies, defined these 'ecologies' as 'Surfurbia', 'Foothills', 'The Plains of Id', and 'Autopia'. The last of these he felt to be an unavoidable category in any description of Los Angeles, because of the 'sheer vastness of the movement pattern' in the city, and the predominance of freeways. As Banham describes them: 'There seem to be two major reasons for their dominance in the city image of Los Angeles and both are aspects of their inescapability; firstly that they are so vast that you cannot help seeing them, and secondly, that there appears no alternative means of movement and you cannot help using them. There was once a time, before these gargantuan, contemporary aqueducts were layered onto the constellation of cities over which they pass, when people actually depended upon what are now known as 'surface' streets. These landmarks, permitting a sense of sequential passage through contiguous residential areas, once allowed a unified mental image of an urban texture to be retained, even if that texture was more grainy than most. This sense has now been destroyed by freeways, which only connect with the neighbourhoods below them at major intersections, thus reducing entire communities to a name on an exit sign, and the experience of visual interaction to one of channeled speed, where other cars are the only remaining reference. The disturbing thing is that successive generations have now made freeways the conveyance of choice, and now a majority of time time-concious Angelenos see 'surface' streets as an annoying waste of precious seconds. There are certain times during rush hours, when the freeways are so jammed that the cars, with their colour and model eradicated by the low angle of the sun, seem to blend together into a river of molten metal moving slowly in two directions at once. The popular aversion to 'surface' streets is now so strong, and the dependance on freeways so complete, that even the longest, most frustrating, delay is seen as preferable to the staccato indignity of the traffic lights on Sunset, Melrose or Pico, in spite of the fact that they might actually save time.

The freeway has consequently become the one inescapable social experience that all Angelenos share, with rules and conventions all its own. Indeed, these have become an intricate set of social rituals. The anthropologist Walter Burkett, in his well-researched study Homo Necans, has shown how ritual preceded speed as a means of human communication. He argues that such rituals have always been employed as a means of ensuring the psychological resolution of potentially debilitating conflicts, thus benefiting both individuals and the community of which they are a part. Ritual, he argues, is a biological behavioral system that has transcended its original purpose and has resulted in the repetition of a series of interrelated stereotypical actions intended to communicate important information about the original experience. Repetition is a key factor because it ensures that the information is not misunderstood, and that community or society, through clear understanding, will not suffer. When suffering did occur in traditional societies, and the community was threatened as a result, the related ritual would be discarded. In the case of the freeway, the threat has come from LA's astounding population growth, a phenomenon that has also shown a significant impact on every other aspect of the region. There are not only many more cars than there were 30 years ago, in a system that is increasingly unable to handle them, but the cultural mix of drivers on it is now totally different. Imagine rush hour in Mexico City, Seoul, Bangkok, Cairo and Istanbul all happening in the same place, in more powerful cars, and that approximates the condition on the LA freeways today. Each of the multitude of cultures now flooding into the city also brings its own peculiar variations of the driving ritual, with hair-raising results.

The highly publicized shootings of the recent past have now escalated to more sophisticated techniques, such as 'car-napping' or 'bump-and-stop', in which thieves preying upon drivers whose normal tendency is to stop to exchange paperwork upon the slightest impact, take valuables at gunpoint instead, and usually include the victims car as well. Regular impulses, such as concern for others in an accident, are now subverted into self preservation; and competition rather than mutual co-operation is the rule. The result is that the rituals of the freeway are now separated from their historical, sociological function, as a means of mutual support.

Because of the high speeds which are now typical, accidents are rarely minor, with horrific results. Cars flipped upside down, catapulted over barriers, totally flattened or crushed like an accordion are a daily sight, so that Banham's long-range confidence that 'an accident would never happen' to him, now seems like saying: 'I know a lot of people die of cancer, heart disease and Aids, but because it hasn't happened to anyone I know or to me personally, I'm confident it won't.' Rather than off-ramps being like a front door, and the exit from a freeway resembling 'coming in from outdoors', the sensation is now more like coming off a battlefield, and one of relief.

Yohji Yamamoto

He Used the Italian Tounge, and Used It With Perfect Ease; But This Would Not Have Convinced You He Was Italian

He was a man of forty, with a high but well shaped head, on which hair, still dense, but prematurely grizzled, had been cropped close. He had a fine, narrow, extremely modeled and composed face, of which the only fault was just this effect of it running a trifle too much to points; an appearance to which the shape of the beard contributed little. This beard, cut in the manner of the portraits of the sixteenth century and surmounted by a fair moustache, of which the ends had a romantic upward flourish, gave its wearer a foreign, traditionary look and suggested that he was a gentleman who studied style. His conscious, curious eyes, however, eyes at once vague and penetrating, intelligent and hard, expressive and of the observer as well as of the dreamer, would have assured you that he studied it only within well chosen limits, and that in so far as he sought it he found it. You would have been much at a loss to determine his original clime and country, he had none of the superficial signs that usually render the answer to this question an insipidly easy one. If he had English blood in his veins it had probably received some French or Italian commixture; but he suggested, fine gold coin as he was, no stamp or emblem of the common mintage that provides for general circulation; he was the elegant complicated medal struck off for a special occasion. He had a light, lean, rather languid-looking figure, and was apparently neither tall nor short. He was dressed as a man dresses who takes little other trouble about it than to have no vulgar things.

Oskar Broski - Tapered at the Foot End

That same evening Mama was taken to the City Hospital. Matzerath wept and lamented as we were waiting for the ambulance: 'Why don't you want the child? What does it matter whose it is? Or is it still on account of that damn fool horse's head? If only we'd never gone out there. Can't you forget it, Agnes? I didn't do it on purpose.'

The ambulance came, Mama was carried out. Children and grownups gathered on the sidewalk; they drove her away and it soon turned out that Mama had forgotten neither the breakwater nor the horse's head, that she had carried the memory of that horse - regardless of whether his name was Hans or Fritz - along with her. Every organ in her body stored up the bitter memory of that Good Friday excursion and for fear that it be repeated, her organs saw to it that my mama, who was quite in agreement with them, shoud die.

Dr. Hollatz spoke of jaundice and fish poisoning. In the hospital they found Mama to be in her third month of pregnancy and gave her a private room. For four days she showed those who were allowed to visit her a face devasted by pain and nausea; sometimes she smiled at me through her nausea.

Although she tried hard to make her visitors happy, just as today I do my best to seem pleased when visitors come, she could not prevent a periodic retching from seizing hold of her slowly wasting body, though there was nothing more to come out of it except, at last, on the fourth day of that strenous dying, the bit of breath which each of us must give up if he is to be honored with a death certificate.

We all sighed with relief when there was nothing more within her to provoke that retching which so marred her beauty. Once she had been washed and lay there in her shroud, she had her familiar, round, shrewdly naive face again. The head nurse closed Mama's eyes because Matzerath and Bronski were blind with tears.

I could not weep, because the others, the men and Grandma, Hedwig Bronski and the fourteen year old Stephan, were all weeping. Besides, my mama's death was no surprise to me. To Oskar, who went to the city with her on Thursdays and to the Church of Sacred Heart on Saturdays, it seemed as though she had been searching for years for a way of breaking up the triangle that would leave Matzerath, whom perhaps she hated, with the guilt and enable Jan Bronski, her Jan, to continue his work at the Polish Post Office fortified by thoughts such as: she died for me, she didn't want to stand in my way, she sacrificed herself.

With all the cool calculation the two of them, Mama and Jan, were capable of when it was a question of finding an undisturbed bed for their love, they nevertheless revealed quite a talent for romance: it required no great stretch of the imagination to identify them with Romeo and Juliet or with the prince and the princess who allegedly were unable to get together because the water was too deep.

While Mama, who had received the last sacraments in plenty of time, lay submissive to the priest's prayers, cold and impervious to anything that could be said or done, I found it in me to watch the nurses, who were mostly of the protestant faith. They folded their hands differently from the Catholics, more self-reliantly I should say, they said the Our Father with a wording that deviates from the original Catholic text, and they did not cross themselves like Grandma Koljaiczek, the Bronskis, and myself for that matter. My father Matzerath - I sometimes call him so even though his begetting of me was purely presumtive - prayed differently from the other protestants; instead of clasping his hands over his chest, he let his fingers pass hysterically from one religion to another somewhere in the vicinity of his private parts, and was obviously ashamed to be seen praying. My grandmother knelt by the deathbed beside her brother Vincent; she prayed loudly and vehemently in Kashubian, while Vincent only moved his lips, presumably in Polish, though his eyes were wide with spiritual experience. I should have liked to drum. After all I had my mother to thank for all those red and white drums. As a counterweight to Matzerath's desires, she had promised me a drum while I lay in my cradle; and from time to time Mama's beauty, particularly when she was still slender and had no need for gymnastics, had served as the model and subject matter for my drumming. At length I was unable to control myself; once again, by my mother's deathbed, I recreated the ideal image of her grey-eyed beauty on my drum. The head nurse protested at once, and I was very surprised when it was Matzerath who mollified her and took my part, whispering: 'Let him be, sister. They were so fond of each other.'

Mama could be very gay, she could also be very anxious. Mama could forget quickly, yet she had a good memory. Mama would throw me out with the bath water, and yet she would share my bath. When I sang windowpanes to pieces, Mama was on hand with putty. Sometimes she put her foot in it even when there were plenty of safe places to step. Sometimes Mama was lost to me, but her finder went with her. Even when Mama was buttoned up, she was an open book to me. Mama feared drafts but was always stirring up a storm. She lived on an expense account and disliked to pay taxes. I was the reverse of her coin. When Mama played a heart hand, she always won. When Mama died, the red flames on my drum casing paled a little; but the white lacquer became whiter than ever and so dazzling that Oskar was sometimes obliged to close his eyes.

My Mama was not buried at Saspe as she had occasionally said she would like to be, but in the peaceful little cemetery at Brenntau. There lay her stepfather Gregor Koljaiczek the powdermaker, who had died of influenza in '17. The mourners were numerous, as was only natural in view of my mama's popularity as the purveyor of groceries; in addition to the regular customers, there were salesmen from some of the wholesale houses, and even a few competitors turned up, such as Weinrich Fancy Groceries, and Mrs. Probst from Hertastrasse. The cemetery chapel was too small to hold the crowd. It smelled of flowers and black clothing seasoned with mothballs. My mother's face, in the open coffin, was yellow and ravaged. During the interminable ceremony I couldn't help feeling that her head would bob up again any minute and that she would have to vomit some more, that there was something more inside her that wanted to come out: not only that fetus aged three months who like me didn't know which father he had to thank for his existence; no, I thought, it's not just he who wants to come out and, like Oskar, demand a drum, no, there's more fish, not sardines, and not flounder, no, it's a little chunk of eel, a few whitish-green threads of eel flesh, eel from the battle of Skagerrak, eel from the Neufahrwasser breakwater, Good Friday eel, eel from that horse's head, possibly eel from her father Joseph Koljaiczek who ended under the raft, a prey to the eels, eel of thine eel, for eel thou art, to eel returnest...

But my mama didn't retch. She kept it down and it was evidently her intention to take it with her into the ground, that at last there may be peace.

When the men picked up the coffin lid with a view to shutting in my mama's nauseated yet resolute face, Anna Koljaiczek barred the way. Trampling the flowers round the coffin, she threw herself upon her daughter and wept, tore at the expensive white shroud, and wailed in Kashubian.

There were many who said later that she had cursed my presumptive father Matzerath, calling him her daughter's murderer. She is also said to have spoken of my fall down the cellar stairs. She took over the story from Mama and never allowed Matzerath to forget his ostensible responsibility for my ostensible misfortune. These accusations never ceased, although Matzerath, in defiance of all political considerations and almost against his will, treated her with a respect bordering on reverence and during the war years supplied her with sugar and synthetic honey, coffee and kerosene.

Greff the vegetable dealer and Jan Bronski, who was weeping in a high feminine register, led my grandmother away from the coffin. The men were able to fasten the lid and at last to put on the faces that pallbearers always put on when they lift up a coffin.

In Brenntau cemetery with its two fields on either side of the avenue bordered by elm trees, with its little chapel that looked like a set for a nativity play, with its well and its sprightly little birds, Matzerath led the procession and I followed. It was then for the first time that I took a liking to the shape of a coffin. Since then I have often had occasion to gaze upon dark-colored wood employed for ultimate ends. My Mama's coffin was black. It tapered in the most wonderfully harmonious way, toward the foot end. Is there any other form in this world so admirably suited to the proportions of the human body?

If beds only had that narrowing at the foot end! If only all our habitual and occasional lying could taper off so unmistakably toward the foot end. For all the airs we give ourselves, the ostentatious bulk of our head, shoulders, and torso tapers off toward the feet, and on this narrow base the whole edifice must rest.

Matzerath went directly behind the coffin. He carried his top hat in his hand and, despite his grief and the slow pace, made every effort to keep his knees stiff. I always felt sorry for him when I saw him from the rear; that protuberant occiput and those two throbbing arteries that grew out of his collar and mounted to his hairline.

Why was it Mother Truczinski rather than Gretchen Scheffler or Hedwig Bronski who took me by the hand? She lived on the second floor of our house and apparently had no first name, for everyone called her Mother Truczinski.

Before the coffin went Father Wienhnke with a sexton bearing incense. My eye's slipped from the back of Matzerath's neck to the furrowed necks of the pallbearers. I had to fight down a passionate desire: Oskar wanted to climb up on the coffin. He wanted to sit up there and drum. However, it was not his tin instrument but the coffin lid that he wished to assail with his drumsticks. He wanted to ride aloft, swaying in the rythm of the pallbearers' wary gait. He wanted to drum for the mourners who were repeating their prayers after Father Wienhke. And as they lowered the casket into the ground, he wanted to stand firm on the lid. During the sermon, the bell ringing, the dispensing of incense and holy water, he wished to beat out his Latin on the wood as they lowered him into the grave with the coffin. He wished to go down into the pit with Mama and the fetus. And there he wished to remain while the survivors tossed in their handfuls of earth, no, Oskar didn't wish to come up, he wished to sit on the tapering foot end of the coffin, drumming if possible, drumming under the earth, until the sticks rotted out of his hands, until his mama for his sake and he for her sake should rot away, giving their flesh to the earth and its inhabitants; with his very knuckles Oskar would have wished to drum for the fetus, if it had only been possible and allowed.

No one sat on the coffin. Unoccupied, it swayed beneath the elms and weeping willows of Brenntau Cemetery. In among the graves the sexton's spotted chickens, picking for worm, reaping what they had not sowed. Then through the birches. Hand in hand with Mother Truczinski. Ahead of me Matzerath, and directly behind me my grandmother on the arms of Greff and Jan; then Vincent Bronski on Hedwig's arm, then little Marga and Stephan hand in hand, then the Schefflers. Then Laubschad, but without his instrument and relatively sober.

Only when it was all over and the condolences started, did I notice Sigismund Markus. Black-clad and embarrassed, he joined the crowd of those who wished to shake hands with me, my grandmother, and the Bronksi's and mumble something. At first I failed to understand what Alexander Scheffler wanted of Markus. They hardly knew each other, perhaps they had never spoken to one another before. Then Meyn the musician joined forces with Scheffler. They stood beside a waist-high hedge made of that green stuff that discolors and tastes bitter when you rub it between your fingers. Mrs. Kater and her daughter Susi, who was grinning behind her handkerchief and had grown rather too quickly, were just tendering their sympathies to Matzerath, naturally - how could they help it? - patting my head in the process. The altercation behind the hedge grew louder but was still unintelligible. Meyn the trumpeter thrust his index finger at Markus' black facade and pushed; then he seized one of Sigismund's arms while Scheffler took the other. Both were very careful that Markus, who was walking backward, should not stumble over the borders of the tombs; thus they pushed him as far as the main avenue, where they showed him where the gate was. Markus seemed to thank them for the information and started for the exit; he put on his silk hat and never looked around at Meyn and the baker, though they looked after him.

Neither Matzerath nor Mother Tuczinski saw me wander away from them and the condolences. Assuming the manner of a little boy who has to go, Oskar slipped back past the grave-digger and his assistant. Then, without regard for the ivy, he ran to the elms, catching up with Sigismund Markus before the exit.

'If it ain't little Oskar,' said Markus with surprise. 'Say, what are they doing to Markus?' What did Markus ever do to them they should treat him so?'

I didn't know what Markus had done. I took him by his hand, it was clammy with sweat, and led him through the open wrought-iron gate, and there in the gateway the two of us, the keeper of my drums and I, the drummer, possibly his drummer, ran into Leo Schugger, who like us believed in paradise.

Markus knew Leo, everyone in town knew him. I had heard of him, I knew that one sunny day while he was still at the seminary, the world, the sacraments, the religions, heaven and earth, life and death had been so shaken up in his mind that forever after his vision of the world, though mad, had been radiant and perfect.

Leo Schugger's occupation was to turn up after funerals - and no one could pass away without getting wind of it - wearing a shiny black suit several sizes too big for him and white gloves, and wait for mourners. Markus and I were both aware that it was in his professional capacity that he was standing there at the gate of Brenntau Cemetery, waiting with a slavering mouth, compassionate gloves, and watery blue eyes for the mourners to come out.

It was bright and sunny, mid-May. Plenty of birds in the hedges and trees, Crackling hens, symbolizing immortality with and through their eggs. Buzzing in the air. Fresh coat of green, no dust. Bearing a tired topper in his left gloved hand, Leo Schugger, moving with the lightness of a dancer, for grace had touched him, stepped up to Markus and myself, advancing five mildewed gloved fingers. Standing aslant as if to brace himself against the wind, though there was none, he tilted his head and blubbered, spinning threads of saliva. Hesitantly at first, then with resolution, Markus inserted his bare hand in the animated glove. 'What a beautiful day!' Leo blubbered. 'She has already arrived where everything is so cheap. Did you see the lord? Habemus ad Dominum. He just passed by in a hurry. Amen.'

We said amen. Markus agreed about the beautiful day and even said yes he had seen the lord.

Behind us we heard mourners buzzing closer. Markus let his hand fall from Leo's glove, found time to give him a tip, gave me a Markus kind of look, and rushed away toward the taxi that was waiting for him outside the Brenntau post office.

I was still looking after the cloud of dust that obscured the receding Markus when Mother Truczinski took my hand. They came in groups and grouplets. Leo Schugger had sympathies for all; he called attention to the fine day, asked everyone if he had seen the lord, and as usual received tips of varying magnitude. Matzerath and Jan Bronski paid the pallbearers, the gravedigger, the sexton, and Father Wiehnke, who with a sign of embarrassment let Leo Schugger kiss his hand and then proceeded, with his kissed hand, to toss wisps of benediction after the slowly dispersing funeral company.

Meanwhile we - my grandmother, her brother Vincent, the Bronskis and their children, Greff without a wife, and Gretchen Scheffler - took our seats in two common farm wagons. We were driven past Goldkrug through the woods across the nearby Polish border to the funeral supper at Bissau Quarry.

Vincent Bronski's farm lay in a hollow. There were poplars in front of it that were supposed to divert lightning. The barn door was removed from its hinges, laid on saw horses, and covered with tablecoths. More people came from the vicinity. It was some time before the meal was ready. It was served in the barn doorway. Gretchen Scheffler held me on her lap. First there was something fatty, then something sweet, then more fat. There was potato schnaps, beer, a roast goose and a roast pig, cake with sausage, sweet and sour squash, fruit pudding with sour cream. Toward evening a slight breeze came blowing through the open barn, there was a scurrying of mice and of Bronski children, who, in league with the neighborhood urchins, took possession of the barnyard.

Oil lamps were brought out, and skat cards. The potato schnaps stayed where it was. There was also homemade egg liqueur that made for good cheer. Greff did not drink but he sang songs. The Kashubians sang too, and Matzerath had first deal. Jan was the second hand and the foreman from the brickworks the third. Only then did it strike me that my poor mama was missing. They played until well into the night, but none of the men succeeded in winning a heart hand. After Jan Bronski for no apparent reason had lost a heart hand without four, I heard him say to Matzerath in an undertone: 'Agnes would surely have won that hand.'

Then I slipped off Gretchen Scheffler's lap and found grandmother and her brother Vincent outside. They were sitting on a wagon shaft. Vincent was muttering to the stars in Polish. My grandmother couldn't cry any more but she let me crawl under her skirts.

Who will take me under her skirts today? Who will shelter me from the daylight and the lamplight? Who will give me the smell of melted yellow, slightly rancid butter that my grandmother used to stock for me beneath her skirts and feed me to make me put on weight?

I fell asleep beneath her four skirts, close to my poor mama's beginnings and as still as she, though not so short of air as she in her box tapered at the foot end.

Johnny

Michael Jackson

Usually, when a celebrity dies, there’s a rush of attention that inflates career and reputation, temporarily but powerfully. With Michael Jackson, who died this afternoon in Los Angeles at fifty, that’s impossible. The life he lived was so outsized, and he was in the spotlight so long, that in this case death will do in our minds what it does in fact: it will diminish him. There will be an outpouring of sorrow, of course, but the sorrow has been pouring out for years, ever since Jackson went from being America’s (and then the world’s) favorite nonthreatening pop icon to a troubled man with legal, financial, and medical troubles to, finally, a troubling man.

Tyler Brûlé

Living it up in Latherland

By Tyler Brûlé
Published: February 14 2009 01:29

It has been a slightly faster week than normal in the Fast Lane with almost as much time spent in the air as on the ground.

Last Saturday morning I dashed across the Golden Gate Bridge for a quick breakfast in Sausalito and then spent the rest of the day, and most of the day after, crossing the Pacific bound for Seoul. On Monday evening it was back in the air for a flight down to Singapore. Tuesday lunch was a short hop up to Bangkok. Wednesday was a jump up to Hong Kong. Thursday it was a late evening flight to Taipei. And Friday midday it was JAL to Tokyo.

I’m hoping by the time this paper hits the press I’ll be settled into a favourite bar in Ebisu surrounded by a few of my favourite people, a plate of nibbles and a very crisp glass of Japanese white. Given the logistics involved, it was pretty close to a seamless week save for a cancelled flight to Taipei and a few pieces of hard-to-find luggage belonging to some amateur travellers who were clearly overwhelmed by the duty-free delights at Changi airport.

While I’m not a terribly superstitious person I do think most of the week is plotted – and its outcomes determined – somewhere between 6am and 7am on Monday morning. If you jump into the shower and get the temperature right at the first spin of the tap and then emerge with hair that needs little more then a dab of wax (or whatever your preferred product is) you can almost guarantee 85 per cent of the week will run to plan. If you then make it to your wardrobe and nail your look for the day ahead the first time around (no swapping shirts, no changing shoes, no readjusting of necktie) then there’s little that can stand in your way for the next seven days.

I’m rather convinced that my perfect Monday morning at the Grand Hyatt in Seoul had everything to do with setting the tone for the days that followed. It went something like this:
05.50 Beat the wake up call by 10 minutes and stumble to the desk to check e-mail and charge various communication devices for the day ahead.
05.53 Call room service and order a cappuccino and a mandarin juice.
05.56 Pull on sneakers, shorts and t-shirt, brush my teeth and try to make my hair presentable for the short journey down to the gym.
06.00 Emerge from the lift, sign into the gym and find a treadmill.
06.02 Break into a 10kph run and keep up the pace for 35 minutes.
06.37 Wind down to a brisk walk and search for a favourite song or two on my iPod before heading to the sauna.
06.40 Remove shoes, place them in a shoe locker and then pad up the short staircase to what might be the best men’s spa in the world. I’m not usually the biggest fan of hotel spas but the set-up at the Grand Hyatt is special. Most of the men shuffling around in black slippers and various outfits supplied by the club are either Seoul businessmen en route to work or Korean industrialists who look like they’ll probably be there for the entire day. And who could blame them? The space is all soothing blonde woods, mint carpeting and low lighting. Pacing around the interconnecting rooms are well appointed attendants who are constantly replenishing towels, robes and toiletries. In adjoining rooms other staff members are offering rather painful but satisfying body scrubs.
06.43 Deposit clothes in locker and wander through to what can only be described as a human carwash. The oval room features washing bays that borrow from Japanese-style seated washing arrangements (stool, rinsing bucket, shower attachment and a series of dispensers containing soap, shampoo and conditioner) but improve on the concept by offering a little more privacy. It’s puzzling why the rest of the world hasn’t embraced seated washing. I reckon once you’ve sat down to lather up, scrub, shampoo and rinse it’s difficult to think about standing up to wash ever again.
06.50 Move to one of three pools and opt to ease into the hottest, most bubbly of the bunch. Find a jet to blast a nagging backache I’m convinced is caused by aircraft seats that are angry because they’ve lost their identity as they’re neither a chair nor a bed.
06.53 Decide I’ve had enough thermal therapy for one morning and step over a low-rise wall into the breathtakingly chilly cold pool.
06.59 Dry off and choose from an array of lounging outfits to be worn for grooming, newspaper-reading and napping. I go for a light cotton robe and pull on some jumbo-size blue boxers underneath. I find a space in front of a large mirror and sample virtually every product that’s been laid out for pre-work personal improvement.

It’s tricky to pinpoint what made the whole experience so special but I think the simple act of bathing as a complete, well-engineered ritual put me in a perfect frame of mind for the following days. If Korea Inc is wondering how it’s going to boost exports, they might want to take their unique style of washing on the road and help the rest of the world start the week with a sparkle.

Michael Jordan

And those who played before and since.

P.S. GO MAGIC, you can do it if you just Game 2 it!

Redmond Barry Lyndon

Barry Lyndon - Seducing Without Words - Watch the best video clips here

Yves Rossy

Hans van den Boek

At our very first meeting, Juliet Schwarz turned to Rachel and asked if she loved me and, if yes, what it was about me that she loved. Objection! I felt like shouting to this rotten, terrifying interrogation.

It was not the case that I’d heroically bowled her over (my hope) or that she’d tragically decided to settle for a reliable man (my fear). She had stayed married to me, she stated in the presence of Juliet Schwarz, because she felt a responsibility to see me through life, and the responsibility felt like a happy one.

Juliet turned her head. ‘Hans.’

I couldn’t speak. My wife’s words had overwhelmed me. She had put it into words – indeed into reality – exactly how I felt.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Same here.’

Mike Tyson

Robert Moses

''Those who can, build,'' Mr. Moses once said. ''Those who can't, criticize.'' Robert Moses was, in every sense of the word, New York's master builder. Neither an architect, a planner, a lawyer nor even, in the strictest sense, a politician, he changed the face of the state more than anyone who was. Before him, there was no Triborough Bridge, Jones Beach State Park, Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, West Side Highway or Long Island parkway system or Niagara and St. Lawrence power projects. He built all of these and more.

Before Mr. Moses, New York State had a modest amount of parkland; when he left his position as chief of the state park system, the state had 2,567,256 acres. He built 658 playgrounds in New York City, 416 miles of parkways and 13 bridges.

His guiding hand made New York, known as a city of mass transit, also the nation's first city for the automobile age. Under Mr. Moses, the metropolitan area came to have more highway miles than Los Angeles does; Moses projects anticipated such later automobile-oriented efforts as the Los Angeles freeway system.

But where Los Angeles grew up around its highways, Mr. Moses thrust many of New York's great ribbons of concrete across an older and largely settled urban landscape, altering it drastically. He further changed the landscape with rows of red-brick apartment towers for low- and middle-income residents, asphalt playgrounds and huge sports stadiums.

The Moses vision of New York was less one of neighborhoods and brownstones than one of soaring towers, open parks, highways and beaches - not the sidewalks of New York but the American dream of the open road.

Throughout his career he pointed with pride to his ability to ''get things done.'' It was an ability no one questioned; nonetheless Mr. Moses was a controversial figure, especially in the later years of his public career. He was far more agile at behind-the-scenes maneuvering than he was at public politicking.

In his one try for elective office, his race for Governor on the Republican ticket in 1934, he was defeated by 800,000 votes, the largest margin in New York State history. After the debacle, his administrative power continued unabated, but he never again considered running for office.

Mr. Moses was close to a number of city, state and Federal Government officials. But with the exception of Gov. Alfred E. Smith, to whom he owed much of his early power, he seemed, to many observers, to be less in debt to governors, mayors and even Presidents than they appeared to be to him. His era of power had begun long before the election of many of the chief executives for whom he worked, and it continued long after many of them had passed from public view.

Critics were later to question whether Mr. Moses' biases were a cause or an effect of the automobile age, but it is certain that he focused his public-works projects on increasing suburbanization and use of the automobile. He was largely responsible for the network of parkways on Long Island, for example, as well as for highways within the city that were conceived more for the convenience of suburban automobile owners than inner-city residents.

Like many planners in the 1930's and 1940's, Mr. Moses did not question, as later planners did, the ultimate effect the automobile would have on the city, choking old streets with traffic and leading to the demolition of many neighborhoods to make way for expressways. Mr. Moses believed simply, as he stated in his 1974 rebuttal to the Caro biography, that ''we live in a motorized civilization.'' He saw the automobile as a force that was bound to revolutionize the landscape, and he intended to help guide that process.

He is Not a Man, He is Cantona

Marshal Hulot

In spite of all Listbeth's care and attention, three days later Marshal Hulot was dead. Such men are the pride of the causes they have embraced. To Republicans the Marshal was the ideal patriot, and they all came to take part in his funeral procession, which was followed by an enormous crowd. The Army, the Government, the Court, the ordinary people, all came to render homage to his high virtue, his untouched integrity, his undimmed glory. Not for the asking do the representatives of a whole nation follow a man's coffin. This funeral was marked by one of those gestures, showing the greatest delicacy, good taste, and true feeling, that from time to time recall the qualities and the glory of the French aristocrats. For, following the Marshal's coffin, the old Marquis de Montauran was to be seen, the brother of the man who in the rising of the Chouans in 1799 had been the opponent, the defeated and fatally wounded opponent, of Hulot. The Marquis, falling under the bullets of the Republican bluecoats, the Blues, had entrusted his young brother's interests to the Republican soldier. Hulot had accepted the nobleman's charge thus laid upon him, and executed it so well that he had succeeded in preserving his estates for the young man, who was at the time an émigré. And for that reason the old French nobility, too, paid their homage to the soldier who nine years before, in 1832, had vanquished Madame, when she tried to recover the throne for her son, the Duc de Berry, by force of arms.

Bruce Wayne

Señor Esteban Vihaio

Victorin Hulot

From the mistfortunes implacably pursuing his family, Victorin Hulot recieved the hammering that makes a man or breaks him. It perfected Victorin. In the great storms of life we act like ships' captains at sea, and lighten ship by throwing the heavy cargo overboard. The lawyer had abandoned his inner arrogance, and his political pretensions. He grew to be Adeline's masculine counterpart. He resolved to make the best of his Célestine, although she was certainly not the wife he had dreamed of, and achieved a balanced view of life, realizing that we are obliged by universal law to be content with with a more or less imperfect approximation to the ideal. He solemnly vowed, in his profound sense of shock at his father's behaviour, to do all his duty. His resolution was confirmed as he sat at his mother's bedside on the day that she passed the crisis of her illness.

Lalit Modi

The speed with which Lalit Modi has taken the IPL away from India and confirmed South Africa as the host nation next month has been simply breathtaking, establishing him beyond doubt as one of the most effective sports administrators in history.A tournament that was in danger of collapse because of Indian security issues has been rescued by Modi's foresight, decisiveness and staggering self-belief. It is one thing to recognise a solution, it is quite another to make it happen. England may talk at times of his arrogance, but his dynamism has lessons for us all. It is salutary to reflect on how much most of us achieved by comparison in the 48 hours or so between Sunday afternoon, when Modi pronounced that the IPL would not be staged in India, to Tuesday afternoon, when South Africa were chosen ahead of England to host the tournament.

Modi, like many successful businessmen, bows to democratic processes when things are running smoothly, but he could not be more autocratic when a crisis hits. This rarely matters. When decisions carry dangers, others are so fearful of the pitfalls that they are happy to hide behind someone brave enough to put their reputation on the line.

When Modi decided to act, his tactics were perfect. He probably knew from the start that South Africa was his preferred option, but he also knew that dealing with a sole bidder gave him limited room for manoeuvre. So he called up England as an alternative and cleverly, gratefully and with the certainty of someone with a good product to offer, played one off against the other.

He was at his shrewdest in repeatedly insisting that a decision had to be made by Tuesday. All around him, there was an urge to slow things down. But with reflection would come doubts and with doubts would come a loss of impetus. The only option was to force through the decision and then address the logistical problems that will now become apparent.

He saw a problem and dealt with it: rapidly, straightforwardly, emphatically, with not a sub-committee or viability report in sight. He deserves a tournament to remember.

Who's Making Love? No, You mean What is Love?

Charles Grandet

His first appearance at his uncle’s house, whether it were in Saumur of at Froidfond, must be made in suitable style, so Charles had put on his choicest traveling outfit, the smartest one he had which had the elegance of simplicity, the most adorable, to use the current epithet for perfection in a man or thing. At Tours a hairdresser had been summoned to recurl his beautiful chestnut hair, and he had changed his linen and put on a black satin cravat and a round collar which framed his pale mocking face becomingly. A long overcoat, fitting tightly at the waist, was left half-unbuttoned to show a cashmere waistcoat with a roll collar, under which was a second, white, waistcoat. His watch was fastened to one of his buttonholes by a short gold chain, and negligently tucked into a pocket. His grey trousers were buttoned at the sides, and decorated at the seams with black silk embroidery. The freshness of his grey gloves had nothing to fear from contact with the gold-headed cane which he twirled with an easy grace. His traveling cap completed a picture in perfect taste. Only a Parisian, and a Parisian from the highest spheres, could fit himself up in this style, and not only avoid looking ridiculous, but even give to all his affectations an air of being modishly right, carrying them off with a gallant swagger, the dash of a young man who possesses a fine pair of pistols, skill in their use, and Annette.

It seemed to Eugenie, who had never seen such a paragon of beauty, so wonderfully dressed, that her cousin was a seraph come from heaven. She breathed the perfume of that shining head of hair, so gracefully curled, with delight. She would have liked to touch the satiny skin of those enchanting, fine, gloves. She envied Charles his small hands, his complexion, and the freshness and delicacy of his features.

Kowloon Testarossa

My friend Gilbert took this photo in a tunnel in Hong Kong

Barack & Michelle, Chicago 1996

One month on the job, Congratulations Mr. Obama

You're Either a Fashion Person or You're Not

If you can recall the precise angle at which the coolest dude at your school wore his blazer collar, then you're definatley style-focused. The real fashion nut is likely to have been the too-cool-for-school kid, the one who sent shockwaves through the playground one morning when he arrived with his blazer sleeves rolled up. And after more than half a decade of life in the narcst lane this is perhaps my main insight: most of fashion is an attempt to recreate, to recapture and prolong the intensely giddy and sensual, absurdly exciting success of a school look. Indeed, I would say that most of us have our fashion imaginations arrested at 15. We are, like drug addicts, forever trying to recreate that early rush.

Here's to the next generation.

When an Immovable Object Meets an Unstoppable Force

Omar Little > Lawyers

Our Royal Family, Crumbling Aristocracy, My Generation?

Oasis - Falling Down MySpace Exclusive

Kit

George Louis Costanza

Da Art of Storytellin

Le Baron Montès de Montejanos

'How are you, my dear fellow?' said Monsieur Marneffe, holding out his hand to the Brazilian, who looked exactly like a millionaire from Brazil as one imagines him.

Monsieur le Baron Henri Montès de Montejanos, the product of an equatorial climate, had the physique and complexion that we all associate with Othello. At first sight he intimidated by his glowing looks, but this was a purely plastic effect, for his character was extremely gentle and affectionate, and predestined him to the kind of exploitation that weak women practise on strong men. The disdain expressed in his face, the muscular strength of his body, his obvious aggressive powers, were offensive only to men; to women homage from such a man was flattering, and flattering in a way that goes powerfully to women's heads. All men are conscious of women's susceptibility to pugnacious masculinity; and one may see a man, giving his arm to his mistress, assume a swashbuckling swagger that is very amusing. With his superb figure set off by a blue coat with buttons of solid gold, and black trousers, wearing well-polished boots of of fine leather, convetionally gloved, the Baron had nothing Brazilian about his dress but a huge diamond, worth about a hundred thousand francs, that glittered like a star on a sumptuous blue silk cravat. A white waiscoat revealed a glimpse of shirt of fabulously fine material. His forehead, projecting like a satyr's, a sign of obstinate tenacity in passion, was surmounted by a jet-black head of springing hair like a virgin forest, below which a pair of clear eyes glittered, so tawny and untamed as to make it seem credible that his mother when carrying him had been frightened by a jaguar.

This magnificent specimen of Portugese Brazilian manhood took up his stand, back to the fireplace, in an attitude which showed parisian habits; and, his hat in one hand, resting an arm against the velvet draped mantelpiece, he bent over Madame Marneffe to talk in a low voice to her, concerning himself very little about all the frightful bourgeois people who seemed to him to be very inopportunely cluttering up the room.

Prada Halter

Rem Koolhaas

UPDATE!

ICO

Soldiers of Samarra

Lasantha

"When finally I am killed, it will be the government that kills me," wrote Lasantha Wickrematunge, in a posthumous column published last Sunday that speaks for the ideals of good journalism everywhere. The editor of Sri Lanka's Sunday Leader knew he faced a violent death, and knew too that he could have avoided it, if he had not chosen to confront the brutal forces that are destroying the secular liberal democracy he believed in. His courage was beyond question, his final essay is a stunning defence of independent investigative journalism in a country where free thought is much needed.

'No other profession calls on its practitioners to lay down their lives for their art save the armed forces - and, in Sri Lanka, journalism. In the course of the last few years, the independent media have increasingly come under attack. Electronic and print institutions have been burned, bombed, sealed and coerced. Countless journalists have been harassed, threatened and killed. It has been my honour to belong to all those categories, and now especially the last.

I have been in the business of journalism a good long time. Indeed, 2009 will be the Sunday Leader's 15th year. Many things have changed in Sri Lanka during that time, and it does not need me to tell you that the greater part of that change has been for the worse. We find ourselves in the midst of a civil war ruthlessly prosecuted by protagonists whose bloodlust knows no bounds. Terror, whether perpetrated by terrorists or the state, has become the order of the day. Indeed, murder has become the primary tool whereby the state seeks to control the organs of liberty. Today it is the journalists, tomorrow it will be the judges. For neither group have the risks ever been higher or the stakes lower.

Why then do we do it? I often wonder that. After all, I too am a husband, and the father of three wonderful children. I too have responsibilities and obligations that transcend my profession, be it the law or journalism. Is it worth the risk? Many people tell me it is not. Friends tell me to revert to the bar, and goodness knows it offers a better and safer livelihood.
Others, including political leaders on both sides, have at various times sought to induce me to take to politics, going so far as to offer me ministries of my choice. Diplomats, recognising the risk journalists face in Sri Lanka, have offered me safe passage and the right of residence in their countries.

Whatever else I may have been stuck for, I have not been stuck for choice.
But there is a calling that is yet above high office, fame, lucre and security. It is the call of conscience.

The Sunday Leader has been a controversial newspaper because we say it like we see it: whether it be a spade, a thief or a murderer, we call it by that name. We do not hide behind euphemism. The investigative articles we print are supported by documentary evidence thanks to the public-spiritedness of citizens who at great risk to themselves pass on this material to us. We have exposed scandal after scandal, and never once in these 15 years has anyone proved us wrong or successfully prosecuted us.

The free media serve as a mirror in which the public can see itself sans mascara and styling gel. From us you learn the state of your nation, and especially its management by the people you elected to give your children a better future. Sometimes the image you see in that mirror is not a pleasant one. But while you may grumble in the privacy of your armchair, the journalists who hold the mirror up to you do so publicly and at great risk to themselves. That is our calling, and we do not shirk it.

The Sunday Leader has never sought safety by unquestioningly articulating the majority view. Let's face it, that is the way to sell newspapers. On the contrary, as our opinion pieces over the years amply demonstrate, we often voice ideas that many people find distasteful. For instance, we have consistently espoused the view that while separatist terrorism must be eradicated, it is more important to address the root causes of terrorism, and urge government to view Sri Lanka's ethnic strife in the context of history and not through the telescope of terrorism. We have also agitated against state terrorism in the so-called war against terror, and made no secret of our horror that Sri Lanka is the only country in the world routinely to bomb its own citizens. For these views we have been labelled traitors; and if this be treachery, we wear that label proudly.

Many people suspect that the Sunday Leader has a political agenda: it does not. If we appear more critical of the government than of the opposition, it is only because we believe that - excuse cricketing argot - there is no point in bowling to the fielding side. Remember that for the few years of our existence in which the United National party was in office, we proved to be the biggest thorn in its flesh, exposing excess and corruption wherever it occurred.
Indeed, the stream of embarrassing expositions we published may well have served to precipitate the downfall of that government.

Neither should our distaste for the war be interpreted to mean that we support the Tamil Tigers. The LTTE is among the most ruthless and bloodthirsty organisations to have infested the planet. There is no gainsaying that it must be eradicated. But to do so by violating the rights of Tamil citizens, bombing and shooting mercilessly, is not only wrong but shames the Sinhalese, whose claim to be custodians of the dhamma is for ever called into question by this savagery - much of it unknown to the public because of censorship.

What is more, a military occupation of the country's north and east will require the Tamil people of those regions to live eternally as second-class citizens, deprived of all self-respect. Do not imagine you can placate them by showering "development" and "reconstruction" on them in the postwar era. The wounds of war will scar them for ever, and you will have an even more bitter and hateful diaspora to contend with. A problem amenable to a political solution will thus become a festering wound that will yield strife for all eternity. If I seem angry and frustrated, it is only because most of my compatriots - and all the government - cannot see this writing so plainly on the wall.

It is well known that I was on two occasions brutally assaulted, while on another my house was sprayed with machine-gun fire. Despite the government's sanctimonious assurances, there was never a serious police inquiry into the perpetrators of these attacks, and the attackers were never apprehended.

In all these cases, I have reason to believe the attacks were inspired by the government. When finally I am killed, it will be the government that kills me.
The irony in this is that, unknown to most of the public, President Mahinda Rajapaksa and I have been friends for more than a quarter-century. Indeed, I suspect that I am one of the few people remaining to routinely address him by his first name and use the familiar Sinhala address - oya - when talking to him.

Although I do not attend the meetings he periodically holds for newspaper editors, hardly a month passes when we do not meet, privately or with a few close friends present, late at night at President's House. There we swap yarns, discuss politics and joke about the good old days. A few remarks to him would therefore be in order here.

Mahinda, when you finally fought your way to the Sri Lanka Freedom party presidential nomination in 2005, nowhere were you welcomed more warmly than in this column. Indeed, we broke with a decade of tradition by referring to you throughout by your first name. So well known were your commitments to human rights and liberal values that we ushered you in like a breath of fresh air.

Then, through an act of folly, you got involved in the Helping Hambantota scandal. It was after a lot of soul-searching that we broke the story, urging you to return the money. By the time you did, several weeks later, a great blow had been struck to your reputation. It is one you are still trying to live down.

You have told me yourself that you were not greedy for the presidency. You did not have to hanker after it: it fell into your lap. You have told me that your sons are your greatest joy, and that you love spending time with them, leaving your brothers to operate the machinery of state. Now, it is clear to all who will see that that machinery has operated so well, my sons and daughter do not have a father.

In the wake of my death I know you will make all the usual sanctimonious noises and call upon the police to hold a swift and thorough inquiry.

But like all the inquiries you have ordered in the past, nothing will come of this one, too. For truth be told, we both know who will be behind my death, but dare not call his name. Not just my life but yours too depends on it.

As for me, I have the satisfaction of knowing that I walked tall and bowed to no man. And I have not travelled this journey alone. Fellow journalists in other branches of the media walked with me: most are now dead, imprisoned without trial or exiled in far-off lands. Others walk in the shadow of death that your presidency has cast on the freedoms for which you once fought so hard. You will never be allowed to forget that my death took place under your watch. As anguished as I know you will be, I also know that you will have no choice but to protect my killers: you will see to it that the guilty one is never convicted. You have no choice.
As for the readers of the Sunday Leader, what can I say but thank you for supporting our mission. We have espoused unpopular causes, stood up for those too feeble to stand up for themselves, locked horns with the high and mighty so swollen with power that they have forgotten their roots, exposed corruption and the waste of your hard-earned tax rupees, and made sure that whatever the propaganda of the day, you were allowed to hear a contrary view. For this I - and my family - have paid the price that I had long known I would one day have to pay. I am, and have always been, ready for that. I have done nothing to prevent this outcome: no security, no precautions. I want my murderer to know that I am not a coward like he is, hiding behind human shields while condemning thousands of innocents to death. What am I among so many? It has long been written that my life would be taken, and by whom. All that remained to be written was when.

That the Sunday Leader will continue fighting the good fight, too, is written. For I did not fight this fight alone. Many more of us have to be - and will be - killed before the Leader is laid to rest. I hope my assassination will be seen not as a defeat of freedom but an inspiration for those who survive to step up their efforts. Indeed, I hope that it will help galvanise forces that will usher in a new era of human liberty in our beloved motherland. I also hope it will open the eyes of your president to the fact that however many are slaughtered in the name of patriotism, the human spirit will endure and flourish.

People often ask me why I take such risks and tell me it is a matter of time before I am bumped off. Of course I know that: it is inevitable. But if we do not speak out now, there will be no one left to speak for those who cannot, whether they be ethnic minorities, the disadvantaged or the persecuted. An example that has inspired me throughout my career in journalism has been that of the German theologian, Martin Niemöller. In his youth he was an antisemite and an admirer of Hitler. As nazism took hold of Germany, however, he saw nazism for what it was. It was not just the Jews Hitler sought to extirpate, it was just about anyone with an alternate point of view. Niemöller spoke out, and for his trouble was incarcerated in the Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps from 1937 to 1945, and very nearly executed. While incarcerated, he wrote a poem that, from the first time I read it in my teenage years, stuck hauntingly in my mind:

First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.

If you remember nothing else, let it be this: the Leader is there for you, be you Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim, low-caste, homosexual, dissident or disabled.

Its staff will fight on, unbowed and unafraid, with the courage to which you have become accustomed. Do not take that commitment for granted. Let there be no doubt that whatever sacrifices we journalists make, they are not made for our own glory or enrichment: they are made for you. Whether you deserve their sacrifice is another matter. As for me, God knows I tried.'

-L. Wickrematunge, January 2009. Full version at http://www.thesundayleader.lk/

Just Two Dope Boys in a Cadillac

Aguirre

Avon