[World #1 ranked golfer Yani] Tseng may be on the vanguard of a new world order, but as long as Madison Avenue is in New York, she will polish her English, wiggle into form-fitting outfits and do her best to woo American advertisers.
“We know Yani has a couple of strikes against her in America,” Tseng’s adviser, Ernie Huang, said. “One, she is a woman, and second, she is Asian.”
When I want to feel bad about myself, I read Katie Baker's monthly column Wedded Blitz, a "highly scientific sabermetric analysis" of the New York Times' wedding section. Reading about the nuptuals of 12th generation Harvard grads, brides with dual-PhDs in neuromedicine and astrobiology, and famous-parent-trust-fund babies does wonders for one's self-esteem.
I know it sounds fantastic, and it usually is, but this week, Katie Baker has simply outdone herself with the following paragraph:
The extraneous information conveyed in another announcement, on the other hand, left me clapping maniacally in joy. "The bridegroom's mother, a certified public accountant, is the controller of the United Trust Fund, a real estate investment firm. She also owns Gift Chixx, a shop." SHE ALSO OWNS GIFT CHIXX, A SHOP. There is no comparison to this sentence and there never will be. This sentence is the one that everyone hopes will be their Secret Santa in book club. This sentence owns a mug with the face of its favorite dog breed (Westie) painted on it at one of those make-your-own-pottery places, which happens to be conveniently located next to this sentence. This sentence is on a diet but the calories don't count if it eats a bite of cheesecake off someone else's plate. I want this sentence to come to Kleinfeld's with me when I star in an episode of Say Yes to the Dress someday. I feel like this sentence would be supportive but also speak its mind.
You don’t have a right to the cards you believe you should have been dealt. You have an obligation to play the hell out of the ones you’re holding.
And this:
Nobody’s going to do your life for you. You have to do it yourself, whether you’re rich or poor, out of money or raking it in, the beneficiary of ridiculous fortune or terrible injustice. And you have to do it no matter what is true. No matter what is hard. No matter what unjust, sad, sucky things have befallen you. Self-pity is a dead end road. You make the choice to drive down it. It’s up to you to decide to stay parked there or to turn around and drive out.
Out in this desert we are testing bombs,
that's why we came here.
Sometimes I feel an underground river
forcing its way between deformed cliffs
an acute angle of understanding
moving itself like a locus of the sun
into this condemned scenery.
What we've had to give up to get here--
whole LP collections, films we starred in
playing in the neighborhoods, bakery windows
full of dry, chocolate-filled Jewish cookies,
the language of love-letters, of suicide notes,
afternoons on the riverbank
pretending to be children
Coming out to this desert
we meant to change the face of
driving among dull green succulents
walking at noon in the ghost town
surrounded by a silence
that sounds like the silence of the place
except that it came with us
and is familiar
and everything we were saying until now
was an effort to blot it out--
Coming out here we are up against it
Out here I feel more helpless
with you than without you
You mention the danger
and list the equipment
we talk of people caring for each other
in emergencies-- laceration, thirst--
but you look at me like an emergency
Your dry heat feels like power
your eyes are stars of a different magnitude
they reflect lights that spell out: EXIT
when you get up and pace the floor
talking of the danger
as if it were not ourselves
as if we were testing anything else.
