Pictures, Words.

Perhaps because I can't vote in this country, I tend to follow the campaigns the way middle-aged men seem to watch golf - rooting for favorites, sure, but mostly interested in watching it all unfold. One of the things that I pay attention to is the way the media chooses to present the candidates - the sort of meta-analysis that is endlessly fascinating to people with a limited appreciation for policy. Somewhere (I couldn't track down where) I read about the idea of media frames, where some basic underlying assumption becomes an unstated truth, and informs all future reports about the candidate. So suddenly all Kerry stories begin with the premise that he is insincere, and all Bush stories with the premise that he is incompetent. What appealed to me about the frame idea is that it presented something that looks a lot to us like media bias, but suggested that the cause was actually not partisanship, moreso laziness. Reporters reach for an easy device with which to make their presentation of events intelligible to the reader. It's not that they actively want to push an agenda, but rather that a narrative structure suggests itself (or, more commonly now, is suggested to them) that they use out of convenience.

All of this may be only tangentially related to this graphic from the New York Times. I think it's fair to say that Hilary Clinton's divisiveness has become a standard frame in which to present her campaign. What struck me here, though, was way the issue was presented, with images of a happy, smiling, sunshiny Clinton contrasted with one more dark and dour. I think the Times often editorializes with its choice of pictures, but this seems particularly crude, and I wonder if it would be used as readily for a male candidate.

Dylan.

Several months ago I went to the Bob Dylan exhibit at the Morgan Library on Madison Ave, with my closest friend. We are both fans, but the trip was mostly for me. I went through the whole obsessive phase when I was 19, after finding a collection of the bootlegs (yeah, commercial bootlegs) for cheap in the HMV in Picadilly Circus. It was my observation, tangentially, that a lot of very good music was often on sale in England. Which says something about the wider demand for good music there, I suppose. Or, I suppose if I want to avoid impugning the taste of a peoples that has given us the Beatles &c &c, it could say something about inventory management (colonialism being the obvious counterexample when questioning British logistical expertise).

Any case. The Dylan exhibit was disenchanting, in a few ways. Generally, the stripping of illusions, the overwhelming normalcy of his yearbook picture, the many tales he spun, made it seem more likely that the whole thing is a put-on, that we're all being taken for a ride. But that doesn't bother me too much. If he can manage to fool that many people, its an achievement worth noticing.

What bothered me was this: the album covers they would have on display were generally first editions, and often ones that Dylan had autographed for friends. On these covers, which seemed to be affectionately inscribed to friends if not close then at least dear, he would invariably quote one of his own lyrics. And so, "Hey Dan - Like a rolling stone, man!", and "Lucy - Keep walking down the line"

I made those up. But you get the idea.

Boom (Poof).

The first word of today's explosion came from the fire safety director of the building, a man whose voice we are generally equipped to ignore. After a series of alarm tests over the past day-and-a-half, we were prepared for notice of further interruptions, or perhaps, signaling the conclusion of some undisclosed and unnoticed diagnostic, a completely unnecessary invitation to "please resume normal activities."

Instead the piercing screech was followed by a brief account of an explosion on 42nd street, currently under investigation, and a suggestion that we not try to leave the building. Strangely, this was delivered in exactly the same slow and confused-sounding monotone that has characterized every other fire safety announcement, both in our current offices and in the previous building.

I saw the smoke through one of the downtown-facing windows and was immediately self-conscious about having cursed, loudly, in the office. I guess we should have recalled that smoke is typically, dark, not white, papal selection being the obvious exception. This smoke was almost cloud-like. All that struck us, though, was the size of the plume, its billowing up and out and roiling the skies. Cell phones came out, and the circuits were quickly jammed. It may have been just me, but I forgot temporarily about the existence of my office line, instead spending minutes staring at my handset, waiting for it to connect.

We decided to partially evacuate, get lower in the building and be better prepared to leave should the need arise. Some wanted to go right away, but I felt, illogically, like gathering my things and making some phone calls. By this time I'd remembered my landline. Maybe I was more confused and disturbed than I felt at the time.

Somebody went around with news that an early report from Bloomberg (the station, not the mayor) had made reference to a bomb, and that spooked people, though really it was what we all expected. Despite the news, in this second phase people seemed to calm down a bit, and some who had been heading for the stairs lingered. We changed the television from MSNBC to the local news. There was still no word.

The fire safety director set us at ease, coming on to say, in his inimitable and excruciating style, that the problem had been traced to an exploded transistor (this, it turns out, is not true - it was a blown steam pipe). There was a palpable sense of relief. We were about to resume our regular activities, when we were requested to leave the building.

Outside, many many cell phone cameras, and the surprisingly loud roar of vapor pouring out of the street.

Bolaño.

I'd been reading a lot about Roberto Bolaño of late, in the Believer and perhaps in The New York Review of Books and I suppose elsewhere as well, the Believer article written by Rodrigo Fresán and including not a few accounts of conversations with Bolaño, before and during his illness that killed him, where he resembles the obsessive endearingly out-of-synch high school friend whose family was just slightly off and who you started out by pitying until you realized that he was infinitely smarter than you; whether from fear or from jealousy, I dropped all such friends when I claimed to be growing up.