As a tireless Sac booster, I don't appreciate the anti-sac jokes that this whole Virgin Mary crying tears of blood thing is engendering. I'd like to point out that this church is somewhere in east Sacramento county, not downtown.
Speaking of Sac boosterism, it can and does run amok, especially when it is faked by the business community in an attempt to line their pockets. Did you know that a bunch of these business types have banded together to "brand" our region? So creepy. Remember when they tried that last time with the stupid Ken and Barbie doll thing? Their first step this time is coming up with a nickname for the area. Here are the proposals they voted on recently: Capitol of the West; Central City of the Central Valley; Land of Golden Opportunities; Learning Community; and Green Place. Barf. None of the above was the choice that won, so sanity prevailed. I hope this plan fails. I have read recently that people are starting to move out of California, so that's encouraging.
The New Yorker had a really interesting little one-pager this week (that I can't link cuz their site sucks) about leisure time and wealth in Europe and America. We all know that western Europeans get more vacation than we do, but they also just have more daily leisure time in general, and consequently they spend way more time doing stuff like cleaning their houses and cooking, which are tasks that Americans increasingly pay other people to do. So we work more and generate more wealth, but then we spend it eating out, paying people to do our laundry, etc., etc., so we are on a continual hamster wheel and getting nowhere. The stats they threw out is that the average French woman (of course) spends 10 more hours a week on household tasks than the average American woman and that we eat out three times more than the Germans do! I eat out waayyyyy too much but you all know how it is when you get home from work the last thing you feel like doing is fighting the crowds at the local market and coming home and cooking for an hour or so and then cleaning up after. It's so much more pleasant and restful to let someone else do it for you. If I cook that's usually pretty much my plans for the night. Now I'm just thinking aloud but the article was thought-provoking. Once again the Euros have it right.
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And I campaigned so hard for "Green Place".
miller
I thought your campaign was "have mercy on the green place!"
those signs in east sac are fucking retarded. every time i ride my bike by one of them i want to rip it out. traffic exists. you can't just get it out of your neighborhood cause you're self-important.
that said, i was dating matt for two years before i realized he only works a 35 hour work week. and that he didn't have to be in the office until 9am. and that that was standard for his friends. what?! no wonder i'm so exhausted all the time. i have no time whatsoever to do anything.
I think this quote from the Virgin article is funny:
But father James Murphy of the Sacramento diocese shies away from calling this a miracle.
"These kinds of phenomena are fairly common," he said. "But the number that turn out to be miraculous are very, very rare."
I thought that economics article was interesting too. What I really thought was interesting was that 30-40 years ago, it was somewhat switched, and that it's not entirely cultural, but a result of higher taxes and subsequent labor initiatives (of course the french taxes and labor movement are 'cultural', so I don't know if that argument holds up).
There's another similar interesting thing in the same issue, the Louis Menand review of this history book about post-war Europe to the present day. It also makes the arguement that a lot of what we think about Western Europe isn't natively cultural, but a purposeful re-invention of their national identities following the war, in order to compete on the international market (like German engineering, or Belgian chocolates). Also, even more interesting was the discussion of how the Europeans dealt with the post-Holocaust guilt/not guilt, and how the idea of the French resisitance was overblown to mythical proportions in order to feel better about the occupation. I don't know about all that, and it would be interesting to read more. Menand loved it, and Menand is hard to please. Although, his biggest complaint was that the author didn't include a bibilography, which does seems pretty busted to me.
-michele
I'll have to read that review, I'm still in the middle of the issue. Isn't that R. Crumb cartoon crappy? Jeez, I thought the New Yorker had higher standards than that.
remember, those "have mercy" signs are specifically about Mercy Hospital building a giant new structure and parking lot, not just traffic in general.
The New Yorker does not have high standards when it comes to cartoons. But especially the R Crumb cartoons. I've never really been an R. Crumb fan, but his wife, who I guess writes the story line for all these they print in the New Yorker, has a pretty weak sense of humor. And I think the drawings are so ugly.
I don't see why everyone is making fun of the Virgin Mary thing, I think it seems rad.
-michele
Did anybody notice that "Daddy" Dave Leatherby was the source most quoted in that Virgin Mary article? You know, the founder of Leatherby's Ice Cream? That's a big Catholic family right there.
-Ella
i saw a cross above the entrance to the restrooms at leatherby's a few years ago and i've never gone back. it is a "family" restaurant. what ever happened to the good ol' days of secular ice cream?
in norway, pretty much everyone gets the entire month of july off of work. and in stockholm, the coffee shops don't even open until like 11am. a lot of shops are only open about four days a week for about five hours each day, which is a good thing and a bad thing. the euros do have it right.
-greg
also, the avg. american walks only 300 yards a day! wtf!
when i lived in france, i worked till 11, chilled and went out to lunch and did whatever till 1 or 2, then left around 6 or 7. my housing was subsidized and even though i paid more in taxes to the fr govt., my salary was much more than i would make at a comparable position here in sac. oh, and i had 8 weeks paid vacation.
moreover, we'd all cook at home more and eat out less if we shopped as the french shop: go to the charchuterie, the veggie stands, then the fromagerie and patisserie ... no one really shops at supermarkets in the cities. also, people get together and cook meals together instead of going out. it's a social thing.
n.
i used to say that a state job is the closest thing you can get to the european lifestyle here in california, but those french sound like they've even got a bunch of stuff on us with regards to vacation time.
the annoying thing about it is that the majority of western europeans think we, americans, get the same kinds of benefits that they do. whenenever you break it to them that the average vacation time for a full time worker in the states is 2 weeks, they're totally shocked.
Yeah, Robert and Aline Crumb are a bit embittered and cranky, and it's starting to show. years of living in Winters will do that to ya. But The New Yorker's editors are always eager to get any work available by the Crumbs or Art Spiegelman into the mag. Of course, when it comes to their cartoons, Bruce Eric Kaplan (this week's cover) is the heart and soul. Another cover from Sacramento's own Adrian Tomine (he had one sometime last winter) couldn't hurt either.
Is Art Spiegelman still the art director for the New Yorker? He's the one who got crumb, Tomine and Tony millionaire in.
I believe Art (I say this like I know him, which I don't) is still Art the art director. Don't have the masthead in front of me. I'm glad he got Tomine, and others, in there, since a spot illustration (to say nothing of a cover) prolly gets the guy more money than an entire lifetime of Optic Nerves.
Not that he's in it for the money, but he could likely use a new pair of Chuck Taylors once and a while.
I didn't know that A.Tomine had done a New Yorker cover. That's great. Forever ago when I was working at the Tower magazine warehouse he came in & consigned Optic Nerve #1 & now look at him!
miller
"Green Place".
that's fantastic. make us sound like a bunch of yahoos just learning our colors.
Paris may have as many trees as Sacramento, but the Parisians would never dub themselves "Endroit Vert".
Tomine's New Yorker cover, while not in the cripsest of renditions, can be seen here:
http://www.retroklang.com/img/2005/20050108.jpg
It's very, very him. And I'm always happy to see someone who had to grow up in Campus Commons do well for themselves.
I heard that over in France, at the new Crumb ranch, things are going well. I heard that Aline's young French boyfriend has opened up a cafe on Mr. Crumb's dime and that Mr. Crumb frequently flys to Seattle to (conjugally) visit his young American girlfriend. Those swinging artist types! I also heard that all of a sudden, R. Crumb is buffed. No joke.
-E.C.
Thank you for bossting me.
-sac
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