At le Ritz

Don't tell M. Soutric, but yesterday I stopped off at le Ritz for a glass of pineapple juice in the bar. Actually, I'd just bought a pair of Zizis at Repetto and needed to get out of the rain, which lasted long enough for me to eavesdrop on Natacha Amal being nicer to a film director than she needed to be--nice in the sense of polite and nothing beyond that. As I sat gazing out at the rain falling on the empty patio, I suddenly had a vision of the Bush definition of success in Iraq.

When GW was Governor of Texas, he was committed to the death penalty and was loathe to grant reprieves. He boasted that no innocent person had ever been executed on his watch with the same fervent conviction that he proclaimed WMDs in, well, you-know-where.

More recently, he encouraged a man who crafted torture-friendly policy memos--it remains to be seen whether or not the fellow was merely taking dictation--and in the face of a mounting body count and a 16 to 1 injury to death ratio, GW, the President, wants to double-down on the Iraq campaign; his way of supporting the troops.

This man is cloaked in death and suffering, whether we speak of his indifference to the Katrina debacle, the Walter Reed showcase or the goings on in the secret prisons that have sprung up like McDonalds franchises around the globe. They aren't secret because everyone wants in; they're secret because people like you and me would drop our doughnuts if we ever had a clear view of the daily curriculum in these places.

So, it occurred to me that, for such a man as this, the only definition of success in Iraq would be an on-going, escalating body count whilst giving everyone who'll listen the implanted idea that stopping would be a destructive alternative. I may be a little off the mark; in any event, that's exactly what we've got.

In other words, an unqualified success.

Babel

I watched 'Babel' tonight. I had determined not to after seeing the trailer, however, a fille sympa who is staying the weekend with me discovered a copy in the hotel's DVDothèque and insisted on us watching it. All of it. Apart from being the most improbable fiction this side of a 'Batman' installment, the director contrived to tell the story in a way that precluded my giving a damn about anything going on in the movie and I was left with the task of waiting endlessly for the surprise reveal, which, if it came as a surprise to you, you shouldn't be allowed to drive or operate heavy machinery. I got the feeling that if the director were to make a movie about a year in the life of a character, the movie would be 365 days long.

On the other hand, it was great if you've never seen a movie before.

Halliburton to open headquarters in Dubai

No doubt they felt a need to flee the jurisdiction and, certainly, Dubai is preferable to Gitmo.

Paper or plastic?

I had a nightmare last night that has me bouleversé. I was back in Los Angeles.

If that weren't enough, I was standing in line at a supermarket check-out. Everyone was being asked if they wanted paper or plastic bags for their groceries. It was clear that plastic was the politically correct selection. All the Volvo drivers and Eddie Bauer adherents made their plastic preference known sufficiently alto voce so as to declare their sensitivity to the issue for all to hear and, perhaps, to warn others that they had better make the same selection.

When it came my turn to announce a selection, all eyes were upon me. "Both," I said, to which the incredulous bag person replied, "What did you say?" She had heard me and wanted to make certain that everyone else did as well.

"Kindly double bag my groceries with paper and plastic, and be quick about it," I repeated so as to oblige her.

You see, I love trees and the Earth, too, for that matter though it is killing off every last one of us in spite of our best efforts to befriend it--her. But I also love our children serving and dying in the armed forces so that we may have liberal access to petroleum products at popular prices. A preference for plastic bags puts more emphasis on the need for those products, which keeps our kids in harm's way. So, being that I am unwilling to make the 'Sophie's Choice' between savaging the trees and increasing our need for petroleum, I default to the double bag selection.

The nightmare is that there isn't any selection that will make things better.

Mission Failure

In 'Branding' it is very important to create nomenclature that projects the image of the brand in question with all the nuance inherent to the brand. Integration of the entire product line bearing the brand is of equal importance--the DNA of the brand should reside in each and every offering and naming choices should reflect this.

Therefore, it is with great interest that I notice the Bush administration has authored a new brand slogan and applied it to one of its products. Namely, the Walter Reed Hospital. I think the slogan they've come up with, 'Mission Failure', is a good one. It implies that the mission failed; not any of us. It puts an objective feel to it and distances the catastrophe from any particular individual, not to mention any particular administration.

I expect that this slogan will soon be applied to the entire Bush Administration product line--from Iraq to New Orleans and including the 'Scooter' Libby scenario. In terms of brand nomenclature, it doesn't get any better than this.

le Cléopâtre

The Chad is in Paris, it seems. Rather than speak to me directly, he emailed his secretary from his BlackBerry and instructed her to call me and ask if le Cléopâtre still existed and if I could direct him to the Place d'Italie. I gave her the phone number of the U.S. Embassy knowing that someone there would surely be able to answer the Chad's question. No need to bother Beigbeder with this.

Picasso

I never met Picasso, but I met Henry Miller's friend Joe Gray, so that puts me in the neighborhood, so to speak. With the theft of the paintings, which were likely uninsured, it is a good time to reflect on the precautions one must take to live a secured life.

To begin with, one must be ultra careful about whom one allows onto the premises. Earlier today, when I heard Désespérée knocking at my door, I was tempted to let her in. I mean, the woman is completely mad-crazy in a sexual sense. However, I hesitated long enough for something akin to reason to take hold of me and I held myself in check. I didn't acknowledge the knock--or later, the pounding--at my door. God knows what she might have stolen from me had I let her into my (junior) suite yet one more time.

Let this be a lesson to us all.

Yes

Yes, that's right. Mais non. Non !