is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
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Will You Come To Banana Island With Me?
Will You Come To Banana Island With Me?
Yesterday I had a date with Halliday. He called to see what I wanted to do, food-wise, and I said, are you in the mood for Thai or Indian or something spicy like that? And he�s all, yeah, where do you want to go? So I suggested Pakwan or some other place in my neighborhood. And then he said, �Have you ever been to Banana Island?� And, well, I could not resist. I said, �Is that some kind of a pick up line?� He did not miss a beat. He said, �Well, I know you�ve never been there with me, but surely you�ve been there with someone?� Me: �You know, Hal, I don�t think I have been there. Where is Banana Island? [long pause] Is it in your pants?� Him: �No. It�s in Daly City. Shall we go?�
And so we did. And it was TASTY. It�s a Singapore�Malaysian�Thai restaurant in Daly City in a strip mall, with a very happy dancing Banana on the menu and a sign outside in the dreaded Hobo font. In the 90s, back when I was very design-sensitive, I used to refuse to go to any restaurant that had a sign or a menu printed in the Hobo font, or the Lithos font (Lithos: Hobo of the early 90s). But I have grown up since then, in part because of the Basque region of Spain, where they LOVE the Hobo-esque font. I woulda gone hungry if I had stuck to my �principles� there.
For our first course we had some sort of deep-fried pancake thing that was swirled into a cylindrical pyramid and then served with a curry sauce. Then we had �Deep Friend Sea Bass,� which Halliday insisted was perfect for us, given our history. (Um, Halliday is one of my oldest friends, and also we have spent years arguing about philosophy, fashion, cookery, love, writing, ideal forms, and all the other Platonic themes.) I�m pretty sure what we got was actually Deep Fried Sea Bass. But it had a very tasty shrimp-paste sauce that is not to be denied. Do Not Deny It. It is your Deep Friend.
Then we had something called Indian Fried Rice, which I chose. This was fried rice, but it was chock-full of Indian spices, and also shrimp, tofu, potatoes and various vegetables. Man, was it good? Yes it was! I want more of it right now, even though I�m currently full from another great dinner.
Then we had a Vegetarian Buddhist. The name of the dish put me in the mind of the scene from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory when Johnny Depp (AKA Creepy Willy) says, in reply to the fatboy who wonders whether it is true that all things in the big chocolate-waterfall room are EDIBLE, �That�s right. Everything in this room is eatable, including me. But that�s called cannibalism, and most societies frown on it.� Turns out, the Vegetarian Buddhist is not a person fried up and served to customers. It is a stir-fried dish of vegetables in a delightful black bean sauce. We also had some beer, and some good conversation.
In other news, yesterday I wrote to the editor I�m working with on that paper that I have been revising, letting him know that I would be out of town and without phone or email July 27 � August 1, and hoping that wouldn�t be too much of an inconvenience, given that the final version of the paper is due August 1 and I might need to do more revisions. (I made these reservations to be out of town more than a year ago, so it wasn�t like I was being irresponsible!) And today I got a note back, cc�d to the editor of the journal that is printing the article, that my article DOES NOT NEED FURTHER REVISIONS. Part of me did not believe it was true. But it is! So stay tuned: the article, �The Rule of Law and its Shadow: Ambivalence and the Justice beyond Legality� (Forgive me. This is the way of academic titles), coming soon(ish) to a journal you�ll never see.
Tonight I had a lovely dinner with Heidi, Liz and Evany at LuLu here in SF. We talked about jobs, boys, the hazards of dating, bra shopping (coming soon to a future diary entry), happiness, and all the other Platonic themes. Viveca showed up later. And then at some point she pulled Kierkegaard�s The Concept of Irony out of her purse and said, �hey, where�s that section you said I should give to my students in a class on irony?!� and I found it, even though I was drunk on Prosecco and Vouvray. That is not ironic.
BTW, Liz is a genius. Softy McDip! Skipper Torso! But me, not so genius. I sound rull rull dumb in the IM conversation with Evany, in part because I love to laugh at dumb pot humor (for instance: Harold and Kumar go to Whitecastle: Hilarious!), even though I don't smoke pot!, but also because she had to edit out some of my comments for the safety of all involved. Oh well. OMG! HAHAHA. HOHOHO, and a couple of tralalas. The thing that is most funny about that IM is that it really was EXACTLY 4:20 when the guy on the phone was having the pot conversation.
Kant needs cowbell. I�m still trying to figure out what it is Machiavelli needs. It isn�t cowbell. That he�s got. Any ideas?
11:33 p.m. - July 21, 2005
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