There’s open water and thousands of black birds on the ground, and from the distance, even in my specs, hard to tell, but thinking crows not Canada geese, on the Jersey Turnpike, so far from God, and from the tropical birdhouse in Central Park, and the Key West butterfly house, catch your breath as you enter, here the scrub trees and what must be two feet of snow, two weeks ago on the road to Washington, DC, nothing but roadside sludge, color of strained sewage, tractor-trailer drivers at my height on this Bolt Bus, giant flat-sceen TV windows, why Post columnist Linda Stasi rants against “Jersey Shore,” a knife in the back of her Italian-American heritage, and horrors!, some of the characters playing the reality-TV stars on their way to Italy aren’t even Italian-American, set aside the fact that viewers respond to the show precisely because they recognize the culture’s unwillingness to value education and travel and to experience non-American appetites as full and rich and meaningful, as opposed to being threatened and intimidated by those with different ideas on, say, breakfast food or what side of the road to drive on, or how learning to say merci beaucoup, or a bientot, or s’il vous plait, before flying to Paris for a holiday isn’t unAmerican but rather enriches the American life, perhaps if such behavior were to catch on even to the point that “Jersey Shore” does not reflect the values of our dumbed-down culture and thus wouldn’t play in quite the same way, we wouldn’t be able to feel superior to Snooki and The Sitch in the same way that we do with American Idol, and don’t tell me this show (JS) blazes the fifteen minutes of fame trail, that’s so Andy Warhol, now dumb and numb enough and you’re in ten years of fame easy; I mean “Idol” is 10 years old next year. So rant, yes Linda! http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/boob_arians_invade_Ku6992bF0q7oN7r0zrpRrN . Ranting is good, better than bottling up your disgust, your rage at what accounts for mainstream TV culture in the American Imperium, consider John Milton, his “inward vicious rule,” to wit, in The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (1649), “If men within themselves would be governed by reason and not generally give up their understanding to a double tyranny of custom from without and blind affections within, they would discern better what it is to favor and uphold the tyrant of a nation. But being slaves within doors, no wonder that they strive so much to have the public state conformably governed to the inward vicious rule by which they govern themselves,” and thankfully, we’re just about there .¤.¤. off the Jersey Turnpike, bring it on Philly and Delware (with the “.” – see RFYL: A Congressional Run).
Running for Your Life: Jack Attack
Is shrill the new black? Increasingly, I find myself being stopped in mid-sentence, which is not my way. In the 1960s, Mom didn’t like to send me on supermarket errands because I’d read the list but study the labels, take an hour when I could have been in and out in ten minutes, so my patience is an alley (old Chinese proverb; see RFYL: Washington Memorial), and I’d like to think the change I detect in the press is not about me, rather that writers and commentators on both sides of the political fence are angry and bitter and all too often these days it comes out in what they have to say in print, fair game if the outburst is over dinner, or in the shower, while surfing cable TV, but you’d think the editors would tone down The Shrill, rather than encourage it, as M, the punster, would say: failing the Killer App, they embrace the Shriller App.
Running for Your Life: Washington Memorial
Jonathan Franzen will be here, at the Washington National Cathedral, I think as I run past the icy grounds, three days after DC’s worst blizzard of the year blew through, some people still without power and sidewalks icy and snow-covered, if Thurber didn’t need a walk/run and I didn’t need to get in some miles, only seventy-five days and counting until Boston, I’d be napping with M.
Running for Your Life: Let the Training Begin
Now I have to get some miles in. Less than three months to go. Eighty days till Boston. Once again I’m out of sync with the book, “Marathon Training: The Proven 100-Day Program for Success,” with daily training logs by Joe Henderson. On my own again, winging it.
My personal trainer never would’ve let me stray. But I don’t have one. In fact have never had one. How do you find your way to fitness without a personal trainer in this day and age? In upscale New York City, here are the top three professions: 1) Personal trainer; 2) Dog walker; 3) Evening entertainment consultant. There’s always work if you know where to look.
My personal trainer never would’ve let me stray. But I don’t have one. In fact have never had one. How do you find your way to fitness without a personal trainer in this day and age? In upscale New York City, here are the top three professions: 1) Personal trainer; 2) Dog walker; 3) Evening entertainment consultant. There’s always work if you know where to look.
Running for Your Life: The Central Park Half-Marathon
Maybe I shouldn’t have worn the thin anklet socks. One layer long sleeve and unlined windbreaker. Thankfully there’s no wind to speak of. But plenty cold. From my “cattle” stall, the eight-plus-minute milers, I can see the CNN sign south in the pre-dawn light: 14 F. The same temperature as two years ago for the Manhattan Half, two loops of Central Park. In 2009, it did warm up to 18 F by 10 a.m., said S, a Park Slope neighbor who traveled with me to the 8 a.m. start. To the east, across the Sheep Meadow, the sun is finally rising. How freezing it must be for the young girl her voice trembling as she sings, “The Star-Spangled Banner,” S and I exchange “Good Lucks!”, she in a scarf and three layers of long sleeves and waist-hugging thermal windbreaker, setting in her earbuds, turning on her iPod, saying she’s off to her zone, and we slowly move along in the mass of 4,358 runners, it’s long past the official starting line before we pick up any pace at all, and I lope ahead because I could have stood waiting for the start in a stall for faster runners but I was enjoying S’s company, but now I’m in my zone, a 13.1-mile race in cold like I haven’t been in since I ran in North Bay, Ontario, twenty-four years ago.
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