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Andrew Lindemann Malone's Internet Playpen |
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Tuesday, 8/31/04: Beat Biter, Dope Style Taker I'm quoted anonymously in this entry on About Last Night, a blog run by high-culture guru Terry Teachout and someone known equally anonymously as Our Girl in Chicago. (Hey! I like Chicago!) The topic at hand is a list compiled by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation of the 50 most "essential" songs of the last 100 years. I just hit O.G.I.C. with my thoughts during an idle moment at work, because I didn't think there was anything worth a full-on rant on the 70s and 80s lists, but this 90s list begs for a smackdown, for one reason: the presence of Mary J. Blige's "Real Love." Ladies and gentlemen: Think of the year 2054. Hackers will be exploiting security holes in Microsoft Windows MMLIV. Our presidential candidates will be debating each other's participation in the Amalgamated Petroleum-Sodium Glutamate War of 2023. And there will be new musical sensations who have risen and put all but the brightest lights of previous pop-music eras into the shadows. Where will the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul be in this future epoch? Let us inquire via inventory:
"Real Love" is not an essential song. It's not a great song. It is a good song. I got tired of it when it came out. If I had to take it as one of 50 songs to a desert island, it still wouldn't get much airplay. The CBC screwed it all up. But maybe north of 54'40", the song sounds completely different. "Doo Wop (That Thing)" wasn't my choice for hip-hop song of the 90s, as the comments I made to O.G.I.C. indicate, but at least it's a really, really great song. Maybe this will inspire Lauryn Hill to rhyme again (please?).
Monday, 8/30/04: Awake for No Reason Here's the review. Last one on the page. I should have had Bortniansky as an 18th-century composer, rather than 17th-century. In my defense, I was sick, as described below. I'm still embarrassed. Very Lutheran things said at this concert:
I love Lutherans. It's 4 in the morning; I awoke at 3 and now I can't get back to sleep. I do feel much less alert now, though! Probably not a good idea to go to work today, though I might end up trying it because of that Protestant work ethic.
Sunday, 8/29/04: Illin' After a stressful week at work, what better way to recover than by contracting a nasty summer cold? That's the kind of week I had, anyway, and that's the illness I'm currently laboring under. I had a concert to go to and review yesterday, and it took every bit of my strength to go to the concert, listen well enough to review it, and then (this morning) actually write a review. I don't think the review reads like it was written by a sick person. But it is rare that I'm physically exhausted after I write a review, too, so who knows. While the symptoms have subsided somewhat from their peak, I'm still completely miserable mentally! The part of me that takes a detached, clinical view of my various struggles thinks it's hilarious how when I'm sick, everything in the world suddenly is irreparable and pointless. Here are some actual thoughts that I think were sincere when I thought them this afternoon:
I hope I feel better tomorrow mostly because I hope I feel better tomorrow, not because I particularly want to go to work. • Update a little before bedtime: I'm no longer leaking fluids from my nose at quite the prolific rate I was earlier. Rather, I have a migraine and a hacking cough! It will take a minor miracle to get me to go to work tomorrow. It's not like they need me to do anything urgent.
Sunday, 8/22/04: We Need Music Everywhere A review of the Plastic Containers' set last night is now available in the "Reviews that Involve Massive Conflicts of Interest" section in The Rest of My Culture. It was fun! The review doesn't say much more than that, but does go into detail as to why that was surprising. Today is Chuck Brown's birthday, which meant that WPGC played "Bustin' Loose" shortly after noon, which had me nodding my head as I came back from the grocery store. Here are my reviews of a Chuck Brown album and a Chuck Brown show. I am so glad I live in the D.C. metro area and know what go-go is. I would like to call your attention to the fact that the hip-hop/R&B radio is in the best shape it's been in for years. PGC is always good for DJs, with Donnie Simpson, Easy Street, PMD, Rain and Flexxx, and others holding it down with style. But virtually all the songs the radio is playing lately are actually good! We've got:
And I'm sure I'm forgetting some. Almost whenever I turn on the radio, I hear something that perks me up and gets my blood flowing. PGC just played "Compton," the new single by Guerilla Black, and it's hot too! I hope this never ends, although I'm sure it will. In other news, classical radio continues to suck.
Friday, 8/20/04: Derelicts of Dialect Yesterday I attended an interagency meeting — we were all providing status reports on how well we had managed to drive small businesses into the ground, make up regulations based on unsound science, overshoot our statutory authority, and generally burden the economy unnecessarily just to get a few confusingly worded lines into the CFR. Anyway, one of the presenters cited a point and then noted that the subsequent presenter would "footstomp" that point, meaning emphasize, I think. As I do whenever I hear an atrocity against the English language being committed at an interagency meeting, I tried not to laugh and instead wrote down a few outraged phrases in my notebook. In the event, there was no footstomping, literal or figurative, in the subsequent presentation. Reporting this back to one of my co-workers (it's nice to work in an office full of English majors sometimes), she nominated "value-added" (meaning "better," or sometimes "more capable") as her personal bugaboo among idiotic buzzwords. My all-time most hated is be "business process," meaning "that crap you do all day," although using "populate" to refer to filling in a form remains a close second. Of course, I then went back to my desk and used the words "requirement," "associated," and "provisions" about seven million times, but at least I wasn't making up words in order to get my prose so repellent (yet, paradoxically, so clean!).
Thursday, 8/19/04: Those Who Can't Do, Wait In A Long Line The casting call doesn't really merit a full-length report, unfortunately, except as an example of naked diversionary capitalism. I got out of the Gallery Place metro at about 5 and walked over to ESPNZone in a punishing Washington sun, to find a large mass of people lined up in what turned out to be three lanes that bent back on each other halfway down the block on E St. between 11th and 12th. All of us were sweating, I would have to assume. I was one of three people in line who had a shirt and tie on, which I hoped augured well for my possible casting as a "Capitol Hill Type." Most others were a few years younger than me and clad in the type of clothes that say "I didn't just come here from a full-time job that pays more than $7 an hour." The sheet they made you fill out asked for, in addition to the usual contact info, your suit size and whether you had a car that could be used. I wrote "1995 Chevrolet Cavalier (white)" and tried not to chuckle. A couple rows of boxes allowed you to check the character types you thought you'd be suited for; I started out with just a few but, as I waited in line, decided to check all the ones that did not call for me to be excessively physically intimidating. (The homeless guy in front of the MLK Library still called me "big guy," so maybe I should have marked down "Gang Member" and "SWAT Team" after all.) I spent some effort to determine whether the distaff half of a couple in front of me had checked "Hoochy Women"; she had. In fact, every woman under 25 had checked the box, as far as I could tell. T-shirted Carlyn Davis reps hustled 30 people at a time into ESPNZone for photographing, if you hadn't brought a shot, and the ceremonial stapling of photograph to sheet. Polaroids ran $2 each and you had to share them with another prospective extra; I stood next to a bemused gentleman about eight inches taller than I and tried not to get lost in the frame. A quick scissors later, half a Polaroid graced my sheet, and I was told to look repeatedly on the website for future updates. ("Don't call us, hit our homepage.") As I left and looked at the line, now stretching all the way down to the corner and a little ways up 12th, I reflected on how Polaroid revenues would probably pay for this entire endeavor, and then some. Still: I could be in "XXX: State of the Union" now! Pretty damn cool if it pans out, and I say that with no irony whatsoever. Then I had a real nice little repast at Matchbox, at 7th and H: $2.75 happy-hour Yuengling, and a sausage-and-onion pizza with a good New Yorky crust and a perfect balance between the various flavors. The ingredients could have been a little better, but on the other hand, they were playing Isaac Hayes' "Do Your Thing" when I came in, which covers a multitude of sins in my book.
Wednesday, 8/18/04: Those Who Can't Do, Critique But Try to Do Anyway Tomorrow at the downtown ESPNZone, the Carlyn Davis casting agency is holding an open house or something for possible extras for the film "XXX: State of the Union," starring Samuel L. Jackson, Ice Cube, and Willem Dafoe, which if Providence guides our lives at all is a sequel to the fine extreme-sports action vehicle "XXX." Check out the announcement. If I can't think of a good reason not to, I plan on showing up and putting my name in as a possible farmer or tourist, thus taking advantage of my Midwestern roots. Really, though, if they can't find something on that list for me, I would have to be a very undistinctive person indeed. (You actually enjoy cleaning your bathroom and going to bed early! Yeah, but…um…shut up.) Conoisseurs of casual misogyny will note that the only distinctively female role for which casting is being held is that of the "Hoochy Women," capitalized as if it is a guild. I hope this is because they are only planning to hire female SHARP SHOOTERS [sic], bouncers, and "Tough Gangster Types." In any case, the chance to contribute in some small way to a film with a title like "XXX: State of the Union" does not come along very often, and I hope that I will make the most of it.
Tuesday, 8/10/04: I'll Be Eating Apple Pie, Too Just as I get my prose back in order, I'm going on vacation again, this time to go see four major-league baseball parks in six days with two fine gentlemen (I'll be pretending I'm a fine gentleman for the duration). My notebook will accompany me, and hopefully I will accumulate enough impressions of the places we go to fill up a piece once I get back. I had the best day at work yesterday: Every single thing I wanted to get done, I got done. This is rare enough that I wanted to put it on the Internet so that it truly sticks in my memory.
Saturday, 8/7/04: The Prose is Back I'm feeling it again. The machine is humming. Whatever: I have broked out of my rut of regulations and 250-word music reviews, and all I really needed was some spare time, like I have today. Check out the first entry in the Gentrification Diary in eight months. I'm sad in the entry but happy I was able to write it.
Thursday, 8/5/04: Transporting, plus Post Toasties While walking into the College Park Metro Station this afternoon, two elderly gentlemen stopped me. One offered me an all-day pass. Not being a sucker, I looked at it and recognized it as legit. One of the men said "You can ride for free!" I gave what I hope was a hearty thank-you and used it to board. Out at Silver Spring, I looked for someone to give the pass to, to help the karma along. First I tried to give it to an elderly man, who fended me off with a smile and an incomprehensible remark. Next I tried a middle-aged woman in professional dress, saying "Ma'am? Do you want this all-day pass I'm done with it." She gave me the same wordless shake of the head that I give panhandlers, and never broke stride. I threw the all-day pass away. Walking across Colesville Road, I made it onto the opposite curb before the light changed. Cars were lined up on Second Avenue waiting to turn right. The young woman in the two-door sports car at the front of the line sat blathering on her cell, apparently oblivious of the green arrow allowing her to make her turn even after the light turned red. A young man leaned out of the SUV behind her. "Make the turn, bitch!" he yelled at a volume that turned the heads of every passerby within 20 yards. "Make the goddamn turn!" She made the turn. The cell phone never came an inch off her ear. • I know I write often enough on here about how I'm not particularly pleased with how a review came out even though it looks perfectly fine in the newspaper, so I'd like to note that I am, in fact, pleased with how this review came out. More of my style is getting in there, the tone is right for the paper, and when I initially draft the reviews they are 300 words, which makes cutting them to 250 or so a lot easier than when I was drafting them to 350. I will celebrate today by not getting too mad at my apparent inability to write convincingly about veterinary accreditation (not for the Post). Oh, and for those of you who (like me) subscribe to the Post's dead-tree edition: Check me out, in a box all by myself in the top left corner of Page 2 (of the Style section)! That's a placement I'll always be able to live with.
Monday, 8/2/04: Scribbling Well, I did write over the weekend. The results fell into three categories:
So, yeah, it went okay. The pump is primed, anyway.
Friday, 7/30/04: The Crux Method and Red, Fox's show that attempts to take advantage of the natural chemistry and enthusiasm for humor of Method Man and Redman by placing them in a whitebread suburban context and watching hilarity ensue, fails miserably. I just watched five minutes of tonight's show, and that was because I was feeling generous. It's strangely without energy of any kind, which would normally mean it would have to be subtle, and that's not really their forte in any way, shape or form. I'm going to hang up the website and try to write now. I don't know why this always scares me, nowadays, until I actually sit down and start tryna sling the prose. But I do know that I am freaking sick of writing regulations and 250-word music reviews. So we'll see how it goes.
Thursday, 7/22/04: Hey, You Suck! I Mean, You Don't Suck! One of the funniest things about the mood I described yesterday (and it persisted for most of the day today) is my attempts to portray someone who doesn't intensely dislike most of his co-workers when I am at work. People can tell I'm in a bad mood; I've given up on that. But I don't want them to know that, for the moment and for no substantive reason, I dislike them intensely. (The sudden release of my tension as the rain fell and fell and fell this evening confirms that this was one of those meterological-biochemical interactions rather than something, you know, real.) The reasons for this seem obvious enough, especially considering that I don't have any truly objectionable co-workers. Now I know how misanthropic sycophants must feel. "Hi, [coworker]!" I say, choking on the words and feeling that little snarl in my chest that winds itself up when I'm lying on the spot. "How are you? Huh! Well, back to work!" I wish I was joking. I have a bunch of pieces I want to write for this site, but I have no idea when I will have time to, you know, write them. Especially since I'll be gone until Tuesday. (Don't touch my stuff!) Sorry.
Wednesday, 7/21/04: Never Apologize, Never Explain is a motto I've always had trouble living by. The reason I haven't updated lately: I've been real busy and not much of interest has happened in my life. Here are two of my reviews that the Post published: Emil de Cou and the NSO playing American light music (second one down), and a gospel concert called Awesome Praise 3. The typo in the latter is not my fault. This blue state-red state quiz is also worth a link. Apparently I am slightly more red-state than blue, but this is only because I know very basic facts about country music and NASCAR and have fired a gun. (I actually think the quiz is tilted towards the blue states! Slate lives in the state of Washington, and most of its correspondents hail from one or the other coasts.) Today I am full of pointless inchoate rage. I spent most of my workday in the belief that I hated everyone at work, which I'm pretty sure isn't true. If I had roommates, I'd be thinking I hate them right now. There is a part of me that finds this immensely amusing, although it is not doing any of the heavy lifting in getting the pointless inchoate rage taken care of.
Monday, 7/12/04: I Lied Those of you who visited the site and saw the blank subject line below: I decided that the fifth story wasn't worth writing, because it didn't really have anything do with Capitol Hill (it was going to be about my reaction to the World War II Memorial, which I ran to) and because I was writing a whole bunch of other stuff. Like this (under "NSO, Erin Mahoney"). Well, not that specifically, but I was writing a bunch of reviews for Jazz Times so I would be sure to have time to write that. Did you notice how this page looks normal now, though? And the correct copyright line is on all the pages, too! Mindless, repetitive work can be a great way to procrastinate when your adjective stash is running low. So I'm not sure about the series thing. I was thinking of doing an All-Collegiate Series to halfway explain to people what Maryland was like for me, but then I thought that might be getting a little more explicitly personal than I really want to, here on the big wide Internet. We'll see.
Saturday, 7/9/04: Capitol Hill Stories, #5: Round and Round
Thursday, 7/8/04: Capitol Hill Stories, #4: The Spot In a big apartment complex like mine, you never really have a patch of outdoors to call your own; you can have a balcony, but trees generally can't lend their shade to it, and the altitude distorts the breezes. This isn't a story so much as a declaration: On Saturday, June 26, we had some of the most beautiful summertime weather Washington has to offer, with temperatures just exceeding eighty degrees and a light breeze all day, and I spent much of that day sitting under a shady flowering tree in Ellen and Tyler's front yard, sipping on limeade and alternately reading and singing soul songs very softly. Kids were playing in the streets, teenagers were lazily riding by on bikes, adults were greeting each other in their yards. At this point in my life, there are a lot of reasons I don't think owning a house would be wise for me, but I'm always going to remember how it felt to have that little patch of outdoors to myself on that day, and how I could pretend that it was mine.
Wednesday, 7/7/04: Capitol Hill Stories, #3: The Road Frequently Traveled While I was at Ellen and Tyler's I lacked access to a gym, so to get my heart rate up I ran to RFK Stadium, circled it four or five times, and then ran back. Four times was about 4.2 miles, and five times was about 5 miles even. I exercise at about 5 in the morning, and rosy-fingered dawn was always just lighting up the sky over East Capitol Street as I slogged down to the stadium trying to get my blood to start running quicker. As I made the rounds, I always thought about Art Monk and Darrell Green and Charles Mann and Riggo and all the others who had trod this same path, and used their example to push me harder. It worked pretty well. My path took me past the D.C. Armory, which, reassuringly enough, always had a guard in front of it. The first time I saw him, I nodded and said, "Good morning," and he responded likewise. We didn't see each other as I exited. The second time, we repeated our greetings, and when I came out after five laps I said "Good morning" and he said "Aright then," with a tone of satisfaction. Time number three found my left ankle acting up in the middle of my first circuit, so I pulled up, walked, tried to run again at the beginning of my second circuit, found the pain was still there, and quit on it, walking away. Once again I passed the guard. "You okay?" he asked. "I'm fine. My ankle's a little sore," I said. Walking back to the house, I took a little solace in the fact that a guy who didn't know me from Adam had been concerned about my welfare, even if I wasn't doing Darrell's legacy any favors.
Tuesday, 7/6/04: Capitol Hill Stories, #2: Out of Sight, Out of Mind On Thursday, June 24, a fire erupted in the Metro tunnel between Eastern Market and Potomac Avenue stations. I didn’t know this while I sat in the Orange Line train in the direction of New Carrollton for fifteen minutes, nor did I know it when the train took five minutes to get to the Federal Center SW stop, or when the conductor told us that the train we were on had been taken out of service. (Metro informs people about emergencies somewhat haphazardly, even after March 11 in Spain.) When I finally read about the cause on the Metro information board, though, it seemed apparent that waiting for the trains to start moving again was a sucker’s game, so I left the station and set about walking the eighteen streets back to Ellen and Tyler’s house. The station exit left one on C St. SW, which I followed because it was there. Soon, though, I came upon retractable barriers and a checkpoint: cars were being stopped from entering C St. going east. A transit cop (I thought) was explaining to a car with Massachusetts plates in patient but unmistakable language how to get around what was walled off. Since no one was stopping pedestrians, though, I continued on. It hadn’t really hit me yet that I was entering the Hill proper: the warren of office buildings dedicated to housing our reps and senators. Inside was a different world, one with no traffic to speak of at 5:30 pm, one in which aged men talked to pretty young women in excited tones about votes (I could actually overhear a couple of these conversations), one in which clots of well-scrubbed young white people clutching portfolios walked briskly about, one in which laxly guarded surface parking lots had a few dozen empty spaces in them. The designers of this warren aimed to keep D.C. proper out of our national place of government business, and they succeeded: I’ve rarely felt more out of place in this city (though I wasn’t involuntarily clutching my fists, either). I’m sure that I looked a bit like I belonged, though, wearing a tie and bearing a smile and walking with just a little spring in my step on that sunny evening, and indeed a man in one group nodded at me as if he thought he recognized me. He was wrong. I think. But in any case, I, along with the rest of the actual dwellers of the city, didn't belong.
Monday, 7/5/04: Capitol Hill Stories, #1, Plus an Urgent Cookie Alert It's time for the first of five collectible Capitol Hill stories, but first: Many of you have eaten my toffee-chocolate chip cookies. My signature cookies, the toffee-chocolate chip cookie has been called "the best cookie I've ever eaten" by my sister and has received accolades and recipe requests whenever I've made it. The recipe depends rather heavily on Heath Almond Toffee Bits (10-oz. size), which until recently was available at my local Safeway. Now it ain't; there were none today, and no shelf tag for them either. I talked to Nhu, a highly competent employee who was a cashier when I moved into this apartment and who is now an assistant manager six years later. She told me frankly that there was almost no chance that any amount of complaining I could do would bring back the toffee bits. I plan to exhaust my options. If you've enjoyed eating these cookies and would like to ever do so again, you can direct your complaints to:
or send a Web complaint here, with that store as a reference. I guess I could complain to Giant that they should stock the toffee bits, but they never stocked them. This is all Mrs. Fields' fault for trying to horn in on the baking-chip business and stealing valuable shelf space from established brands in the process. Well, Mrs. Fields, I've tried your semi-sweet chocolate chips, and they're waxier than a sorority girl's legs. I'll never buy your ridiculous mall cookies again, either, beeyotch. • Story #1 is about racism, specifically mine. As I noted below, I was ailing and hobbling for the first few days I lived in Ellen and Tyler's house, but I still had to, you know, leave the house occasionally to buy groceries that I hadn't noticed were already in the house and stuff. It was on these outings that I noticed my visceral fear of any group of three or more young black men standing around on the sidewalk. To be sure, there were non-racist components of this fear, including the sickliness and hobbling and the fact that I didn't really know where I was going and kinda looked it, but I've got to judge that the majority of the fear came from a "group of young black men + white person = trouble for honky" equation imprinted somewhere in my subconsciousness. At first, I involuntarily clenched my first as I came upon these groups, not out of aggression but out of tension; I doubt it had a salutary effect on the situation. I experimented with looking one of the guys in a given group directly in the eye, which got the "What the hell?" stare any sane person would expect, and with looking at the sidewalk, which made me feel like someone attempting to sneak across a border. I said "hi" sometimes, which was met with a predictable stony silence. I identified what was casuing the fear in about two days — there are a lot of young black men loitering on the sidewalk in Tyler and Ellen's neighborhood, which is why I got so much experimenting done in such a short period. After the problem was apparent, I simply castigated myself in (pun coming) colorful language for my racism when the fear came up, and the fear soon subsided to a more normal-seeming wariness. It never went away completely, though, even if the involuntary fist-clenching did. Like most people, I have a bunch of stuff to forget before I can achieve colorblindness.
Sunday, 7/4/04: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of New Content Now I'm really back in my apartment. The upcoming week will feature a story a day about Capitol Hill and living in Ellen and Tyler's house. Today, I'd like to share with you a little song I was singing yesterday as I loaded a bunch of groceries into my trunk after ripping off Safeway (buy-one-get-one-free value packs of boneless, skinless chicken breasts? Yeah, I'm on that). It takes its tune from a song that was playing over the PA in the store:
Today I am also listening exclusively to American music, at least until I leave the apartment and have no way of guaranteeing the national origin of the stuff I'm hearing. Here's a list, which will be updated in real time as the CDs end:
Saturday, 6/26/04: While I Was Out Due to the fact that I regard this site as something to update when I have time rather than as something to make time for, the Internet has been ignorant of several momentous events that have happened over the last week and a half. This will be recitified as quickly as possible right now, and the events will be listed in approximate order of momentousness:
Wednesday, 6/16/04: Meaningless Brilliance Top five spam subject lines for the past week:
Not to get too Dave Barry on y'all, but "Bladderwort Campground" would be a great name for a band.
Tuesday, 6/15/04: Post-It! Yes, I need to come up with some new "post"-related puns. At least I'm not writing for some paper called the "Intelligencer-Tribune" or something. Anyway, third one down here. I'm actually glad it took an hour, for insane Metro reasons, to make what's normally a 20-minute trip home from this concert, because I wrote the review in longhand on the platform and then was able to edit it during the commercial breaks while the Pistons were laying the below-mentioned smackdown on the Fakers. • I was wrong in one way: We won by 13. Pistons over the Lakers, 4-1. It's a beautiful thing. "We Are The Champions" is playing in the Palace. I almost want to cry, I'm so happy.
Monday, 6/14/04: Dominant in the Post Well, I had another review published, but that's not what I'm referrring to: I'm referring to Detroit Piston Rasheed "Cheeba Cheeba, Y'all" Wallace and his bitchmaking of L.A. Faker Slava Medvedenvendedenko in Game 4 of the National Basketball Association Championship Series. (I believe the word "bitchmaking" is not used in that link.) By now, the "experts" who picked against the Pistons are throwing up their hands, seeing how Gary Payton can't guard anyone, Kobe seems to confuse taking a lot of shots in the finals with actually making them, and no one can guard Shaq but no one throws the ball to him either. Meanwhile, Rip Hamilton hits those dagger-in-your-heart midrange jumpers time and time again, Chauncey Billups has found his stroke from outside, Big Ben Wallace plays with more desire and heart than any three Lakers, and 'Sheed just got woken up by that Ukrainian gentleman whose name I apathetically misspelled above. Can you say "Game 5 rout"? With Kobe guaranteeing a Laker victory tomorrow night, look for him to fire up wild, off-balance three-point attempts with two men on him for the entire game, and look for the Pistons to win by 15.
Sunday, 6/13/04: You Can Run, But You Can't Hide Today I ran the Oy Vey 10K, which benefits the Hebrew Home of Greater Washington, in 53 minutes and 18 seconds. That's 8:35 per mile, which is damn good for my first race, and I ran the whole way, thus passing weaker individuals left and right as I chugged up the hills. (Interestingly, I ran right past Spam-O-Maticker Becca Fribush's childhood home; I had not realized, when driving there in my parents' Taurus, how very hilly her neighborhood is. It's called "perspective.") Right now I am very, very tired, it is true, but my success will carry me through the rest of the day. That or I'll collapse while watching the National Gallery of Art Orchestra tonight and then write a half-assed review ("Pulcinella was somnolescent in this performance").
Saturday, 6/12/04: Gestures Today I saw "Casablanca" at the AFI (which is pretty good, by the way). I was walking home, going north up the west side of Georgia Avenue, and the "Don't Walk" sign came on just before I stepped off the curb to cross Cameron Street. A large white SUV was trying to turn left onto Cameron, and its driver actually honked at me and pointed at the "Don't Walk" sign as she pulled into the intersection. Calmly, I pointed at the red left-turn arrow that was forbidding her to do what she was doing, if she had been looking. She quit pulling into the intersection. I have to admit that I was tremendously satisfied by this interaction.
Tuesday, 6/8/04: Impostor! I had an dream this morning in which the Post had sent another reviewer to a concert I had signed up for, then used his review instead of mine, saying that it was more specific and written with more style. This dream probably arose from my fevered subconsciousness because I have been chafing at my 250-word limit a bit, trying to find ways to say something interesting about the performances I write about and to say it in an interesting way. The 500-word reviews I used to write for the Diamondback (example) were about ten times easier to write well. Anyway, looking at my latest review in the paper (the first one again, probably because of the event I covered), it appears that the draft I submitted buried the lead under a typically pedantic sentence about period performance practice. (There's nothing I love writing more than pedantic stuff about period performance practice, judging from my reviews of such concerts.) Fortunately, I have editors in this gig, and so they removed that sentence, leaving the first paragraph otherwise unaltered. See how well the lead works w/o pedantry? Onward and upward, though, baybee. And at least that Edward Herrman dude from my dream isn't following me around in my concertgoing. In other news, the Pistons are up 1-0 on the overrated Lakers in the NBA Finals. I don't think I've ever seen defense as stifling as the Pistons's defense on Sunday. When the Lakers didn't pass to Shaq, who we are physically incapable of defending (as is everyone not named "Yao Ming"), they had nothing. I'm not a huge fan of the NBA in general these days, but I do love these Pistons, with "Big Ben" Wallace holding it down at center, Richard "R.I.P." Hamilton burying jumpers, and Rasheed "Cheeba Cheeba, Y'all" Wallace managing not to get picked up on possession. What, those dudes all used to be Wizards?
Saturday, 6/5/04: Belated Return I got back from a really fun trip to New York City on Tuesday. Normally, I would have noted this on Tuesday, along with thanking the fine people whose places I stayed at for their hospitality and general good humor. Well, I didn't get around to it until now, but Spam-O-Matickers Evan Bialostozky, Jessi Thompson, and Sei Young Kim deserve all the props I can give them. With their assistance and indulgence, I learned the following things:
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