Rebel Prince

From Sherman Alexie’s “What You Pawn I Will Redeem”:

   “I don’t know how you guys do it,” he said.
   “What guys?” I asked.
   “You Indians. How the hell do you laugh so much? I just picked your ass off the railroad tracks, and you’re making jokes. Why the hell do you do that?”
   “The two funniest tribes I’ve ever been around are Indians and Jews, so I guess that says something about the inherent humor of genocide.”

I let out a wry laugh when I read that on the metro the other day. Read the rest of the story in The New Yorker (April 21 & 28, 2003, p. 168), available on their website, along with an online-only interview.

This is from one of my favorite scenes from An Ideal Husband, especially as played by Rupert Everett in the recent movie, the dandy Lord Goring, described in Oscar Wilde’s stage directions as “the first well-dressed philosopher in the history of thought.” Here he gets ready to go out, his butler Phipps assisting with a flower for his lapel.

Lord Goring: You see, Phipps, Fashion is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other people wear.
Phipps: Yes, my lord.
Lord Goring: Just as vulgarity is simply the conduct of other people.
Phipps: Yes, my lord.
Lord Goring: And falsehoods the truths of other people.
Phipps: Yes, my lord.
Lord Goring: Other people are quite dreadful. The only possible society is oneself.

I love it. Wilde’s plays are so dense with wit and meaning. But I digress.

The Kennedy Center gala concert is Sunday night. It’s a black-tie event, and I thought I’d be creative about it. I rummaged through my closet, thinking I could wear a white, silk scarf instead of a whole bow tie get-up, but once I started playing dress-up in the mirror, I quickly realized it wasn’t working.

This morning I went to Scogna, a small, formal-wear shop on L Street, to get fitted for a tuxedo. They must do some good business. While I was there, the place was buzzing with activity. The tailor who helped me, Israel, was really gracious. (I do appreciate good customer service.) When I told him I needed the suit by Sunday, he said that with such short notice, I was in luck, since basically all they had left were suits in the smaller and larger sizes, i.e., once again I was thankful for my uh, small stature. And that doesn’t happen often.

The first thing I noticed in the fitting room was a picture on the wall, of George H. W. Bush at the White House, being measured for a suit, presumably by a Scogna tailor. I understand the company pride, but isn’t it a bit strange to be changing your clothes with a picture of a former President (or anyone, for that matter) over your shoulder? Anyway. I’ll be back there tomorrow morning for pick-up.

I’ve rented a tuxedo enough times in the past few years that I really should’ve just bought one by now. Well, formal events come so infrequently, at least for me, that I seldom think it justified. I guess I should just go to more opening nights at the opera and so forth. I love dressing up. To have a tuxedo in one’s closet, at the ready. Very gentlemanly.

Madonna was actually pretty good on Will & Grace, I thought. With some decent writing, and a quirky role (as Karen’s new roommate) that doesn’t lend itself to Madonna’s sometimes indulgent over-acting, she does all right. A lot more relaxed and natural than any other acting I’ve seen her do.

I so need this: modular flooring from Interface, a Chicago-based company. My apartment has very worn hardwood floors, which means dust, like tumbleweed, constantly drifting here and there, and so a nice rug—and a modular one, at that, which I can take up, easily store, and change at whim—would be fantastic. I’m especially fond of the two-tone variety. Very snazzy. (Link serendipitously found in the Times “Personal Shopper” column.)

I’m watching The West Wing. Matthew Perry is guest starring as an interviewee for the position of associate counsel. I have to say, he’s surprisingly good in a dramatic role. Still, every time I look up from the computer, I’m like, “Whoa, what’s Chandler doing in the White House?”

TV note for tomorrow: W&G with guest star Madonna, followed by a look back at past guest stars and bloopers. I know they weren’t gonna try and stick Good Morning, Miami in there. Speaking of NBC, auditions start tomorrow for yet another talent show, Fame, inspired by the original movie, which to this day makes me want to put on leg warmers and dance on top of cars in Manhattan traffic. Hey, it could happen.

Sonnet XXX.

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear times’ waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unus’d to flow,
For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night,
And weep afresh love’s long since cancell’d woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanish’d sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
   But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
   All losses are restor’d and sorrows end.

Happy birthday, Shakespeare! (There is some historical doubt as to the exact date, but it’s usually celebrated April 23, St. George’s Day.) After work, I went to the Millennium Stage at the Kennedy Center. The place was packed. D.C.-based Shakespeare Theatre and the U.K.‘s Royal Shakespeare Company (currently in residence at the Kennedy Center) performed scenes from Richard III, As You Like It, and The Tempest. It was great, and the directors of both companies gave insightful speeches on the Bard’s genius, and its impact on their personal and professional lives. Ah, the call of the stage.

Up to now I’ve been out of the loop on this whole Santorum thing. At first, I was like, what, yet another conservative flunky spouting anti-gay rhetoric? What else is new? But this guy is way up in the Republican leadership. I just now read his comments, given in an April 7 interview. Very troubling. (Give it a read. Even the reporter kind of freaks out.) Andrew Sullivan takes on the larger privacy implications in Salon. More discussion at MetaFilter. One of the more insightful comments there, vis-à-vis the Constitution: “[T]he fundamental unit of society is not the ‘family’ (whatever that may mean), but free individuals.”

I pay attention to the usability of signage: in subways, airports, etc. I’m a geek. Or perhaps just highly visual. (I get it from my father, an architect. One of the projects he worked on was the BART extension in the Bay Area.) It bothers me that at the Bethesda metro station, once you exit the faregate, there are no signs to lead you to street level. The elevator is tucked away in an unmarked hallway to the left, leaving you with the mammoth escalators to the right, but without any signs (I’d suggest something in a calming green, connoting “go”), an unfamiliar traveler has to shrug his shoulders and think, “I guess this is it.”

Other stations are more explicit. At Friendship Heights (the Western Avenue exit), you emerge into a round hub of a room, with at least four different, clearly marked passageways, each leading like a spoke to a different spot in the intersection above.

Anyway. This evening at the Dupont Circle station, I noticed new warning placards affixed to the platform floor, almost like those ads you see in supermarket aisles. These round signs tell you, in a rather large, high-contrast font, to wait for passengers to exit the cars before boarding, that chimes mean the doors are closing, etc. I found one much-needed sign at the foot of the escalator, which read, “Stand to the right.” It’s often the packs of tourists, god love ’em, who stand and take up the width of the escalator, inadvertently blocking anyone who wishes to pass them. Granted, walking the entire length of those never-ending escalators is major aerobic exercise, but when you’re late for work—as I too often am—and you hear the train pulling into the station, it becomes a necessity.

Okay, I’m boring even myself. Time for bed, if I’m not to be late for work yet again tomorrow.