Funnel vision

Nickels and Dimes: Now I feel a bit like a coin reaching the narrow end of a large, yellow, plastic funnel, like the kind you find at the zoo or a children's museum. The coin gets dropped with a mix of excited anticipation and a slight expectancy of disappointment, a balance of fears and hopes that rides along on the textured edge of the coin. Breath held, eyes steady. The great satisfaction comes from watching the coin speed into a frenzied blur, becoming one large ethereal coin hovering for a moment over nothingness before falling suddenly out of sight.

I had no idea what to expect this summer. Now my New York summer is fading and I'm left with a brief encounter with a city that's much like a country, where after such a small amount of time here it feels like you've been chasing minnows for an afternoon or trying to talk with shadows. I'll miss it, just having barely gotten to feel along the edges, but other distances are laid out ahead, and familiar paths will intertwine with new ones. I don't have expectations but high ones.

Pizza Party: I am convinced that there was no better way to leave Democracy Now! but to crowd into the 6th floor office with staff, interns and volunteers and watch Amy Goodman set a slimy, nonsensical pseudo-journalist in his place on corporate-sponsored, right-wing television (Hardball, to be exact).