Today had all the start-and-stop charm of a YouTube video over a 6.0 Mbps wireless connection. I've been working on different applications for this summer, mostly magazines in New York, although I have a couple of contacts in local studios that also look promising. The city would be ideal, though -- I have nothing bad to say about Baltimore, but there are downtowns and then there are downtowns. The bulk of today was taken up with this Harper's app, where you basically get to create half an issue of the magazine, on spec, for no pay, in the hopes of moving up to the Broadway offices and working there, also for no pay. I know that's what an internship is, but you would think Harper's would be a little more sympathetic to the starving idealist. I'm not even half done with this qualifying literature and I'm pretty sure I've already worked harder than I would if I were actually on the staff. It's very much designed to weed out the people who don't know the magazine all that well. I'm personally going off the three issues I could find in the house, none of which is more recent than 2004 and two of which are actually from the Clinton administration, so it's all a lot more frustrating than it really needs to be. On the other hand, a big part of what I've been doing all day is combing through pre-refinery news sites for items of interest, which is how I learned that the Indian village of Lakhanow recently pledged to give the name "Saddam Hussein" to all of its newborn males. They already have about twenty Saddams -- the oldest is about eleven; the trend dates back to the first Gulf War -- and I guess they just decided to make it a town policy. It's things like this that make you feel good to be American.
Picked up the car from Joel's today. As far as I can tell it no longer makes that Tuvan-throat siren song; now it sounds more like a jet is about to land on the hood. I tried to case some parts of town where the tracks edge close to the street, but for some reason there were cops out in record numbers. Tagaste has been really territorial about its train system the last couple of years since this kid just ahead of us in the high school got killed out on the tracks one night, and civilians get chased away if they're spotted. I would go out at night to get some shots, but broad daylight is pretty much the only option with this camera. Maybe I could talk to someone on the force and get a pass or something. On second thought, fuck it; I'm only in town another five days. If someone really wants to give me a problem I'll just take. It's sad but most cops seem really disinclined to chase a half-person if the terrain is rough.
My father seemed pretty distracted today, maybe because Mom hasn't been up from her office in a while. He fried up these sausages which I don't know the Spanish for, but they're complete Quiebra Hacha comfort food, and just wandered off to his library halfway through dinner. Cally sort of picked at hers, so later on, while I was trying to track down the primary document on this bulletin circulated by the Church of Scientology to the Berlin municipal government (this is still for Harper's, which again, I read maybe twice a year), I invited her in and just motioned discreetly to the jar of pretzels I got for Christmas. (My parents didn't really know what to get me this year, so it was just a lot of food and iTunes cards, which is actually kind of ideal.) She stayed around for a while and we ended up daring each other to eat these Muhammad Ali protein bars called "Who's The Mango." Do you remember Floam? That Nickelodeon sickly-pink moldable squishy stuff that came packaged in what looked like a brain? Who's The Mango bars taste a lot like that. I can't see Ali stretching out at the end of the day with one of these. I wonder, between him and Foreman (speaking of identical names in freakish multiplicity), how many products have their signatures slapped all over them, and what percentage of those products they might actually use. Maybe there is a Harper's piece in this somewhere.
