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Culturally Speaking #13

By Sarah Stodola

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Howard Dean is not my favorite candidate, but I love the fact that his wife couldn't give a shit about politics. She's a doctor, and a very busy one apparently, and she's attended like two of Dean political functions over the past ten years.

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I have recently realized that sometimes my writing is too bookish and sometimes it isn't bookish enough, all depending on who happens to be reading it.

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I am continually baffled by the success of the band The Black Dice.  They get to open for everyone, somehow, so I have seen them against my will a couple of times now.  Both times, I look around and it becomes obvious that people are wondering if there is reentry in this venue.

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George Bush is willing to make a Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriages, but not to ban the proliferation of guns in this country. The absurdity is self-evident.

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The New Jersey Nets were just sold, and the new owner is planning on building their new arena just a couple of blocks from my apartment in Brooklyn. Depending on how it's done, this could either be a really nice thing or a really really bad thing. I'm watching it unfold apprehensively.

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The only bad review I have ever seen of Jonathan Lethem's Fortress of Solitude.

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I am beginning to think that materialism has won. It's like when you're watching an arm wrestling match, and one guy has the other guy just inches off the table, and you can see the inevitability of the latter losing as he starts shaking and turning red, but he just won't give up as he starts shaking and turning red, and it's kind of weird to keep watching, because it's such an obviously futile effort. So materialism is the winning guy and altruism is the losing guy, and the crowd looking on with a weird sense of embarrassment is everyone in the world who knows better but just can't seem to make themselves want to stop buying things.

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I'm wondering why it's so easy to get into fights over IM. I get into a significantly larger number of arguments over IM than I do in real life. What power is this that IM possesses? Does it mean I have some kind of cyber road rage?

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No offense to anyone, but literary agents kind of fill the same role as real estate brokers.

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Click here for the last Culturally Speaking.

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Sarah Stodola is the Managing Editor of Me Three.  She can be contacted at [email protected].

© 2003 Me Three