Iowans...

...know a heck of a lot about meth labs.

It comes with the territory, they say, from just reading local papers all the time, since meth labs are always getting busted.

E-mail from a German.

A German graduate student I know is crashing at my house for a conference this weekend. I just got an e-mail from him including this line:

Just another quick question: should I bring any sheets/sleeping back?

I like how he was writing by ear - Germans devoice the end of words, so he probably does often pronounce "bag" like "back" since their pronunciation would collapse.

Midwest / Noise.

I like the Midwest. Some people might slam it for its degenerated Old World traditions such as "hammerschlagen", the game where drunk people try to hammer in nails to a log, last one in buying everyone's round, but I know no other region of the country that has fun like we do.

Plus, we're inclusive, as the Milwaukee Brewers' newest member of the sausage race shows! It's so great to think that they've been running a bottom-of-the-6th-inning race with bratwurst and the like all these years, and now Mexicans have been included in, with a chorizo. Or, perhaps Mexicans aren't accepted by Americans, but their cuisine has been? I'm somehow both delighted and slightly disturbed that the mascot just looks like a red hotdog with a sombrero on it...

Anyhow, today I was studying in a perfectly silent library, and this jackass-y undergrad with big headphones (actually he was nerdy, he had a bad haircut and a paunch), was sitting twenty feet away chewing gum loudly, and with his mouth open. I didn't have the energy to go over and tell him to chew with his mouth closed, so I just left instead.

Ho-hum (2 of 2): Obama volunteering.

The best part of going down to Indiana on Sunday to volunteer for Obama was breakfast. I went to this diner place located just down the street from the campaign office, and the waitresses were all old white ladies who smoked too much and younger, plump Mexican women. I sat at the counter, and I could see they had two calendars above the work station: one from their meat distributor that featured a picture of a filet mignon for the month of October, and the other from some wildlife organization, featuring a wolf. I got the steak and eggs, and enjoyed it.

(I've always enjoyed eating out when I'm down there... The last time I went to this local burger chain and got a burger and some homemade stuffed pepper soup. I told the kind-of-fat, slightly-older-than-me female cashier it was good, and she said that I should come in the next time they make cream of potato soup, and that though it's good just plain, I should put nacho cheese in it like she does, since it makes it better.)

Canvassing I didn't notice much, except that the undecideds seemed to be Republican-leaning people who are disgusted with McCain, and that the Dems are hepped up to vote and will wait in line no matter what. If there's long lines on election day, I bet a lot of the Republican-leaning independents will stay away, though I have no idea of how fired up the die-hard Republicans are, we never go knocking on their door.

When I got back to the office, I ended up doing data entry for a while, and I kept coming across these fantastic names, but only like 2/3 of the way through I decided to start writing them down:

Sietika
Katanya
Ammetta
Cheneen
Tanisha
Monique
Tamaris
Marshina
Laurentha
Kanita
Latesha
Tukieda
Chanita
Lavora
Aisha
Chante
Lakesha
Lakimber
Nakesha
Carletta
Virlean
Deona
Evelen
Melony
Lakeya
Willodean
Zeeshan
Loria
Kadestric
Kareena
Mittie
Rashidah
Lelia
Vernice
Kianna
Darvell
Coriane
Delia
Tangie
Alisa
Kaprena
Melyne
Lelicia
Sharmaline
Parris
Lyntoya

I wonder if they would have fired me if they had caught me writing down the names... Can you believe that if I had had foresight and written them down from the beginning, I would have had three times as many names? It's interesting, how a lot in black culture unique names are given since it's seen as a way to honor how each child is a unique person. One could also do a lot linguistically on "permissible words" in a language - all of the names sound "English-y" to us, though we have never heard them before... The obvious thing to do is link them to the phonotactic structure in English, i.e. restrictions on what sounds appear where.

On another note, down in Indiana, I keep hearing this thing from vaguely-racist voters, that if (when!) Obama is elected, blacks will rise up/be unmanageable... This Hillary-supporting Mexican woman who's holding her nose to vote Obama since she can't stand Palin was telling me that the way she's treated in grocery stores by black clerks is only going to get worse, which is kind of like what this older woman a month ago was saying, that after the first black mayor ever was elected in Gary, in one week you went from having 2 to 18 street gangs.

As far as I can see, there's no way a canvasser can really meet that argument, since it's unfalsifiable predictions about the future. I wonder how many people think shit like this.

Quick addendum.

My friend the second-career doctoral student said the first 2 songs left her cold, but the 3rd, a rendition of "Vogue" in front of a screen of parts of women being covered by this rapid-growing black lace that was crawling up them like a vine-ish plant, made her sit and be like, "I like this."

She thought the ending blew, where after "Give It 2 Me", done to a background of frantic Atari video games-like graphics, ground to a halt with a "sing-along" thing when it had been climaxing after it had been getting bigger and bigger, the last bit was Madonna being slowly raised up while a cube of screens reading "GAME OVER" closed around her. Right after that, dazed, she looked over and after a pause was like, "Okay."

Another number in the middle was people including Madonna jump-roping to animated Keith Haring (sp.?) graphics on the backdrop, and it just didn't work. When I asked my friend what she thought of it, she was like, "Well, it was nice, and I guess I know now that Madonna can jump rope."

Ho-hum (1 of 2): Madonna concert.

Both my volunteering for Obama this past Saturday and the Madonna concert were fun, but ho-hum to relate.

The second-career grad student and I met up yesterday in the lobby of her building to go grab the bus to the concert, and she told me that the guy she lives with has been making fun of her for going to see Madonna, but she was psyched. She was wearing long leather boots when I met her, too, so I congratulated her on the appropriate look.

On the way there, we talked about Islamic mysticism - she keeps wondering how people who claim to know the inner life of God through contemplation ever find an audience - and we kept talking about that stuff too at the stadium bar before the concert, where I got a Stella Artois and she got a chardonnay.

She also told me about how in the early 70s her mom got involved with a Catholic charismatic group and her mom hated the way she prayed when she spoke in tongues, it was very guttaral, but the one time she went to church with her there her mom was speaking this ugly sound, but as the tongues spread through the church, overall it sounded like how angels would talk.

The "Stick and Sweet" tour was so-so. As my friend pointed out, when it was just Madonna speaking to the audience, or during a really low-key song her just singing against a few instruments, she couldn't hold the audience, that the energy level just died the few times that happened.

But, my friend also pointed out that she's a creative force, and each song was always interesting if not inspiring, so that's been making me think that Madonna uses her creative force to make set pieces of music, art, and dance that work together to present her as varied incarnations in different tableaus, only she doesn't always have the critical judgment to know what she does well and why.

In terms of set pieces, my friend liked this three-to-four song set of gypsy-and-hoedown flavored music in the middle of the concert, and I agree with her, that that was the best part, even though a hoedown arrangement of "La Isla Bonita" was rather counterintuitive, especially since the electronic backdrop almost looked like a Buddhist mandala, though the dancers in Western-styled wear sitting on hay-bales and wagon wheels.

She also liked this song where the chorus was something like "She's Not Me" -- it's about how the singer's boyfriend is fucking her best friend, but that's not her -- and it ended with these four dancers posed around the edge of this circular platform, all dressed up like previous incarnations of Madonna, and Madonna going around re-posing them violently and tearing off their clothes while yelling out "it's not me!" or whatever the heck the line was from the song.

Right after the concert, too, when my friend mentioned she really liked that one, I was like, "Did you notice how she kissed the bride too after hitting her?", she was like, "One? She kissed a couple of them!"

On the way back to the subway station after the concert, also, I offered to buy my friend a steak burrition as we walked by a Taco Bell -- they were on sale, a sign said, so I was like, "[my friend's name], let me buy you a steak burrito" -- but she said she's only been in a Taco Bell once, years ago, and declined.

She also said that the guy she lives with is on some theater board here in the city, and sees a lot of plays; the past 12 days, for example, he saw 11 plays, since it's a busy season.

She also also said that when she's not reading Medieval mysticism, it's mostly fashion magazines that she reads.

I'm getting stalked.

Descending the back staircase in this one school building today, this huge-ass silverfish was up on the wall like eye-level as I was going from the second to the first floor. I whacked it with the heel of my bare hand, and it left this big bloody smear on the wall.

Tonight I go see Madonna.