I'm available to be U.S. Senator

Dear Governor Paterson,

I would like to express my interest in replacing Hillary Rodham Clinton in the United States Senate. I currently hold a full-time job, which I realize puts me at a disadvantage with Caroline Kennedy, but my employer is willing to grant me a sabbatical while I commute to Washington. Like Ms. Kennedy, however, I am a woman, I have never held or sought public office, I have no governing experience, and I am unwilling to disclose the state of my finances. (I shall not release my medical records so you have to trust me on this, but I am in good health.)

I am ready and able to serve my adopted state, which I've visited extensively. Just two months ago I spent four delicious days exploring the Finger Lakes region. I have also been to the Adirondacks, the Catskills and the eastern tip of Long Island. I am familiar, of course, with all five boroughs of New York City, including Staten Island; in fact, I know someone who actually works on Staten Island. I have also attended several upstate county fairs, consuming deep-fried Oreos and oohing-and-aahing at oversize farm animals.

As a resident of the cultural mecca known as Brooklyn and as Time Out New York's arts & entertainment editor, I've acquired a Rolodex bulging with artsy types; I hear candidates with built-in networks get serious consideration.

A French-American citizen, I have close ties to the immigrant community that is an essential component of the glorious mosaic known as New York State. While I refuse to reveal much of anything about my personal life, I can let on that picking me should soothe the frayed nerves of the gay community; in other words, President Obama will personally thank you for a choice that will ensure everlasting support from those squawky homosexuals, thus favoring your own re-election campaign.

As New York Senator, I realize my job would not be to govern, but rather to divert much-needed federal funds to worthy constituencies, which in our current time of crisis would include not only hedge-fund managers, but also real-estate developers and victims of investment Ponzi schemes. I would also propose that America’s Big Three automakers move their corporate headquarters to Schenectady as part of any industry restructuring; there’s got to be some bailout dollars there.

Your naming me U.S. Senator would send a clear message that as Governor, you are not afraid of putting "regular folks" first, and that in New York, anybody can live the American Dream to the fullest.

Finally, let me assure you that this is not a prank: If you call on me, I will be honored to serve.

Sincerely,

Elisabeth Vincentelli
Candidate to the U.S. Senate

American at last

I had been eligible for American citizenship for quite a while, but I only made up my mind when Bush was reelected in 2004: I wanted to vote the next time around. After a longish but uneventful naturalization process, I became an American citizen two years ago. Quite frankly, it felt mostly like a bureaucratic procedure and I still thought of myself as French. I started to feel some stirrings when I cast my vote in the Democratic primary in February. Readers of this blog know I was a Clinton supporter but I had zero qualms supporting Obama once he was the nominee, and yesterday I voted for him 110%. (Factoid: voting with one hand—especially when you're not experienced with the New York system—while trying to film with the other is hard!)

This morning, I can say that for the first time, I am an American. I feel American. There is no shame anymore in holding this passport. And in fact, it's the country holding my other passport, the French one, that suddenly looks archaic with its antiquated power structure and elite-grooming system.

In the meantime, the tears have got to stop! Cars honk in triumph: I well up. Strangers scream in joy: waterworks. I look at the newspapers' covers and it's sob time.

But the thing that really, really gets me is when I think of the point in Obama's acceptance speech when he said America is "young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled." I know this is par-for-the-course verbiage, but at the same time it means a lot that he included gay people. I didn't think it would matter so much to me, but it does. Especially since as I write, it looks like the loathsome Proposition 8 making same-sex marriage illegal has passed in California. Part of me hopes it's just the death throes of a certain kind of mean-spirited, exclusionary thinking, but at the same time I'm not blinded enough by last night's triumph to actually believe it. We may be energized, but so is the dark side.

So yeah, I'm euphoric right now. It won't last long because the country's in a right old mess, but we can savor victory for a bit. Our side had forgotten what it tastes like.

Miller time…again

More thoughts on Arthur Miller's All My Sons and stage directing in general over at the SundayArts blog.

This damn election is making me so antsy that even the Sheila is starting to lose her patience with me. Clearly this cannot be over soon enough. I will vote at P.S. 321 first thing tomorrow morning and get my infinitesimal share over with. This will be my second vote as a newly minted American citizen after the Democratic primary: yay!

Oh, and if you are in a country/city in the world that gets the francophone channel TV5 Monde, do tune in for its election-night coverage, as I helped put the New York portion together. I believe we'll be on from 5:30pm to 11:30pm EST.

Heartless Brooklyn

Where else would crowds boo a marathon runner but in Brooklyn? Those Park Slope homies are tough, man!

I just came back from watching about 40,000 people run the New York Marathon a few blocks from my apartment, and yes, amidst all the cheers, someone got heckled.

Okay, perhaps I should specify that not only was the guy wearing a McCain-Palin t-shirt, but he was also carrying a sign for them. The Park Slopers reacted right away, like bulls in front of a red flag. [Update: It was this guy. And once again, he's the only McCain supporter.]

That was the only McCain supporter I saw, however. He was vastly outnumbered by people running in Obama gear. The best part was the runners who had come from foreign countries showing their support as well: I saw several variations on "Italy for Obama," "Germany for Obama," etc.

As we near the election, I refuse to let myself think about November 5th. Every time I slide into daydreaming about an Obama victory, I need to superstitiously knock on wood immediately thereafter. Time cannot fly fast enough.

We can't spend our way out of this one

Having stained my T-shirt on the way to work (don't ask), I had to make an emergency pit stop at the Gap. Sales galore! The things I consume the most are cultural products so I don't find myself in stores very often, and when there I tend to buy several things not because I like purchasing stuff but so I won't have to shop again for a while.

Anyway, I seemed to be the only New Yorker at the Herald Square Gap this morning—thank god for tourists, busy propping up our local economy. The last time the stock exchange took a major dive in New York was after 9/11. Back then, we were told that the best way to fight terrorism was to act as if nothing had happened and shop shop shop. Healing through consumption, that's the American way.

But this time around, who's going to buy anything? This is a crisis that we can't credit-card our way out of.

One heartbeat away

Finally watched Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud's film Persepolis tonight. I think it was up against Ratatouille for the Best Animated Film Oscar and of course Disney prevailed. A shame, because Persepolis is much more complex than the vastly overrated rodent movie.

Watching it tonight, a scene struck a particular chord because of the current context. The movie is set mostly in Iran after the Islamic Revolution, and it shows, among other things, what happens when ideologues and opportunists band together to rule a country, especially when they use religion as an excuse/tool to enforce their rule. At one point, a woman panicks because her husband had a heart attack and she needs the authorization to get him out of the country so he can get an operation. To her horror, she realizes the hospital administrator in charge of delivering the authorization used to wash her windows. He has zero qualifications and yet there he is, lording it over others.

Sounds familiar? The US has turned into a country where zealots and opportunists band together to pillage natural resources and rob people blind (there's no other word to describe what health-insurance and oil companies do). Incompetent people rise to positions of power, carried on by the passivity and ignorance of the population. Sarah Palin is only the latest in a long line of such people: She doesn't have the qualifications to be vice-president and yet she acts with a sense of utmost certainty. She's very very close to being in charge. We should be terrified.

Single moms in the news

While America is debating the fate of Bristol Palin, five-months preggers at 17 and promising, we hear, to marry the similarly teenaged father, France has just learned that its divorced, 42-year-old Minister of Justice, Rachida Dati, is pregnant and unattached. And not only is Dati single, but she's refused to reveal who the father is: "I have a complicated private life and that's the boundaries I've set for myself when it comes to the media. I won't say anything on this subject."

I cannot even imagine a female American politician in a similar position 1) describing her private life as "complicated" (it would be translated for her as "slutty"); 2) choosing single motherhood; and 3) being allowed to choose single motherhood without being tarred and feathered.

Meanwhile, the ravages of religious stupidity, poor education and the politics of sexual abstinence continue in the U.S., now vividly illustrated by the Palin family. The sophistry and rhetorical contortions the conservative right has to display in order to not criticize the Palin situation are a marvel to behold.

Applause, applause

I was watching the Denver convention after work today—at the gym, natch. I started with CNN but couldn't bear all those smug pundits, so I switched to PBS, which was showing the state-by-state roll call. Very interesting to a newly minted American like me, about to cast her first vote in a national election in November!

When I tuned in, Governor Jon Corzine was just casting the New Jersey's delegation votes for Obama. Next in the alphabetical order was New Mexico, which announced it was yielding its delegates to Illinois. "What a fascinating process," I thought, unaware states could even do that, and wondering what exactly the point of doing it was. But then Illinois yielded its delegates to New York. I was flummoxed but okay, if that's the way it works. Hillary got on the floor, surrounded by Chuck Schumer and David Paterson, and she announced a motion to stop the roll call and nominate Obama by acclamation. Which is what happened.

At first I thought it was so exciting and historic and all that. But after about ten seconds my mood turned. What is this, decisions by applause meter?

One of the biggest problems created by the Bush administration over the past eight years is an increasingly ingrained disregard for due process: Let's just dispense with all those petty rules and regulations, which only get in the way, and let's do what we want to do when we want to do it.

Which is why cheering Obama as the Democratic nominee was a bad, bad idea. There are ways to do things to ensure everybody's participation in the democratic process, even if these things are purely symbolic. Of course Obama's nomination was certain, but doing a roll call of the states at the convention, one by one, feels important to me: Democracy is a process, not just a word. The roll call allowed states like New Jersey, which had gone to Clinton during the primaries, to show solidarity by announcing their unanimous support for Obama (which is exactly what it did). Depriving the states, particularly the ones that sided with Clinton in the winter and spring, from openly, decisively, verbally embracing Obama sends the wrong message. The biggest ovation can't make up for it.

McCain endorses social democracy

For some reason it took me two weeks to see the lists of favorite songs Obama and McCain submitted to Blender magazine. It seriously makes me ill to see that Abba shows up not once but twice on McCain's list, with "Dancing Queen" at No. 1.

On the one hand, it may reinforce the prejudices of those who think of Abba as safe, old people's music. Dilettante readers know better, of course! On the other, you could argue that McCain has picked a band hailing from a social-democratic paradise and that it shows that…never mind, it doesn't show anything.

Obama has two non-American picks (U2 and the Rolling Stones) to McCain's one, and he has more female artists. No surprises there. Thank god Malia Obama is a fan of Miley Cyrus. I was starting to think nobody in that family ever has any fun.

Bitter truths

Charles P. Pierce's essay in Esquire about the Obama candidacy is one of the finest I've read so far. Of course, it helps that I share Pierce's take on Obama's discourse, and the fact that it's basically giving Americans a free-pass card (change without sacrifice, easy charisma over bitter pill). My main qualm is that Pierce's rhetorical gimmicks get a bit grating after a while, but it's easy enough to overlook them and focus on the ideas themselves.

What I like best about this piece is the rage and disappointment that run through it—not at Obama or other politicians, which would be too easy, but at the American people themselves. For despite all the talk about freedom and democracy, Americans do no exercise their most basic rights and do not fulfill their most basic duties as citizens, including voting and holding their elected representatives accountable. But hey, freedom is being able to drive your big-ass car wherever and whenever you want, right?

Pierce comes down harshly on Obama for feeding us bromides about the country's greatness: "The cynic will admit that it’s all great politics. Tell America that it is a great country that simply has lost its way for a spell. Tell the American people that they are a great people who are better than those hucksters who come to divide us. It has a marvelous anesthetic appeal. Swirl down through the clouds of memory and forget that the country allowed itself to follow George Bush over the cliff not merely because it was shocked by the attacks of September 11, 2001, but because it was too pissing-down-the-shoes scared to do anything else. Forget about how eagerly the American people cheered the brutish and the nasty, how simple it was to sell raw animal vengeance dressed up as geopolitical wisdom, and how dumbly everyone followed until well after it was revealed that the people selling it didn’t know enough about the world to throw to a cat. This was the era of complicity. Can Obama end it, thought the cynic, without admitting it ever existed?"

"Why would anyone have faith in America, which is not tough but fearful, not smart but stupid, and not shrewd but willing to fall for almost anything as long it comes wrapped in a flag? Why would anyone have faith in Americans? Barack Obama says that he has that faith because of his own life, because he was able to rise to the point where he can be thought of as president of the United States. He is the country’s walking absolution. That’s his reason, the cynic thinks, but it’s not mine. There has to be confession. There has to be penance. Being Barack Obama is not enough. Not damn close to enough."

Life and death on the Prairie

Reading James Howard Kunstler's typically apocalyptic latest post, I was reminded of Jericho, the cheeseball, short-lived TV series I've been watching on DVD.

Kunstler, a Peak Oil theorist, argues that the looming economic crisis will be "something at least twice as bad as the Great Depression of the 1930s: people with no money in a land with no resources (with manpower that has no discipline), hardly any family farms left, cities that are basket-cases of bottomless need, comatose small towns stripped of their assets and social capital, an aviation industry on the verge of death, and a railroad system that is the laughingstock of the world. Not to mention the mind-boggling liabilities of suburbia and the motoring infrastructure that services it."

The premise of the show is that nuclear explosions have destroyed several American major cities, leading to utter chaos in the entire country; the action is centered on Jericho, a small Kansas town cut off from the rest of the U.S. as communications break down, and power, gas and food run out. The response to the crisis is pretty much exactly as Kunstler described it above—though as I finish watching the first season, I'm entirely unclear as to whether the writers intended to critique the American way of life by showing the citizens of Jericho to be foolish, spoiled, childish, irresponsible and selfish, or if they had no idea they were painting such a damning portrait. A satirical viewpoint does peek at times, as when a teen boy (already established as a bit of a douche) happily explains that once the Internet is back on, everything will be all right again, food will be delivered, etc. But are the town's power couple, the former mayor and his wife (Gerald McRaney and Pamela Reed), really meant to be insufferably self-righteous characters prompt to cast judgment (the stereotypical judgmental heartland) or are they meant to represent good, old-school American values? I truly cannot tell.

It's the way Jericho's citizens adapt—or not—to their new circumstances that most resembles Kunstler's description of "comatose small towns stripped of their assets and social capital." First of all, this is Kansas and these people are starving in the middle of winter because no food is delivered and subsistence agriculture doesn't exist; the sole exception, it seems, is a single corn-growing farm (which, characteristically, is audited by the IRS for debt at the beginning of the show). Second, for several days, even weeks, after the first explosion, a lot of townspeople just hang out at the local bar, waiting for help to magically appear. Similarly, they seem content living in ignorance of what happened, and nobody has any interest in exploring the surrounding area—even though we are shown a landing strip and some small planes. Nobody attempts to find alternative sources of energy until months have passed. The passivity is simply extraordinary.

Now I realize we're talking about a series starring Skeet Ulrich here, but Jericho is one of those products whose anthropological/political interest is larger than its production values (as in the ol' Star Trek days, the show was visibly shot in a handful of Southern California locations and absolutely nothing about it looks either Kansan or post-nuclear). Even when it feels as if the creators' intents and what's on screen diverge, a lesson is taught: If there was a major catastrophe in America, the country would be woefully unprepared. And the idea of a Blackwater-like paramilitary company running amok in a devastated country is chillingly realistic.

Turn off the idiot box

Turn off the idiot box! No, dear readers, this isn't aimed at you—you can watch as much as you want. And it isn't aimed at myself either, for that matter, as I'm looking forward to catch up with a pair of Morris Engel movies and season 1 of Jericho this weekend.

The person who really should turn off her TV and start paying attention to the world outside is New York Times television critic Alessandra Stanley. Now I realize Stanley is actually paid to watch TV but today's review of HBO's Recount, about the Florida debacle during the 2000 presidential election, indicates a baffling lack of understanding of that pesky reality-based world we live in, and the relative importance of events.

Stanley has often been mocked for accumulating corrections, mostly due to stupid but relatively minor mistakes. That I can live with, sort of, because as an editor and writer I know how easy it is to get details wrong. But there's a bigger problem at work today.

The review starts by saying the recount "was historic and historically awful, until the Sept. 11 attacks wiped away much of the anguish and slapstick. For a while, at least, the Florida vote count seemed as trivial and irrelevant as the results of the Henley Regatta after August 1914."

Let's see: A rigged voting procedure in Florida led to a rigged count; that in turn led to an abuse of power by the Supreme Court, which put in office a dangerously inept president who in a few years' time would wreck the American economy and turn into a criminal of war (which is what people including the Hague tribunal call those who knowingly flaunt the Geneva Convention). Of course that bit of "slapstick" was "trivial and irrelevant"! Stanley's reaction truly boggles the mind.

Our ace critic then proceeds to imply that the recount would have remained some kind of cute footnote until HBO's "deliciously engrossing" film reminded us of the hoopla. Reading this in the subway this morning, I had to put down the paper for a minute; I wanted to see what Stanley would come up with next but needed to collect myself, not throw the Times out the window.

Good thing I kept reading, because I got the pleasure of choking on carefree asides like "Life is unfair, especially when retold in dramatizations of recent history." How easily does blithe sarcasm seep out through the walls of privilege… Sometimes the unbearable glibness of being a Times critic is just too much for us readers—and citizens—to withstand.

Getting in touch with middle America

New York Times columnists Maureen Dowd and David Brooks can be counted on to bang out something superficial and self-satisfied on a regular basis, but they've outdone themselves this week, both on the topic of Obama's supposed elitism. (I've been clear about my preferring Hillary but this is getting too much even for me.)

First, having NYT columnists bray about elitism is always a bit rich—like Brooks and Dowd are in touch with working-class America, whose opinion about Obama they pretend to channel. They may want to move to Dubuque and file their stories from there; until then, they should stop putting words in the mouths of people they know nothing about and shut their trap about elitism.

Brooks, for instance, wrote "When Obama goes to a church infused with James Cone-style liberation theology, when he makes ill-informed comments about working-class voters, when he bowls a 37 for crying out loud, voters are going to wonder if he’s one of them."

WTF? I'd venture to say that Brooks knows no more, and likely less, than Obama about working-class voters, and bringing up Obama's bowling score is downright insane. America is plunging into a recession, it is embroiled in the Iraqi quagmire—it has legalized torture, for god's sake!—and Brooks tut-tuts about Obama's bowling score?!? I for one am glad Obama has better things to do than worry about gutter balls. There's a good chance Bush is better at bowling, and look where it got us.

As for Dowd, she just dropped a few doozies in her latest column. Referring to Obama: "There’s no doubt the cat is cool. [Jeezus, Maureen, this is an election, not Saturday night at Blue Note] It’s easy to imagine the wild reception many parts of the world would give a President Obama as he loped down the stairs of Air Force One in his aviator glasses, the chic and chiseled Michelle on his arm."

Because that's what we girls care about: a president who looks cool, and that Hillary is a sad old bag anyway.

Oh, and how about this: "Obama has to prove to Americans that, despite his exotic background and multicultural looks, he shares or at least respects their values."

Isn't there an editor at the Times with the guts to tell Dowd that she sounds completely ridiculous and she may consider re-reading her own prose out loud before letting it go to press? She might have a flash of sanity and realize how utterly dumb and downright provincial she sounds. His exotic background and multicultural looks—where is Dowd living? One of those Mormon compounds? We're in America, where half the population is somehow "exotic" and "multicultural," and the way her sentence is phrased, it looks as if true Americans aren't multiculti.

And besides, isn't Bush a good ol' boy with a down-home background and white-bread looks? Yeah, let's order another one of those!

Lady Oscar

I had placed my chips on There Will Be Blood so I had a late collapse in our Oscar pool yesterday, after leading most of the evening. Things like getting both Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress did help, however. Weirdly Tilda Swinton seemed to be considered the dark horse and her win an upset, even though she's far from an unknown quantity and has been remarkable in pretty much everything she's ever done. And not that I wanted Juno to get anything (it is a trifle at best) but its getting Best Script particularly rankled me as the script is precisely the worst thing about the movie.

My favorite acting trend last night: Every single Oscar went to a non-American. Tilda Swinton is British; Daniel Day-Lewis is Irish; Javier Bardem is Spanish; Marion Cotillard is French. I'd like to say this is a seachange in prevailing acting styles, though it's probably just a coincidence. But what if it means a swing of the pendulum away from the Method and toward, you know, just making things up and pretending? (Though some may argue that DDL is pretty Method.)

Psyched to see Cotillard win, as I did like both her and La vie en rose, plus, you know, it's great to see a French actress up there 48 years after Simone Signoret, but at the same time I'm seriously bummed by this kneejerk rewarding of 1) the transformation of a beautiful actress into an ugly duckling through the magic of latex, 2) showy acting and 3) and biopic acting. Cotillard's performance, of course, covers all three bases. Again I enjoyed her a lot but it's frustrating to see understated or comedic performances always get the shaft. Over the past several years, way too many Oscars have gone to actors embodying real people (as far as one can say that Ray Charles, Idi Amin Dada, Truman Capote or Edith Piaf are "real" but let's not get too meta-meta here) and biopic-ing has become a surefire ticket. Pathetic.

Speaking of rocking chicks: Tina Fey came out for Hillary and pretty much nailed it on SNL's Weekend Update. Check out the video here. Her killer wrap-up: "bitch is the new black."

Sisters o sisters

Tip of the hat to James Wolcott for directing me to Susan Faludi's review of the anthology Thirty Ways of Looking at Hillary: Reflections by Women Writers in the Observer. Faludi starts by zeroing in on the fact that Clinton's actual politics and proposals are rarely discussed (one of my pet peeves in the Clinton/Obama duel—not talking about specific policy points plays to his strengths) then goes on to dismantle the contributors' self-absorbed takes (it would have been nice to get more specific examples, though the Susannah Moore quote is priceless) and look at the mother syndrome in American politics. I can't say that I always agree with Faludi but she seems to hit the nail on the head there. Thomas Hobbes may have written that man is wolf to man, but damn!—woman can be bitch to woman.

That warm, fuzzy feeling

I've been having a feisty ongoing debate with a couple of colleagues who are pro-Obama while I'm pro-Clinton. Now, we all agree that no matter who the Democratic nominee is, we will all gladly vote for him/her in November. In the meantime, however, the arguments have been flying left and right like monkeys in the starry Oz night.

One of said colleagues mentioned a recent New Yorker article by George Packer as having convinced him even more of the two candidates' respective (de)merits. I read it this morning on the subway and it made me so angry that I had to put it down for a minute. Most of the article is devoted to Clinton's character and it sets her against her main rival thus: "Clinton as executive, Obama as visionary." Problem is, Obama's speeches maybe visionary but visionary does not pay the bills. His speeches are winning because they are just feel-good hogwash. They are maddeningly evasive, and most of the people who are for him can't get specific about his politics. Obama and his followers assume that once Americans wake up, they will get right back to fulfilling their destiny as naturally generous, enlightened people ready to turn the other cheek, help the downtrodden, clamor for higher taxes for the public good and drive small cars—or even better, use public transportation. Right, the same people who voted for Bush not once but twice (and there was no excuse the second time)—these people just need inspiration to trickle down from above to do the right thing. Same thing for the military and pharmaceutical corporations: They too want change and they'll go along with Obama's "can't we all get along?" plans.

The scary thing is, Obama fans like him for the same reason a lot of people liked Bush: He seems like such a nice fellow. Packer: "In the New Hampshire cafeteria, Clinton couldn’t quite make an individual connection, even when listening sympathetically to a woman in the crowd who said that she held down two jobs and still had trouble paying for her asthma medicine." But I don't want a president to connect with me, Elisabeth Vincentelli—I want the president to connect with the country.

Packer goes on to describe an Obama meeting: "Obama spoke for only twenty-five minutes and took no questions; he had figured out how to leave an audience at the peak of its emotion, craving more. As he was ending, I walked outside and found five hundred people standing on the sidewalk and the front steps of the opera house, listening to his last words in silence, as if news of victory in the Pacific were coming over the loudspeakers. Within minutes, I couldn’t recall a single thing that he had said, and the speech dissolved into pure feeling, which stayed with me for days."

What is this, Pollyanna at the megachurch??

I personally would like to have some hard-ass competence in the White House and I don't see Obama as being able to deliver it. If he thinks the Republicans are suddenly going to be swayed by his charm and share in his bipartisan efforts, he's in for a rude awakening—and we may be in for another Carter-type presidency.

Time is money

Apparently President Sarkozy is trying to expand the way a country's economic health is measured by expanding the defining parameters.

According to the Associated Press, "Once the preserve of philosophers, measuring happiness has now become a hot topic in economics.

A recent report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development considers taking into account leisure time and income distribution when calculating a nation's well-being. And the European Commission is working on a new indicator that moves 'beyond GDP' to account for factors such as environmental progress.

Richard Layard, a professor at the London School of Economics and author of the 2005 book 'Happiness: Lessons from a New Science,' said Sarkozy may be seeking recognition for policies, popular in Europe, that promote well-being but don't show up in the GDP statistics.

Governments are rated on economic performance, and this influences policy in favor of boosting GDP, the value of goods and services produced over a calendar year, he said.

'But people don't want to think they live in a world of ruthless competition where everyone is against everyone,' Layard said. 'Valuable things are being lost, such as community values, solidarity.' "

Of course one may suggest that Sarkozy is pushing for this change because on paper France could do better in terms of unemployment or inflation, whereas most French people are not hurting for days off. But really, is using leasure time to measure a country's level of success such a bad idea? Americans are often said to be obsessed with money—it's certainly the image they have in Europe—but is it really so true? I'm pretty sure more than we'd expect would choose a balanced, happy life over the mere accumulation of money. (Or I may just be terminally deluded.) Income distribution also is a huge problem in the US, and I for one would be happy to see a country go down the ranks when the disparity between high and low salaries is too high.

Blindingly obvious

I'm really interested in issues of transportation, and my position is fairly simple: Governments all over the world need to push public transportation, especially trains. Banking on cars is a losing proposition. Not only is there the obvious problem of oil, but even if someone invents engines fueled by other means (electricity, ethanol, fumes from Republicans' brains), we will have to deal with 1) how to actually pump out these new sources of energy and 2) the enormous gridlock that will come out of millions of additional vehicles on the roads.

Reading "Running on Fumes," Elizabeth Kolbert's review of two new books about the automobile industry and a potential "car of the future," I was struck by the fact that she never brought up public transportation. Actually, it kinda blows me away. Of all people, the ecologically minded Kolbert should at least mention the fact that the car cannot possibly be considered the be-all and end-all when it comes to going from point A to point B; the very terms of the discourse are impossibly narrow in America. When I read about new super-cheap cars, it makes me tremble. Our short-sighted elected officials should focus on figuring out how to efficiently replace cars whenever possible, not on how to make them cheaper. Kolbert says that "There are nine personal vehicles per thousand eligible drivers in China and eleven for every thousand Indians, compared with 1,148 for every thousand Americans." Okay, so China and India will have cheap cars, but perhaps their governments should look into bullet trains as well? (It goes without saying that the U.S. should look into them too; it just won't happen with the current administration.)

Leaving issues of pollution aside, I've been living in New York for 17 years and in that time I've witnessed the metastasizing of auto traffic in the city. Unless you drive at 3am, it's a given you'll get stuck, no matter where you are or where you go. It's blindingly obvious that physical space isn't infinitely expandable: Where, pray tell, are all these extra cars going to go?

Five years

I got a little emotional dropping my ballot in the urn at the French Consulate Saturday afternoon. "A voté!" was called out. I selected the ballot bearing Ségolène Royal's name, though I voted more for the Socialist Party than for her, and knowing full well that Sarkozy was going to win. How not to get a little verklempt when doing one's citizen duty, especially for an election that may well be considered historic a few years (months?) hence? Perversely, I welcome Sarkozy's win. It's going to make things very interesting for France, a country that's often welcome an authoritarian figure at the helm in the past. We fear it and want it at the same time, seemingly unable to figure out how to deal with modernity without a manly man telling us what to do.

After leaving the Consulate, I crossed Central Park westward to attend The Tristan Project. I can't say I was as bowled over as most audience members. While often beautiful, Bill Viola's images also were a little obvious: fire and water to symbolize purification? What next, white means good and black is evil? I was also frustrated by the relative disconnect between the impassive behavior of the singers onstage (except for Anne Sofie von Otter, who looked and sounded stupendous) and the video unfurling above them. Yes yes yes, I understand what the point was, but to me it felt like empty illustration instead of two art forms enriching and illuminating each other. Even worse, the visuals looked a bit…passé at times, especially during the shakycam, Blair Witch moments. Technically, the use of video and screens felt more sophisticated—and better integrated in the overall concept—at the Justin Timberlake show. It's nice to see opera enter the 20th century; it'd be even nicer for it to enter the 21st.

This topic is obviously tricky because I really don't want to come across like one of those stereotypical NYC operagoers who screech that it's all about the music and no directors with ideas should apply. So yes, I love it that Lincoln Center put up some big $$$ bringing over The Tristan Project, and I much prefer this kind of failure to the Led Zeppirelli extravaganzas—you know, the huge ones that laboriously lift off the ground before going down in flames. And I'm eagerly awaiting Gérard Mortier's arrival, ’cause you can already tell he has Peter Gelb's number. But no, Tristan is not beyond criticism. But then, debate is good. Doesn't arguing over the artistic merits of a production beat arguing over, say, boring NYC obsessions like real estate or the latest foodie emporium? Right, thought so.

Last-ditch effort

I just noticed that director Ariane Mnouchkine has been writing a campaign blog hosted by the daily newspaper Libération (which has thrown all pretense of journalistic neutrality to the wind and openly supports Ségolène Royal's candidacy). Her latest post, dated from yesterday, is a plea for people to vote Ségolène Royal. It is impassioned and poetic, and those lucky enough to have seen Mnouchkine's stage work will recognize the tone. It ends with these words: "Will you stand it on Sunday night to learn that we missed by a vote? A single one. Yours. I implore you." The comments are a doozy, and seem to nicely encapsulate the apprehension and mixed feelings shared by French voters.

I myself will vote tomorrow—French citizens living abroad vote a day earlier—at the consulate then cross over to the west side for five hours of the Tristan Project at Avery Fisher Hall. It will be my first live Wagner opera; in other words, tomorrow I'm finally losing my Wagner cherry. Esa-Pekka, Bill and Peter: please, be gentle!

As a side note, that production, which has been received with near-universal raves, was seen at Gérard Mortier's Opéra de Paris a couple of years ago, which makes Peter Gelb's recent catty comment sound even more myopic and stupid: "You won't be attending any performances like this [the Met's 40th-anniversary gala] at the City Opera of the future, or the Paris Opera of the present." He then proceeded to describe Met darlings Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazón as "the future glory and hope for opera." In a flash, Gelb undermined all the good will he amassed over the course of a pretty positive first season at the Met. Dumb dumb dumb.