"Colorless green ideas sleep furiously"
1) He told me to take the #4 on return from the meeting, but on a hot city street with all the busses going in same direction the #104 looks just as good to a man longing for a little aircon with a misguided sense that he understands this grand flowering plant that is Saigon. It is, of course, the wrong bus. I simply rode it until I could recognize some sort of roundabout or landmark that would give me some bearing. And in a city literally choked with roundabouts, Temples and skinny four to ten storey buildings, real landmarks are few and far between. The first one I saw took about an hour to pop up, so I popped out and made my way home from there, an easy 10km off my mark. 2) One would never think to choose Vietnam as the place to decide you wanted to become a connoiseur of gnochi gorgonzola but I have oddly become one and just blocks away from my house. I can't imagine who taught them how to make the stuff. Was there an Italian contigent in here helping them to fight off the French after WWII? Or maybe just the chefs fleeing a war-torn Europe. In my case today the portion comes served in a big bowl with a side of shaved parma and another side of very nicely done bruschetta. The gnochi, never a standard size or consistency from restaurant to restaurant, seem homemade and today's entry has been garnished by me with a little hot chili oil from the "goodies" basket that accompanies each order. Damn that's tasty. As good as I ever had in Chicago with Capone's decendants manning the kitchens. 3) Been thinking about WWII recently and the reasons so, so many people died before America entered and finally put an end to things. I've also been thinking about the conditions imposed on the Germans at the close of WWI and considering how logical it would have been for the German people to have supported somebody/anybody who was promising to end the misery of paying off the reparations of the Treaty of Versailles. The Versailles Reparations came in a variety of forms, including coal, steel, intellectual property (eg. the patent for Aspirin) and agricultural products, in no small part because payments of that magnitude were just impossible. As it were, currency reparations were forcast to 1988 already. All this I have been thinking in light of having read the first few pages of Noam Chomsky's "Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance (2003)" recently, as a friend has been carrying around a copy - and all this love we've got going on in America over our upcoming fair and Democratic elections takes on a whole lot less of a lustre. But rather than lecture or get on a soapbox today, I'll just suggest a little real reading into America's motivations over the previous century and wonder about the future - a century with a distinct Asian political element, economically missing from the last one. 4) Nobody is really sitting around waiting for HBO to put "Field of Dreams" on at 2am but today is Vietnam's Independence Day celebration so I had nothing better to do last night when it came on. And lo and behold, it was oddly just what I needed in a week where things are professionally transitional and less than assured - a movie that highlights making the impossible possible and giving hope to those some of us who have made rather serious past life decisions with reasonably less than serious research and quite possibly just a sketch of where it was we thought we were going when we made those decisions. I slept quite a bit better for having seen it and wondered quite how the producers were able to get the legal permissions for the writing of the Terance Mann character, until I read that he was not real but only based loosely on J.D. Salinger. 5) I finish today with the beginnings of an idea I'd like to get WPP to be a part of - the idea of involving itself corporately and quite seriously in the beginning of putting real media and education programs into the Universities, not just here in Vietnam but also in the many developing markets where they are serving and growing. As many corporations are asking themselves how they can better serve the communities in which they harvest some sometimes very large fortunes, it seems that the idea of education is not only corporately honourable but ultimately beneficial to all involved. The countries need modern education and WPP needs future, well trained employees. The math is easy. Google the letters WPP, along with the words Education/Scholarship or University and you won't come up with much. A huge opportunity awaits the smart companies methinks.
P.S. As a sign-off I'll provide a clue to the meaning of the opening sentence to this post from Noam Chomsky. It seems to be exactly what the American government has been doing in regard to the positioning of our involvement in Iraq - speaking in a gramatically correct form, but not making any sense at all. Click the blue for more info...
1) He told me to take the #4 on return from the meeting, but on a hot city street with all the busses going in same direction the #104 looks just as good to a man longing for a little aircon with a misguided sense that he understands this grand flowering plant that is Saigon. It is, of course, the wrong bus. I simply rode it until I could recognize some sort of roundabout or landmark that would give me some bearing. And in a city literally choked with roundabouts, Temples and skinny four to ten storey buildings, real landmarks are few and far between. The first one I saw took about an hour to pop up, so I popped out and made my way home from there, an easy 10km off my mark. 2) One would never think to choose Vietnam as the place to decide you wanted to become a connoiseur of gnochi gorgonzola but I have oddly become one and just blocks away from my house. I can't imagine who taught them how to make the stuff. Was there an Italian contigent in here helping them to fight off the French after WWII? Or maybe just the chefs fleeing a war-torn Europe. In my case today the portion comes served in a big bowl with a side of shaved parma and another side of very nicely done bruschetta. The gnochi, never a standard size or consistency from restaurant to restaurant, seem homemade and today's entry has been garnished by me with a little hot chili oil from the "goodies" basket that accompanies each order. Damn that's tasty. As good as I ever had in Chicago with Capone's decendants manning the kitchens. 3) Been thinking about WWII recently and the reasons so, so many people died before America entered and finally put an end to things. I've also been thinking about the conditions imposed on the Germans at the close of WWI and considering how logical it would have been for the German people to have supported somebody/anybody who was promising to end the misery of paying off the reparations of the Treaty of Versailles. The Versailles Reparations came in a variety of forms, including coal, steel, intellectual property (eg. the patent for Aspirin) and agricultural products, in no small part because payments of that magnitude were just impossible. As it were, currency reparations were forcast to 1988 already. All this I have been thinking in light of having read the first few pages of Noam Chomsky's "Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance (2003)" recently, as a friend has been carrying around a copy - and all this love we've got going on in America over our upcoming fair and Democratic elections takes on a whole lot less of a lustre. But rather than lecture or get on a soapbox today, I'll just suggest a little real reading into America's motivations over the previous century and wonder about the future - a century with a distinct Asian political element, economically missing from the last one. 4) Nobody is really sitting around waiting for HBO to put "Field of Dreams" on at 2am but today is Vietnam's Independence Day celebration so I had nothing better to do last night when it came on. And lo and behold, it was oddly just what I needed in a week where things are professionally transitional and less than assured - a movie that highlights making the impossible possible and giving hope to those some of us who have made rather serious past life decisions with reasonably less than serious research and quite possibly just a sketch of where it was we thought we were going when we made those decisions. I slept quite a bit better for having seen it and wondered quite how the producers were able to get the legal permissions for the writing of the Terance Mann character, until I read that he was not real but only based loosely on J.D. Salinger. 5) I finish today with the beginnings of an idea I'd like to get WPP to be a part of - the idea of involving itself corporately and quite seriously in the beginning of putting real media and education programs into the Universities, not just here in Vietnam but also in the many developing markets where they are serving and growing. As many corporations are asking themselves how they can better serve the communities in which they harvest some sometimes very large fortunes, it seems that the idea of education is not only corporately honourable but ultimately beneficial to all involved. The countries need modern education and WPP needs future, well trained employees. The math is easy. Google the letters WPP, along with the words Education/Scholarship or University and you won't come up with much. A huge opportunity awaits the smart companies methinks.
P.S. As a sign-off I'll provide a clue to the meaning of the opening sentence to this post from Noam Chomsky. It seems to be exactly what the American government has been doing in regard to the positioning of our involvement in Iraq - speaking in a gramatically correct form, but not making any sense at all. Click the blue for more info...
For more on the "Perspective" or "Little Things" series, click below:
My Morning Wake-Up Call - Perspective XX: The Little Things XII
We'll Have A Gay Old Time - Perspective XIX: The Little Things XII
"Rolled Foggy Disposed Ricepaper" - Perspective XVIII: The Little Things XI
Joyeux Noel - Perspective XVII: The Little Things X
Lunch With Obama - Perspective XVI: The Little Things IX
One Motley Crue On The Bus Today - Perspective XV: The Little Things VIII
Attraction vs. Conversion: How To Power Your Blog - Perspective XIV: The Little Things VII
A glass box full of deep fried chicken heads - Perspective XIII: The Little Things VI
Seoul Searching - Perspective XII
He Would Have Shot Me 40 Years Ago - Perspective XI: The Little Things V
Chomsky on Colour & Sleep - Perspective X: The Little Things IV.2
Running With Scizzors - Perspective IX: The Little Things IV
Henry Miler II - Perspective VIII : The Little Things III.1
Henry Miller - Perspective VII: The Little Things III
Big Brother - Perspective VI: The Little Things II
This Carnival of Life! - Perspective V
The Art Walk - Perspective IV: The Little Things
Bentley #5 - Perspective III.2
Bentley vs. Vespa - Perspective III.1
Bentleys Invade Vietnam - Perspective III
Death Of A Colleague - Perspective II
Perspective
Way to play shitty music so that I have it rammed in my ass. Epic Fail.
ReplyDeleteSo we can assume you don't like Brian Wilson?
ReplyDelete