William Rehnquist, free-spirited artist

An otherwise bland NYT article has an amusing anecdote about the former Chief Justice tucked into the end:

…Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist [...] once skipped the State of the Union address in the Reagan era to attend to other matters.

The speech “conflicted with the watercolor class he was taking at the local Y.M.C.A.,” Chief Justice Roberts, who had served as a law clerk to Chief Justice Rehnquist, recalled last year. “He had spent $25 signing up for the class, and he wasn’t going to miss one of the sessions.”

Even Supreme Court justices need time to paint their happy little trees.

The Catcher in the Rye, then and now

J.D. Salinger died yesterday, and so I can’t help but think about Catcher in the Rye. Like most people, I read it in high school. I hated it. I hated just about every moment of it. I hated the slang, I hated the dated values, and I especially hated that I was supposed to care about a self-centered, arrogant, whiny d-bag who can’t get his life together. I sighed and rolled my eyes and did my work and didn’t think about it again for years.

As a teenager, adulthood promised me freedom, and I couldn’t understand at all why Holden would resist growing up. I longed to grow up! I counted the days until the start of college and I waited for that sigh of relief, that exhalation of self-possession and confidence that meant I was, finally, grown-up. Free. I waited. Any moment now. It’s coming…

But that moment never came. Everything was structured. Routine, routine, routine. There was no spontaneity. People were jerks to one another, for no reason at all. But mostly, I felt distant. I had this great big sense of wonder in the world, and I felt things with such overpowering emotions: compassion that made me cry at headlines, anger at injustice that would make me stew for days, and despondency that the world I lived in would never, ever improve.

I felt betrayed.  And suddenly, I understood Holden Caulfield.

So I decided to re-read it. I must’ve read it in one sitting because I don’t recall even coming up for air. I devoured it. The archaic language was still distancing to me as a modern reader, and Holden was still a little prick most of the time, but suddenly, having left home and embarked on my own pseudo-adulthood, I felt for Holden. My heart broke for him, and for myself.  I loved his love for Phoebe and his painful sincerity. I, too, ached to live in the rye: a world of generosity, kindness, impulse, earnestness! To believe, to really innately know and feel that there was goodness everywhere, and that I and everyone else were a part of it.

I couldn’t imagine ever feeling that way again. If it was out there, I couldn’t connect to it. And you can never go back. You can’t save anyone. You just watch them fall, over and over and over again. My little sister would, eventually. And suddenly I felt such despair, such heart-wrenching anger and hatred and ambivalence at the end of my childhood.

In between those readings, the book hadn’t changed. I did. And nothing brought my own Fall, my own exile from paradise, into sharper relief than looking back at how innocent I was to have read that book and not understood.

So J.D. Salinger, rest in peace, and thank you for The Catcher in the Rye.

First!!oneone!

Perhaps it’s years of training, but I tend to think about a lot of things through the metaphor of theater. When I meet new people I feel like I’m auditioning; when I’m at parties I feel like I’m on stage. But more than meatspace, the internet is a veritable smorgasbord of creative expression. You’ve got just about any show you want to see: personal, professional, political, trivial, pretentious hogwash. Sure, there’s drama—snicker—but it’s a showcase of personal performances made in people’s leisure hours.

The internet is spare time theater, and this here is my new performance space.

2009′s Sexiest Geeks

Wired Magazine has renewed its Sexiest Geeks of the year voting (warning: yesterday it had photoshopped naked people, so possibly NSFW), and let’s face it: that list is crap.

Instead of a list of Geeks Who Are Sexy, the submissions to Wired list People That Geeks Find Sexy—an entirely different category. Most of the men and women on the list aren’t geeks, they just play them on TV! Just because you want to schtupp their geeky alter-egos doesn’t mean they’re eligible for the title, and the list of actresses, models, and porn stars is way off-base. So we have to be stricter in our eligibility: demonstrable geekiness in private life.

But more than that, I’d like to see a list that highlights at least some men and women who are stimulating on more than one level. Men and women who make you feel giddy because they can quote “The Defence of Poesy,” make a Big Daddy or Predator out of household materials, or contribute to the breadth of human knowledge with research in science and history. Sexy geeks are people whose writing or videos make your heart flutter when you see them pop up on the RSS; people you make sure to Tivo even when they just guest-star on Law & Order. People who make geeks look good.

So who would you nominate?

I’ll go first, in alphabetical order. Read more »