Archive for the 'American Life' Category

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Fragments of consumption

Books: I stepped out to a cafe in my neighborhood to read Calvin Trillin’s “About Alice.” The book is a tender 78-page remembrance of his wife, who died in 2001. The book was originally a New Yorker essay I had read back in March, but I wanted to own it bound between covers because of […]

My public language

Whenever prompted on what language I like writing in, I set off on a long rant on how torn I am between Romanian and English and how I’m always under the impression that I have to pick one over the other and blah blah blah. Typical self-indulgent stuff meant to get women teary eyed. While […]

Coca Cola C2: A Tribute

Update (Dec. 27): Read the response from Coca Cola at the bottom of this post. Coca Cola has not been nice this year. Actually, judging by anecdotal evidence from Coke fans across the country, the soda king has been downright naughty. What has made this small group of people, including myself, mad at Coke is […]

The Onion Cellar (or “The search continues”)

Vladimir, the confused New York-raised Russian Jew, and Morgan, the Cleveland-born All-American girl, are facing each other on a friggin’ cold Prague night, back when the city hosted hordes of American hipsters in search of greater meaning after the sordid Reagan/Bush years. I’ll let the author, Gary Shteyngart, pick up from here (passage is from […]

Owlspotting 2.0

Welcome to Owlspotting v 2.0 (v 1.5. launched in March but that more to do with domain name migration). If you couldn’t tell, the blog has been getting a face lift over the past week, complete with a neat way to display a full archive broken down my month and title post. If you are […]

A player takes the field. Safety takes a hike.

I write four hours before I am to take the (indoor) soccer field in my first competitive game in Boston. I just joined a co-ed league and I have yet to meet my teammates. It’s apparently a series of six on six games (four guys, two girls) spread over two months, a battle of the […]

A search. Exile. A Manifesto.

When owlspotting launched in the summer of 2005 it had little definition (which didn’t make it less funny). Over the past 16 months I often considered writing a blogging manifesto, partly because I wanted to find something to use the word “manifesto” in, partly because I believe any outlet needs a definition, even if that […]

Brand underground

You HAVE TO read the cover story of this past Sunday’s New York Times Magazine. “The Brand Underground” is the most fascinating analysis of the mainstream/subculture tensions of modern life that I have read in a while. Rob Walker has been writing about consumer culture for a while and he has a weekly column in […]

Goodbye Dupont Circle

We have officially left our studio in Dupont Circle–one of the nice downtown boroughs of Washington, DC. Elle moved a few blocks away, while I embarked on my quest to re-discover Romania (I am writing this post at 3:30 AM Romanian time, heavily jetlagged and confused). Below is the Google satellite image of our building […]

Happy 4th of July! (the protest edition)

Today, America celebrates its independence, the day when she decided to stick it to the English and pursue happiness, liberty, justice and everyday low prices. Today Americans across the land fry burgers, drape their bodies in the star spangled banner and remember how awesome it must have been to live in a time before annoyances […]