“When I was small I thought I was just cooler than my mom because of how foreign she is. She’s really foreign. You’d think it would kill her to get store-bought snacks, she’s that foreign. She grew up in a Korea filled with Koreans, married a Korean and then moved to Hong Kong in her mid-30s. I was 11 months and my brother was two years old. This was back when Hong Kong was a British Crown colony, which meant we were living in Asia with heaps of Australians and bronzed Europeans who dated Filipino women. It was all very James Clavell and linen shirts. In any case, I speak four languages and am a ruthless assimilation ninja. I will renounce all kin in the name of camouflage because everything is a contest and I am a disgusting sell-out. It’s the twin moon to my being popular in any context provided I put my mind to it. I’m sure there’s a field of corn withering somewhere in my soul that fuels this despicable talent, but everyone’s got to die of cancer some time, right?”
 — Parents, what is the deal.

“Taiwan confirmed an H7N9 bird flu infection in a Taiwanese traveler from China, demonstrating the risk of the killer virus entering cities outside the mainland.”

Come For The Story About Turning One’s Back On An Industry That Uses Women For Their Bodies, Stay For The Slideshow

“Kylie Bisutti had reached the pinnacle of her career as a Victoria’s Secret Angel. But instead of feeling proud, she felt exploited. She tells why she turned to faith after the fashion industry put her through hell,” in today’s Post, which has the decency to wait a whole 9 paragraphs before this:

The new Alicia Keys and Maxwell video is some good, smutty fun. And I really like the song. But it would be better if they didn’t cut the scene where John Goodman runs down the hallway with a shotgun screaming “I’ll show you the life of the mind!”

“Suitor’s operation is part of a mini-wave of chicken rentals, companies that soften the risk in chicken-rearing.”

Which lady, which lady. (Witch lady?) Which lady. Tonight brings you Renata Adler, Rachel Kushner and Marisa Silver. It all happens tonight.

Fig. 1

I know it’s only April, but I wanted to get a jump on the Commencement Addresses for various Colleges, Junior Colleges, Trade Schools, and other institutions of Higher Learning, while reminding everyone I am available for such speaking engagements, to inform and inspire the Youth.

Here is the “Uncorrected Proof” of my current address to the Recent Graduate. It helps to imagine it being read in a shouting voice.

“See your future, be your future” is not just a line one may quote from the movie Caddyshack, starring Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, and Rodney Dangerfield, it is a Way to live one’s life. Like millions of people, I bet, I employ a method of Positive Visualization in my life. One makes pictures in one’s mind of one doing the stuff one wants to Accomplish.

In light of all the recent unpleasantness and the even more-recent, it’s easy to make fun of this Method, but when I say Positive Visualization, I mean for Positivity, not for Bad Things, OK? There’s enough Bad Things, let’s have Good Things. Please stop picturing somebody employing my Positive method for Bad Things. If you can’t stop, please excuse yourself so the rest of us can Evolve, OK? Things can always be Bad! That’s the Default Position! We gotta go Positive!

I mean, I can’t spend all day crying about the Polar Bears and melting Icebergs, you know? I know there are people, millions of people, who are way smarter than me, and they are looking at this problem and trying to solve it, but I also know there are kabillions of people who don’t care about the Polar Bears and don’t really see Icebergs melting as something that has anything to do with their life. You have to go around these people if you want to fix the icebergs, which probably you can’t, seriously. I’m not saying give up, but you need to be realistic!

You may have had a Goal in mind when you enrolled in this fine Institution of Learning, or, in the case of Junior College (of which I am a proud Graduate), you may have been availing yourself of a Rehabilitation program, or simply found yourself in “Grade 13,” as it were, after finding yourself in the Guidance Counselor’s office, where he’s all like: “So, it looks like you will graduate 12th grade! What do you wanna do? Would you like to go to college? Maybe a whole four years isn’t the best idea for you right now, eh? You know what? Maybe you should go to ‘Community College.’ It’s only two years, so maybe you will do better there.” In my high school, the Guidance Counselor looked like Curly from The Three Stooges, but I still looked to him for Guidance and Counselling.

So look, that’s cool, you went to College, it doesn’t matter how many years or how you got there! Now you are a Graduate! But also: now it is your Future, and you need to See it! Hurry!

You don’t need to know how to do anything! All you gotta do is picture yourself doing it in your mind, and then work backwards to figure out how to make it happen! What do you want to do? It doesn’t have to be anything complicated!

Do you want to have an apartment, or an automobile or something? Yes! For that you need money. If you don’t have money, picture yourself driving your new (or more likely, new-to-you) automobile, and then work backwards from there, and figure out how you will pay for it. One way is to have a job. Now you have a degree in College right now, and it is for whatever, and they might not be hiring for that to help you buy your car, so you should get out there and get some sorta job before you get the job that you were supposed to get with all that Colleging you probably haven’t even paid for yet. How the fuck are you gonna pay for all that money you borrowed, and your rent, and a car, with a poetry degree? Go get a goddamned job!

If you managed to get a loan for the car (on top of your College loan, which: Tick Tock) you can use the car to make money! Someone else, someone very smart, who I bet employed my Method of Positive Visualization, Visualized a Pizza, and then, they visualized how to make it better, and now Pizza Hut has the Crazy Cheesy Crust Pizza (Fig. 1), and RIGHT NOW people are looking at pictures of this pizza on the Internet and teevee, and they want one! Here is the opportunity for you to get money! Get these pizzas to people, POSSIBLY EMPLOYING YOUR NEW OR NEW-TO-YOU AUTOMOBILE and you will earn money! (Fig. 2) For your car! For your apartment! To make a Lump-Sum Loan Interest Capitalization payment on your college if you already are behind on your payments! To give to Smart People to help fix The Icebergs!

If you’re good at your job, you might even get extra money from the people who order the pizzas! They employed the Visualization Method and you are helping them achieve their Goal. They may be grateful! Go now! Go into the Future! For all of us! Thank you.

Fig. 2

Mr. Wrong can converse with you via many medias.

★★★ The red Japanese maple leaves were out. A beverage-machine service van threw reflected light ahead of it in the street. Downtown, crews were installing Citi Bike racks. The uptown clouds were making shapes; the downtown clouds were making gray. That division held into the afternoon, with Lower Manhattan sitting in gloom. Two pigeons curved toward each other, clockwise and counterclockwise, then converged and flew off together. But by the day’s end, it was blue in all directions. A window-washer screwed a squeegee head onto a long pole, at one end of a stretch of tall shop windows, where the late light caught the film of dust or pollen on them.

“Hand-Scooped Strawberry Pop-Tart Ice Cream Sandwich”

“Why do Chicagoans care what New Yorkers think?” [Via]