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A footnote: "See Willson, "State Taxation of S Corporations," 1 J. Partnership Tax'n 163, 164 (1984) (suggesting that mental health of [tax] researcher is preserved by high degree of tolerance for ambiguity)." Maule, 1510 T.M., State Taxation of S Corporations 2 n.7.

So, it's been ages since I posted, and now I'm breaking my silence only to share random and largely frivolous thoughts.

First off: go read The Golden Compass now (and the rest of the sequels -- and for that matter, anything else by Pullman). The movie's out, the reviews are bad, and everything I've read seems to confirm what I've thought all along: Hollywood cannot, and will not, make a movie that does justice to Pullman's deeply subversive, thought-provoking, anti-religious books. If that sounds like something you might enjoy, then please, go forth and read them before your vision of Lyra's world is forever tainted by the film. (It does look pretty, though, and I'll probably be going to see it -- after I've reread the book, which I just bought.)

I always say that if you find a great dress that looks fantastic on you, you should buy it and the occasions to wear it will come. I broke my own rule a couple of months ago, and now find myself thinking wistfully about a Tadashi iridescent gunmetal dress I tried on (looked like liquid metal pleated all over and twisted in front, sleeveless, with a high front slit). It looked over-the-top on the rack, but when I tried it on... oh my. Very va-va-voom. It actually made me glad that I've aged a bit, because I could never have pulled off something like that as a teenager! Sadly, I did not purchase it (having no occasion to wear it) and now it seems to be gone. It was close to this one, but without the sleeves, and with a little less criss-crossing in the front; this one is sleeveless, but again, too criss-crossy, and too short. Ooh, I think it might have been this one... (Yes, this is what I do in my spare time -- stalk clothes. And shoes.)

Things That Are Good

I recently downloaded Emily Wells' "Mt. Washington" from iTunes, and it's my current favorite song. A little folky and a little bizarre and just really great. I like her "Fountain of Youth" too.

Saw "Once" tonight with a friend and loved it. It's so completely sincere -- I haven't seen a movie that felt this "real" to me since "Lost in Translation" (though that may just be me and my extreme susceptibility to music-induced emotions). Like LIT, it's a small movie, big on atmosphere and not so big on plot. The music really does most of the dramatic work and is the whole point of the film (if you don't like singer-songwriters, this may not be the movie for you). The best scene comes about 1/4 of the way into the movie, when the two main characters spend their lunch hour at a piano shop playing one of his songs. That amazing feeling you get playing music with someone, that feeling I was always trying to capture with chamber music and then with tango -- on your own it's fun, it's great, but there's something missing, and when you finally put it all together with someone else it's so satisfying and complete and transcendent -- I've never seen that depicted in a movie before, or anywhere, really, and they caught it perfectly. The film has a tendency to linger in the good scenes to the point where they almost drag a bit, where a Hollywood movie would cut away and create a montage (with dramatic background music) for maximum emotional impact -- but that's how life is: when something wonderful happens, you want it to keep going as long as you can, even if you never quite recapture that magical moment. So many good things -- the hoover, the song on the bus... Anyway: go see it.

And finally: a shout-out to "The Lives of Others", which I saw a couple of months ago. It's not often a movie makes me leave the theater saying "Wow." This one did. It's a serious movie, and a long one (maybe a little too long towards the end), but utterly gripping and totally deserving of its Best Foreign Film Oscar.

Mathematician!

I'm flattered (well, by that part of it, anyway) but not convinced:

You Are An INTP

The Thinker You are analytical and logical - and on a quest to learn everything you can. Smart and complex, you always love a new intellectual challenge. Your biggest pet peeve is people who slow you down with trivial chit chat. A quiet maverick, you tend to ignore rules and authority whenever you feel like it. In love, you are an easy person to fall for. But not an easy person to stay in love with. Although you are quite flexible, you often come off as aloof or argumentative. At work, you are both a logical and creative thinker. You are great at solving problems. You would make an excellent mathematician, programmer, or professor. How you see yourself: Creative, fair, and tough-minded When other people don't get you, they see you as: arrogant, cold, and robotic

Three quick things

1) Simon Winchester's May 27, 2007 lecture for the Big Ideas podcast was great -- history of the Oxford English Dictionary, complete with quirky characters, scandals, and obscure words. (I like the Big Ideas series in general -- always something new to learn -- but this one was particularly entertaining.)

2) Ratatouille -- it's really very good. A cartoon about food and France would have my attention in any case, but I was seriously impressed. It helps that they showed a great cartoon short (Lifted) along with it, and that the theater where I saw it was only about half full -- of little kids wearing chef hats and making really cute comments.

3) I read about 350 pages of Eragon yesterday. Have been intrigued by it ever since E.L. (my personal expert on all things relating to pre-high-school literature) gave it her stamp of approval. It is impressively well-written, given its provenance (it's not often I go through 350 pages of anything in one go, these days) -- but also borrows too, too heavily from Tolkien in constructing its imaginary world. (Humans, dwarves, and elves... dwarves hiding away underground, elves as people of great power, age, beauty, and mystery... where have I heard this before? Also, the names seem too haphazard; it bugs me.) Still, a fun read for a Sunday (and, er, a Monday -- will probably finish tonight). Next up on my kiddie-lit list: #3 of Philip Pullman's Sally Lockhart mysteries. Yay.

Quote of the Day

"We need to start a clothing line for the tall and big person that is 'so unbelievably awesome that skinny people will eat a burger just so they can fit in our clothes.'"
-- spotted in the comments at Manolo's Shoe Blog

Great Jungle Cat

Argentine Tango: Style.

"... Practice walking around the room without music, stepping forward onto the balls of your feet, not onto your heels as you do in ordinary walking and in many dances. This should help you to feel like a great jungle cat. Keep this cat image in mind when you're working on aspects of tango style, and soon when you bring up this image your body will automatically move properly.

Now practice walking BACKWARD along the Line of Dance. ... Straighten your leg a little more than you ordinarily would and reach back a little further than might feel natural at first. This will help prevent bumping knees with your partner when you dance. It also adds to the cat-like look and feel of your walk.

Whether walking backward or forward, keep your weight over the balls of your feet. ... But when you actually dance don't do it on tip-toes. This is too tiring."

From www.learntodance.com. Hee. (That thing about the knees is totally true, though.)

But I don't even drink soda! (Most of the time...)

Quizzing goes commercial. But I like these guys (or their cream soda, anyway), so I'm not complaining. I should probably note at this point that I have never had, or even seen, this flavor...

Also: J.R., this is for you. :-)

Today's chocolate-covered fortune cookie: "Others appreciate your expressive qualities." Does this mean that some people don't mind that I talk so much? ;-)

Terribly sad: "as the universe expands faster and faster, it will eventually get to a point where . . . all but our local group of galaxies will have moved so far away they will be lost forever." They aren't disappearing, but rather the space between them will be expanding so fast -- faster than the speed of light -- that "the light from those galaxies will never reach us again." Among other things, this means that "any cosmologist of that distant time who tries to figure out the history of the universe will have no clue to the Big Bang or the existence of the vast clusters of galaxies we can see today in every direction . . . ." Depressing. And lonely.

Alert: tonight is the last episode ever of Gilmore Girls!! It came upon us so suddenly... I knew the series was ending, but hadn't seen any "Series Finale! Series Finale!" ads or anything. I probably won't actually watch it tonight, as I haven't seen last week's episode yet (due to local news coverage of the large forest fires consuming The Southland). But that will let me postpone the mourning just a little longer...

Huh. Normally I have fun with these online quiz things, but I'm not sure how I feel about "It looks like your lifestyle may be seriously impeding your level of happiness"...

A couple of years ago, mass-market uber-cheap clothing retailer H&M offered a special, limited-time collection designed by Karl Lagerfeld. (I went, I saw, I bought some silk pyjamas and called it a day.) Now, one of the reasons I love H&M is that the clothes actually fit me. If I need a pair of pants that will be long enough, or a skirt or dress that won't be tight to be point of indecency, I can usually find something. They stock U.S. women's sizes up to 16 in most styles (and they seem to understand, at least some of the time, that some of the people buying those bigger sizes are taller than average). Well, apparently Karl wasn't so pleased. He claims he designed his clothes for skinny people only, and was outraged that H&M dared to manufacture and sell them in sizes up to 16. That's a U.K 16 -- a U.S. 12, according to H&M's size chart.

A few points for Karl. First: not everyone who buys a size larger than he would like is actually overweight. Take me, for instance. I'm 5'11" tall, and I'm pretty average. I'm not huge, but I don't have a particularly slim body type either. Granted, I'm currently more out of shape than I would like, but even at my slimmest, I'm never going to be a 0 or a 2 or a 4 -- not even close. But I don't want to overemphasize this point, because it's really irrelevant -- slim or overweight, short or tall, everyone deserves to be able to shop in peace without being flagrantly insulted. Second: a partnership between a designer and a retailer is still a job for the designer, no matter how high-profile he or she may be. When a designer agrees to design a line for H&M, he or she agrees to create clothes that will embody the designer's style, be financially accessible to H&M's clientele, and appeal to that clientele. If Karl is right, then he failed to accomplish the third objective. It is his job to design clothes that will fit a variety of body types and personal styles; that is, after all, the whole point of H&M. If he can't do that, then he isn't as good of a designer as he thinks he is.

And finally: how much do we really trust a man who says he and other fashion designers "don't see" anorexic models??

Product Love

Some things I like these days:
-- Pinkberry. It's proliferating all over L.A. Yum!
-- My new curl products. I have odd curly hair -- quite fine, not thick like most curly girls -- so most curl products weigh my hair down too much and actually make the curls go away (but without product the curls either frizz up or go flat). Really liking the Matrix Curl.life Contouring Milk and All-Day Reactivator, silly names notwithstanding. (Aveda's Be Curly is not bad either.)
-- The "Big Ideas" podcast, available through iTunes. Smart people lecturing on random significant subjects for an hour, recorded for your benefit. Kind of like "shopping period" in college. Today, I learned about the history of the stethoscope.
-- My YMCA. Great views from the treadmills! Free classes! Massage!

Fantastic view of the mountains from my window today -- it's very clear out, with just enough clouds to cast dramatic shadows. To the right, between the building across from me and the edge of my window, I can see snow.

Reset

Hello long-lost readers. Lots has happened since my last post -- including the official start of my law firm career. Taking a cue from S.W., I've sifted through the archives and cut out a lot; this is likely to be an ongoing process as I figure out what, if anything, I feel like writing and posting these days. Try to contain yourselves; I know the suspense is difficult to bear. ;-) Meanwhile, happy holidays and best wishes for a wonderful 2007!

I have a confession: I've been watching bad television. Don't laugh -- I've been watching Beauty and the Geek. (I know; you can't help yourself.)
I think part of the appeal for me is that I understand the Geeks so well. Each Geeky guy is given a one-line identifier -- "Dungeonmaster"; "Studying to become a neurosurgeon"; "Has kissed 2 girls"; and my personal favorite, "MIT Graduate" -- so really, how could I not feel a certain kinship with them?
And now my criticisms: first off, the show does nothing but perpetuate gender and geek/non-geek stereotypes. The guys are socially inept and have bad hair; the girls can't figure out how many feet are in 12 yards, even when told that there are three feet in a yard, or put together a computer, monitor, keyboard, and mouse. What they learn from each other: well, the guys learn to look better, and the girls learn ... not much. (With bodies like that, who needs to learn anything?) Yet, when one of the guys refers to his girl teammate as "academically disinclined", he is shunned as a mean brute for suggesting that he might be better than she is at something. (Note that in her teary protest, she couldn't even repeat the phrase. Now, I'm not condoning insults, and it was a mean thing to say, but really, if the girls spend all day telling the guys how much better looking the girls are, shouldn't the Beauties be able to handle a little truth thrown back at them?)
The show is billed as a "social experiment". Perhaps I expect too much from poor Ashton, but I didn't find it very experimental at all. At the end of the day, we're supposed to love all of them, and all this tells us is: we love pretty girls, and we can love even unattractive guys as long as they're smart enough. How about something a little more subversive: let's pair some geeky girls with some gorgeous guys! Let's see if the men can handle learning how to back up their hard drives from the women. Let's see if they can learn to love even unpretty ladies for their minds. There's a show I'd like to see. Heck, maybe I should be on it. :-)

"Results from the July 2005 California Bar Examination will be mailed to applicants on Friday, November 18, 2005. Applicants will be able to access the pass list that evening, beginning at 6:00 PM (PST) using their applicant number and registration number.

Results will be available in 2 hours"

Oh dear.

A little bit country, a little bit rock & roll

More recently downloaded stuff from iTunes -- perhaps betraying a little bit of my Missing-Certain-Persons mood?

-- Brandi Carlile, "Gone" (it's been in my head for days)
-- Dar Williams, "The Beauty of the Rain" -- the one with Chris Botti on trumpet (because her voice is just so beautiful)
-- Peter Gabriel, "In Your Eyes" (because I watched Say Anything this week)
-- Damien Rice, "Cannonball" (which, after some vacillation, I have decided I like, at least for now)
-- Sufjan Stevens, "To Be Alone With You"
-- The Decembrists, "The Engine Driver" (one of these things is not like the others...)
-- Brandi Carlile again, "Closer to You" (upbeat, missing-but-not-for-long song)

Spent lovely weekend split between more and less intellectual pursuits... I loved Hollyhock House, especially the rooms with the original (or reproduced) Wright furniture. One can only image how amazing it would be if it were all completed and intact. The sheer modernity of it is shocking -- it could pass for new in any decade from the 1940s to the 2000s; only an informed visitor would guess its true octogenarian origin.

Sadly, even the nicest weekends have to end sometime. It's strange how having happy times only leaves you sadder afterwards. Counting the days until November's first federal holiday...