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Andrew Lindemann Malone's Internet Playpen |
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Thursday, 4/28/05: Shaken and Stirred Saw Gidon Kremer play the Shostakovich First Violin Concerto with the Balto Symph at Strathmore yesterday. It was an incandescent, riveting, awe-inspiring, thrilling performance. (You can tell when I see one of those because I become completely incoherent afterwards, saying "Wow!" and "Damn!" over and over again.) I felt it in my spine; my body twisted up during the cadenza over and over again, releasing when I became aware that I was twisted up, and then twisting up again. In fact, it pretty much shot my day today to hell because I was so excited by the performance that I couldn't really sleep last night, not that I got home in any time to get too much sleep anyway. I dragged myself through a series of punishing meetings that punished me more than they absolutely had to, and now I am completely wiped out. Was it worth it to sacrifice today to Gidon Kremer yesterday? Probably. I'll remember that performance forever, whereas today will fade away. But ask me that again in a week. It's days like this, sadly, that keep me from going to more concerts.
Saturday, 4/23/05: From a First-Born I may or may not have some more writing up at the end of the day (it's a goal, but one from which I may become distracted), but I wanted to make sure to use the Spam-O-Matic to give all my Jewish peeps best wishes on Passover. Enjoy the matzoh! And when you're back to leavening, challah at your boy! • All right, I actually did it! The most-requested page on this here site besides this page you're reading right now is Le Guide Spam-O-Matique de Théâtres de Washington, because people want to know whether they have a reasonable chance of seeing a film on a decent-size screen, or how to get to certain theaters from the Metro, or something. (Unfortunately, my stats do not indicate motivation per se.) It was originally published in 2004, and now it has received a refresh, adding two theaters and (unfortunately) deleting three. However, I have added a section at the bottom where I complain about the closings, which helps ease my pain a tiny bit.
Tuesday, 4/19/05: She's Gotta Have It Housekeeping first: Here's a review of an enjoyable cello concert. (Second one down.) It wasn't earthshattering, but it was fun, and it is on the strength of just such concert experiences that I continue going to concerts. If you expect transcendence every time, you are bound to be disappointed, but most people will give you something worth hearing. At least in classical. (I will note, though, that concerts at 5 pm are bad. After intermission, all I can think about is dinner, like "That melodic line is rich and satisfying like a good steak would be if I were eating it right now," and "I'm hungry. Where's dinner? Why are we watching this cello guy?") Now! This matter has been shamefully undercovered on this blog: Jenna Bush was caught dancing hard and dirty at a New York club. Yeah, I know, dog bites man. The interesting part is that she was doing The Butt to D.C. go-go band E.U.'s greatest hit, "Da Butt." (Today's Boondocks captures how fun this is to talk about. Here's an EU review I wrote.) While many will no doubt focus primarily on the prurient interest of this news, and I am among them, I will also note that this is the first recorded instance of any First Daughter representing D.C. in any way. (Screw Margaret Truman.) Go-go rules! Maybe Rare Essence will play at Jeb's inaugural in 2008. In honor of Jenna's taste, I just played "Da Butt" four times in a row really, really loud. Also, given that a First Twin did The Butt, it's good that it was the twin with an actual butt. Sorry, Barb, but there ain't much junk in that trunk. (Evidence.)
Tuesday, 4/12/05: Straight Outta Harlem A review of the Boys Choir of Harlem is available for your perusal here. (First one down for some reason.) Notes:
Monday, 4/11/05: National Poetry Month! Here's my first piece in the Spam's intermittently annual celebration of National Poetry Month, a sonnet called "The Colander of America." It's one of my few classics from the University of Chicago years. I wrote the final couplet first.
Sunday, 4/10/05: The Spam Went to the Tidal Basin, and All You Get is These Stupid T-Shirts An explication of the meaning behind certain T-shirt slogans seen by me at the Cherry Blossom Festival yesterday is now up in the Humor section. I like the "Text/Subtext" and tabular format, both of which are pretty obvious imitations of the columnist-destroying features at Wonkette, now that I think about it. But mine is with found text! At least for now. The cherry blossoms are looking lovely, in case you were wondering. I am always astonished by how many people trudge and look down (or, alternately, stride and look vaguely at the vegetation around them) as they circle the Tidal Basin. Stand still for a while and look at the damn trees. If too many people want to walk through the space where you are, go stand somewhere else. You don't get much of a sense of the beauty unless you stand still for a little while, seeing how the branches of pinkish-white blossoms frame the blue sky, watching the branches shift slightly in the breeze and catch the sun differently, waiting for individual petals to detach in the breeze and float gently down to earth, and (if you're me) trying to catch the petals. In an unrelated note: Hey, Kittytext! While I was out, I got it back! Still don't know how. Y'all should read Kittytext because the Kitty provides MP3s and stuff. So does the Suburbs. Go read them right now.
Saturday, 4/9/05: While I Was Out I was in Gettysbug, PA for the last week, participating in the APHIS Advancing Leaders Program, which is helping me and 28 other people develop the skills necessary to totally rule the world. Alas, some of these people now have the link to this site, which means that I will distract them from their scheming. (Wassup!!!????!!!) During the time I was gone, Georgia Avenue in beautiful downtown Silver Spring was bascially turned into a four-lane road by allowing parking in the right lane at all times except weekday rush hour. I was not aware of this as I tried to drive down Georgia Avenue yesterday on my way home, and spent a good bit of time mentally cursing all the illegal parking before seeing one of the signs. I guess it's good for pedestrian me but bad for driver me, which overall is a gain. Also: Spring has sprung! (Regular old spring, not the Silver kind.) Everything in the metropolitan area is blossoming and greening and pollinating! And the high today is 60 with endless fields of sun! This is a good day to be alive and not have any freelance work to do.
Friday, 4/1/05: An Unheralded Classic I know I don't write about movie much (meaning "at all") anymore, but I can still link to old stuff! Yesterday I watched "Strung Up" again, and it once again proved its status as one of the finest action films no one's ever heard of. It tells the simple story of four genetically engineered hot babes who form a string quartet and travel to the capital cities of the world fighting terrorism. Read the review and go find the DVD (I've think I've seen it at Video Americain).
Saturday, 3/26/05: College Basketball and Classical Music
Thursday, 3/24/05: Standing Up For Principles I just saw Mike Krzyzewski say in an I'm-being-really-sincere tone, for the seventeen-millionth time during this NCAA tournament, "I don't think of myself as a basketball coach. I think of myself as a leader who coaches basketball." This relates to how good American Express is, somehow. Let me make this perfectly clear: Any merchant who hires Mike Krzyzewski to help hawk its wares has lost my business forever. I wouldn't get an American Express card now if the only purchase-making alternative was carrying around a huge gunnysack filled with $20 bills through Southeast. You have to draw the line somewhere.
Wednesday, 3/23/05: Music to Emotionally Convalesce To I think my new policy on blog memes is to only use them if they appear on About Last Night. Terry Teachout started one about music that one plays at times of "extreme mental disruption." Here are the first twelve that popped into my head (one per composer, or Beethoven would have 11 of them. I mean that quite literally). Other than noting that many date from my teenagerhood, I present them without comment (and alphabetically. Is that a comment? Well, too late now).
Okay, and now here are two more that popped in immediately after I put that up. But after this, I'm really done:
Tuesday, 3/22/05: Freaky Critical Obsessions Some might argue that I talked about pizzicati way too much in this review (fourth item down). But when I left the concert hall, it was clear to me that the way the Orchestre de Chambre Français played pizzicati was emblematic of the way they played overall. Plus, the review has to have some kind of unifying conceit in order to avoid becoming a formless mass, and you get tired of just going through the program if you are me. In a related note, based on this review, the Post apparently prints "hijinks" as "high jinks." That looks incredibly stupid. I will never use the word "hijinks" in a Post review again. Finally, I would like to note that I snuck jokelike utterances ("all of which also pluck concertgoers' nerves," "the extremely familiar Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso") into a concert review in the Washington Post. Utterances like these are part of my natural prose style, the style to which you have had to accustom yourself if you read this site regularly. It's good to be able to be me a little bit in these things.
Monday, 3/21/05: It's My Prerogative The continuing saga of Terri Schiavo has inspired millions of Americans to think about the true definition of life and what preparations we should make in the event that we do not make a clean break with it. Weighty moral arguments have been put forth on both sides of the debate. Meanwhile, the Spam-O-Matic is contributing to the national discourse in its usual responsible fashion with "Coma Girl," a parody of New Edition's "Candy Girl." Yes, that's me singing. I may try to get some better audio going later. On ESPN late Saturday night, one of the sports anchors made the following statement, apropos of nothing: "George Karl's Nuggets are on fire!" Maybe he went to the Gold Club with Patrick Ewing one too many times.
Saturday, 3/19/05: Legally, More Than Sufficient I have finally completed my review of the American University Law Revue's 2005 show, "The Chemerinsky Code." I found it to provide an exceptional level of protection against boredom, particularly the parts in which Spam-O-Maticker Robert Kahn played a role, which was all of them this year 'cause he was the Head Writer. Every time I have a docket that seems as though it will forever be stuck at OGC, I think of the Law Revue to remind me that lawyers can band together to provide high-quality entertainment. Staying on the legal front, it should also be noted that Spam-O-Maticker Becca Fribush wrote a good article (or "note," as the magazine calls it) about disclosure of nutritional information in restaurants for the George Washington Law Review. (The link doesn't have the actual article, just proof that she wrote one. Come on, GW Law Review, information wants to be free!) It taught me about the legal tests government must meet when requiring disclosure of nutritional information and informed me that a plate of cheese fries with ranch dresssing has 3000 calories, somehow. Apparently it costs $42 to subscribe, and you can't buy it at Borders, so your best bet is to break into a law library if you want to read it. Nevertheless, nice job.
Friday, 3/18/05: El Posto! I'm excited enough about my first Post review in a month that I'm linking to it before I go to work. Second one down, but I got art. Also they just printed the whole thing without editing it, which is always gratifying. Random notes will have to wait until after work, though. • Random notes!
Tuesday, 3/15/05: When Genres Collide! Yesterday evening, I read in the comments here about the Kanye West-produced track with Miri Ben-Ari (the “Hip-Hop Violinist”) and Pharaohe Monch called “New World Symphony.” A quick Googling indicated that the track was indeed based on the fourth movement of my birthday-mate Antonin Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9 in E minor, “From the New World,” although I have as yet been unable to hear the track. (I will probably end up purchasing the Miri Ben-Ari mixtape just to hear it, because that is the manner in which I roll.) This probably was what led to a dream last night that Kanye was visiting me in my apartment, asking to hear more classical masterworks that he could plunder for loops. I played Mariss Jansons’s recording of Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances for him, and his eyes lit up at several points. Then we took turns freestyling over the beat from Biggie Smalls’ “Dreams (Just Playin’).” If there had been any doubt, the fact that I did not completely embarrass myself while I was freestyling confirmed that this was a dream. I do often daydream about classical music and hip-hop finding some sort of common ground, one beyond simple sampling. My current position is that it would take (a) a minimalist composer comfortable with his or her chord progressions being driven along by fairly smooth grooves, with rhythmic modulation either happening extremely suddenly or not at all unless there was an instrumental break, and (b) an MC with the creativity and inclination to compose an extended rhyme with a narrative flow whose progression interacted somehow with the music’s progression. (It may be easier to find a hip-hop producer inclined to work in the minimalist style than to find a minimalist composer willing to write a piece that could be used as a hip-hop groove.) The actual piece would not have to be as abstract as that sounds; check out J-Live’s “Them That’s Not” if you want an example of a vivid narrative that interacts with rhythmically shifting production to thrilling and immediate effect. But given the demands that rhyming makes on the music that supports it, I think essentially static music underneath, no matter how fluently composed, is still hip-hop production, and the element of narrative and harmonic evolution is what can break it open. During the last holiday season, I daydreamt about a go-go cover of Handel’s “Messiah.” You’d take a band like Chuck Brown’s, which already has horns, tell the keyboard player to do continuo (it’s basically playing over changes, which any jazzbo can do), and amplify up a small string section. Then you would bring in some extremely characterful vocalists, tell them that “A section repeat” means “go completely wild on the melody,” and let them do their thing. After daydreaming of such a cover, though, I always followed it up by daydreaming about reviewing it for the Post. It has always been my dream to be able to write the words “da capo ornamentation” and “the wickedest band alive” in the same review.
Sunday, 3/13/05: Your Agenda's Showing I understand that because Mark Gauvreau Judge is a D.C. resident and his grandfather Joe Judge played first base for the old Senators, we are going to have to read occasional articles in the Post about his underwhelming qualifications for the national Baseball Hall of Fame. What I don't understand is why M.G. Judge turned a lament at the outrage of making space for advertising by removing the Hall of Stars, a series of placards hung on the upper ring of RFK Stadium to immortalize local sports heroes, into a paean solely to his grandpa. If your goal is to call attention to this travesty, why not even the merest of nods to such worthies as (for example) Art Monk, who has been unfairly shut out of his league's Hall of Fame and who is remembered and beloved by thousands upon thousands of Washingtonians? But if your goal is to use this travesty to call yet more attention to your grandpa, then I suppose you write the article M.G. did. What I really don't understand is why the Post printed it, but that's another story.
Friday, 3/11/05: We Are Cordially Invited to a National Tournament on ESPN! The Maryland Terrapins do not deserve to be in the NCAA tournament. They just don't. I'm not going to say any more. For now.
Tuesday, 3/8/05: Think Cinematically Fast Occasionally, little blog memes wing their way around cyberspace, inspiring people to post their own answers to questions or responses to stimuli. On About Last Night, Our Girl in Chicago recently asked people to name the first five movie quotes that pop into their heads. My answers reveal how much of a moron I am (but a happy moron):
Here's her summary of the results. I'm really late! But you have to cover the Terps. Another one from there, introduced by Eve Tushnet but called to my attention by Terry Teachout, is the list of 10 things I've done that you probably haven't. I got stuck on 8, and then decided not to do it. Also I can't find the link to Terry. Interacting with the blogosphere feels weird. I think I'll go back to keeping my blinders on for now.
Sunday, 3/6/05: Keep Ballin', Keep Fallin' It has been a bad basketball weekend. On Friday, I went to the Wizards-Warriors game with Spam-O-Maticker Jordan Baker, and that was completely discouraging except for the Wes Unseld bobblehead:
At least former Dookie Mike Dunleavy got horribly embarrassed, fouling out and generally playing like a boy in a man’s game. It was small consolation. Then, with Spam-O-Maticker Robert Kahn, I watched in distress as the current edition Terps had a truly horrible game against Virginia Tech, severely damaging their chances of getting into the NCAA tournament, whose selection committee does not tend to look kindly on teams drag-assing into their conference tournaments with losses to Clemson and N.C. State, among others. They don’t deserve to be in the tournament, frankly, no matter how many times they beat Duke — unless they beat Duke again en route to winning the conference tourney, which was what happened last year. Hey, it could happen!
Tuesday, 3/1/05: Spam That Works Yesterday I received an e-mail from someone calling him- or herself Neateye at nitaigouranga@aol.com, the text of which was as follows:
I was tempted to delete it, but instead cried out "Gouranga Gouranga Gouranga!!" And damned if I didn't break into a smile. Try it yourself.
Monday, 2/28/05: When the Cold Wind Comes, It Blows As I Drive Home From New York City Notes from a trip to Manhattan over this last weekend:
Friday, 2/18/05: All These Things Happened Today A woman just called WPGC's 5 O'Clock Friday old-school show and asked to hear some 2Pac, because her daughter had been kidnapped six months ago. Instantly, "Keep Ya Head Up" was rolling on the airwaves of our nation's capital. Does any other station get requests like this? Walking home from the Metro, I saw Russell Stover-type chocolates strewn about the sidewalk, with some smushed into the concrete. They seemed to have been thrown from one specific point, as the distribution formed a fan pattern outward. I immediately hypothesized an inadequate Valentine's recompense ("I know damn well those are half-price now!"). At Barnes and Noble, Spam-O-Matickers Vince and Becca found this book, whose title made me laugh aloud. Finally, on the Fort Totten Metro platform, a young man was dressed in a T-shirt and tattered pants on this bitterly cold, windy Washington day. Understandably, he was jumping about trying to keep warm, and I saw a piece of paper fall from the belongings he was clutching before he retreated to the relative comfort of the wind shelter. I walked over to where he had been, picked up the paper — it turned out to be a $10 bill — and approached the shelter to give it back to him. "It looks like you dropped this," I said tentatively. (I've been a little gun-shy about giving things back to people who lose them ever since a professionally dressed woman looked at me like I was about to mug her before I was able to get through to her that I wanted to return her hair scrunchie. For the record, I was in suit and tie when I approached her.) "Oh thanks man," he said, still bouncing a bit in place. "You know, I don't take charity from nobody, but…" "Well, you dropped this," I said. "Thanks man, this is all I have, it fell out of here," he said, opening a card that said "NEPHEW" in gold script on a predominantly brown background. "I came out here from the West Coast, from Albequerque, my family in Potomac, Maryland [he pronounced it "Murland" like a native] wants me to come live with them but I have to make it on my own. They said it would be 40 degrees today but I thought it was the low. Man, people are assholes out here, in California they'd give you their coat, I was about to say, I appreciate your charity but what I really need is a coat, but..." "It's yours," I think I almost said, regarding the money. Then I ran to make the train that had just pulled up. I heard his voice behind me: "You were going to let me not get the train? Damn, man, people here on the East Coast are assholes." He began sprinting for the nice warm train. I grabbed a seat and tried to make the seat next to me look unusable by putting my backpack there and spreading my legs. He bounded through the doors as they were closing and narrated more of his life story to the guy he ended up sitting next to, still bouncing around in his seat. I thought about the coat. I would like to say that I didn't give him my coat for some good sociological reason, like his probable junkiehood, but really it was because (1) I like my coat and (2) it was really, really cold. That's about all there is to it.
Wednesday, 2/16/05: A Random Assortment I owe Post editor Joel Garreau a debt of gratitude for suggesting three especially apt revisions to this review, which I wrote while I was ill, which explains why I needed some apt revisions. That's my excuse this time, anyway. The lede still stinks, but I couldn't think of a better one even after I recovered. These concerts of three works, each for different forces and thus played by different people, make for tough lede-writing. With regard to the entry directly below this one, Spam-O-Maticker Mark Knoblauch correctly points out that you will occasionally receive a fortune cookie after dining at non-Chinese establishments. Mark himself once received a cookie at a Korean restaurant that instructed him to "Forget your diet. Eat like a horse." In Mark's honor, I will put up the e-mail he sent me regarding the Passion of the Christ 2 trailer, at the end of the page. Spam-O-Maticker Robert Kahn, meanwhile, has written his very own self the latest installment of American University's Law Revue; you may recall me lauding last year's, or you can remind yourself here. Robert Kahn is the living embodiment of quality, and he and Gunnar Rosenquist have promised to reprise their "Geavis and Rumsfeld" routine, with Robert additionally taking the role of Carl the Clitigator. Plus he wrote all the freaking jokes! And there's normally a goodly quantity of T&A on display. Shows are at 8 pm tomorrow through Saturday, with a 2 pm matinee on Saturday as well. You can go here to see it:
Tickets are a mere $7. If you come on Thursday or Saturday night, when I will be attending, holla at your boy.
Thursday, 2/10/05: You Will Read A Pointless Blog Entry In my discussion of fortune-cookie messages, I forgot to mention what I scientifically determined is the lamest possible fortune-cookie message (by "scienfitically determined" I mean "I thought about it while walking from the Metro to work one morning"): "You just ate some Chinese food." This Onion article perfectly captures the blend of desperation and technical competence that drives so many of us worker drones. My response to desperation, however, is to go home and buy old-school funk on iTunes or bake cookies or run five miles. Probably not at the same time. Also this is an excellent "What Do You Think?", particularly the first entry. The Onion can still break its foot off in the collective ass of most humor magazines.
Tuesday, 2/8/05: Kids Today I thought the American Youth Philharmonic would put on a good show when I saw them accompanying the Choral Arts Society in December, and for the most part I was not disappointed. Some additional thoughts:
Sunday, 2/6/05: Some Sort of Football Game In another instance of the Spam-O-Matic working for you, I have managed to travel into the future and find out what happened at the Super Bowl halftime show. It's highly offensive! Plus there's audio. Yesterday, at Wheaton's extremely fine Chinese restaurant Paul Kee, I got a fortune cookie whose message was "You are independent politically." As Spam-O-Maticker Robert Kahn said, "Well, it's true," but that still has to be the lamest fortune I've ever gotten. What happened to delightfully vague predictions about the future — you know, about your fortune? Is it even funny anymore to postulate the existence of a fortune cookie whose message is "Duck!"? Now it would just say something like "You attract exciting circumstances."
Thursday, 2/3/05: Things I Now Know About Kazakhstan
Monday, 1/31/05: Trading Post The lead got rejiggered and two sentences got cut from the end of this review, which is fine as long as the check clears. I'm not sure the lead is better, but whatever. Marginalia:
Saturday, 1/29/05: Revenge is a Dish Best Served by the Lord You're probably wondering: "'The Passion of the Christ' was such a big success, and 'Paparazzi' was not such a big success. What direction will Mel Gibson take next?" Now you can read the script for the trailer for the sequel to "The Passion of the Christ," subtitled "Payback," only on the Spam-O-Matic. If I get ambitious, you'll eventually be able to hear the audio for it too — I'm working on slipping a microphone into Gibson's oatmeal. Notes from a recent trip to Minneapolis:
Saturday, 1/22/05: Scene in White and Semi-Off-Color The District of Columbia area got a moderate amount of snow today, so everything's canceled. I was out walking before it began falling in earnest (cannily, I had gone out to purchase waterproof boots just as the snow started), and it was cold enough that the snow was sticking and retaining its whiteness, imparting that momentary patina of peace to the landscape that television metereologists are so fond of using awful metaphors to describe. (It's a white carpet! It's magic pixie dust! It's like a scene out of "Scarface!" Okay, I made that last one up.) More than that, though, it was 11 am on a Saturday, and some of the already small number of people who might otherwise have been out stayed home, and the people who were out were (amazingly) pretty much all driving slowly, meaning that the normal background rublings in the environment were tamped down along with the normal visual banality. Like a dog let out of a stuffy house, I was looking up into the sky and then scanning the ground, taking in the fresh, free feeling of my surroundings. As I approached the corner of Fenton and Cameron, I heard a hip-hop beat in the near distance; as I approached more closely, I saw the black SUV it was coming from. The beat was familiar, and my mind busily ran through the possibilities. Suddenly, clear as a bell: "You down with O.P.P.? Yeah, you know me!" It was Naughty By Nature's gleeeful ode to sexual infidelity, which was hyperpopular back when I was in eighth grade. As both the SUV and I turned the corner, headed in opposite directions, the sampled voice of the preteen Michael Jackson lingered in the air: "Come on, come on, come on, let me show you what it's all about!" The snow continued to fall, and I thought: "Indeed."
Thursday, 1/20/05: Someone Got Inaugurated Lotta white people in tuxes and gowns on the Metro today. (Myself, I went to the KenCen to see the world premiere of Philip Glass's new symphony. The Post should headline my superior Tim Page's review "Put 'Em On the Glass," but they won't.) A few observations:
In other inauguration news, it should be noted that most government workers were not given leave on Wednesday, but were encouraged to take leave so that the various celebrations could proceed without interference from people who actually live here trying to get to work and home again. For those of you who went to college recently, it's kind of like being sexiled, except that they couldn't use a lock and they weren't doing anything nearly as fun (I suspect). I stayed for as long as they paid me.
Wednesday, 1/19/05: Grappling The Spam-O-Matic has a new hero: Trevon Jenifer. (This new hero is in addition to Sonya Thomas, the 99-pound Korean immigrant who had the talent, gumption and pluck to succeed in the male-dominated sport of competitive eating, not in place of her.) Trevon Jenifer is a high-school wrestler who competes in the 103-pound bracket even though he has the torso of a 180-pound teenager. Why is this? He has no legs, having been born without anything extending below his hip sockets. And yet he still carries himself with more enthusiasm, style and class than many folks who were born better able to carry themselves. According to the Post article linked to above (which appears to be the only reportage about him on the Internet — good job, fellow employees), Jenifer’s parents knew he would be special when, at age 2, he managed to hoist himself onto the toilet to do his bizness and then hoist himself onto the sink to wash his hands afterwards, clambering down and emerging without a bump or scratch to show for it. He’s one of the popular guys in his high school (one young woman describes him as a flirt), and he’s looking to attend college on a wheelchair basketball scholarship. He evinces absolutely no resentment about his condition, which draws just jaw-dropping admiration from whiny yours truly. And he’s above .500, with an 8-7 record. More than that: He’s so cool, the refs admit they can’t keep their minds on the matches when he wrestles. When was the last time you heard a ref admit to being inattentive? Only a truly remarkable youngster could draw such frankness from the zebra corps. Truly, both Sonya Thomas and Trevon Jenifer are far more accomplished and sterling individuals than I myself am. I hope I can learn something from their examples. And that, to me, is the point of having heroes.
Monday, 1/17/05: A Ridiculous Shame I spent the weekend transferring my files from my trusty old iMac to my flashy new iMac, which included an upgrade to a new version of Dreamweaver that is congenitally incapable of opening my files without making fun of my design abilities. ("10 Browser Check Errors," it says every time.) Also this new version of Safari is showing me all the incompetencies in my implementation of CSS. But I'm glad everything is semi-A-OK now, because it gives me a chance to tell the Internet the story I think of every Martin Luther King Jr. Day. When I was in third grade and my sister was in first, we both went to a YMCA-run day care center. It was a good day care center, in that they let us run around and play to the maximum degree compatible with the word "care." One Friday before MLK Day, though, the staff began acting weird. About six of us were making our way into the center, but two of us were forbidden to enter until Shipley, a fellow young person who we had pretty much all decided (in the third-grade manner) was subhuman, loped his way across the big grass field and up to the doors. The staff encouraged some of us (including me) to enter and not others, but we were all going in as one or not at all. When we got inside, the bookcases had been moved from the walls to the center of the room to create a partition. I was told to go to a different side from the kids who hadn't been allowed in. All of us were bewildered. I got punch and a cookie, they waited. Finally, they got punch. No cookie. This was really stupid, and finally all of us started shouting down the day-care people as they kept repeating that this was how they were doing things today and we had to sit there and like it. Finally, after we were starting to rebel to a degree beyond which care would have been difficult, one staff member stepped in and explained that this was how the world had been when segregation was still in place. The white kids (of whom, I realized now, I was one) got privileges and priority and never mixed with the black kids; the black kids had to take what was left and pretend they were content. It was on that day, as I was separated from my friends who I hadn't realized were black, that I realized how cruel and wasteful and pointless segregation must have been. (Though in years since I have certainly learned that issues surrounding race are often tricky to navigate, I've never found anything to dispute my youthful conclusion regarding segregation.) And I further realized that I personally owe a debt of gratitude to all the men and women who helped to point this out, Martin Luther King Jr. most of all. It's as simple a lesson as you could imagine, but it cuts me to the quick still. (And yes, I recognized the irony in how we thought about Shipley. Eventually. That took a few more days.)
Wednesday, 1/12/05: Calm Down I saved 52% on my groceries today, according to my Safeway receipt, thanks to this giant scam where you buy 6 Unilever products and they give you $10 back. Something tells me this was not Safeway's idea. Why am I so proud of this that I put it on the Internet? I think it's because I'm Protestant. Today I started a "detail" at the federal eRulemaking intiative, which is kind of like a new job except that I only do it two days a week for five months and then have to go back to doing the old one full time. Because American agriculture can't protect itself. Anyway, I spent a lot of the day concerned that I would not "fit in" at the office, since everyone there seems to be improvisatory and extroverted, and I am more of a cud chewer. I should not have worried: I'm only going to be there two days a week, which probably means I won't have a chance to fit or not either way. Furthermore, as long as I get my work done well and avoid being a jerk, I have fulfilled the required terms of the Universal Workplace Social Contract. Anything else is gravy, and gravy can be tasty, but it's not necessary for nourishment. Still, I would like to fit in. What can I tell you? But worrying won't make it so.
Wednesday, 1/5/05: Nuptial Masonry I almost always enjoy myself quite thoroughly at weddings, for the following reasons:
The word “immoderately” fits quite well there; at my sister Ellen’s wedding, where the music was largely chosen by my savvy brother-in-law Tyler, I danced so vigorously for so long that I walked funny for three days afterwards. (I was also paid the highest possible compliment on my dancing by one of Ellen and Tyler’s friends, who said that I looked like a dancer in an early 90s Tribe video.) I normally slink off the dance floor to get water and contemplate the general happiness of the occasion when more overtly romantic fare is played (I have never attended a wedding with a romantic companion, which is not due to an accident of scheduling, either), but most people play enough that my joy at the blessed union is made thoroughly palpable through my gyrations. Until December 26, I had never had the opportunity to help induce such gyrations in others. In 2001, though, “Brick House” played at Shea Stadium while Jordan, Barb and I watched the Mets and Expos have it out. I began singing along, as I am often wont to do, and somehow we got to my offhand remark that I would sing the song at their wedding. Jordan and Barb, bless them, took the remark seriously, and when the prospect of actually doing this was presented to me, I said “Hell yes!” or some such. So it was that I greeted Christmas morning with a loud playing of “Brick House” in my headphones, singing along, mostly trying to get a feel for whether I could sing the whole song without lapsing into falsetto. (Answer: Just barely.) Later Christmas Day, I trawled the Internet for lyrics sites, thinking it would be good to have something in writing to cement my memory. Actually reading the lyrics, I worried that my brain might rebel against any future memorization endeavors if we spent too much time on this one. Nevertheless, I got it together. I had worried about singing a little bit during the week heading up to the wedding, but as all of the wedding guests entered the reception hall and the band began playing, I realized that my e-mail a few days earlier to Jordan stating that I was “born ready” to sing the song was closer to the truth than my nervous imaginings. I was popping out of my seat every time the band’s leader said “And now...” thinking that his next words would be "ANDREW LINDEMANN MALONE!" Finally, the he announced that they would have a “special guest” for the next song. I made my way through the hall to the stage and introduced myself. When they started laying down the groove, I sprang up and grabbed the mic. I glanced at the bandleader, he smiled, and I launched into it. I couldn’t really hear myself singing, but I could hear the band and I knew what the words were, so I just sang as I had sung to my headphones about 24 hours earlier. (I didn’t have to go to the falsetto!) The room was breaking up: laughter and excitement both. I started dancing as I sang, and even dropped as low as I could while keeping the air column intact for “knock a strong man to his knees.” It felt like the most natural thing in the world. When we hit the bridge, the bandleader encouraged me to go out and dance with Barb. Of course! The perfect way to while away that insane number of repetitions of the nonsensical “Shake it down.” This, too, felt like the most natural thing in the world – Barb was having a lot of fun, I wasn’t dancing vigorously enough that I couldn’t sing, and I wasn’t singing anything complicated enough that I couldn’t dance. The groove died away, the bandleader said something like “Give it up for Andrew,” I walked back to the stage while shouting “HOOOOOOOOOOOO!” into my mic, gave it back, raised my arms briefly in triumph, and descended back onto the dance floor. (I may eventually have an MPEG of these events available! Check back frequently! Pad my stats!) It was the most fun I’ve had in a good while — like a excellent karaoke night on steroids — and I thank Jordan and Barb for remembering and actively promoting my offhand offer as a way to help celebrate their nuptial bliss. Earlier in the reception, the bandleader had indicated that every couple on the dance floor for one song would grant 5 years of happy marriage to the newlyweds. Not being part of a couple, I couldn’t go out for that. But it seems to me that singing “Brick House” at the reception must add at least a couple more years to that tally, and that’s good for everyone. If you want me to sing at your wedding, let’s go to a Nationals game and see if we can’t get some offhand promises made.
Tuesday, 1/4/05: Hate to Blast Ya, But I Hafta Yes, this review of Salute to Vienna is negative, but it could have been a lot more negative if I had had more words in which to bash the concert. For example, what kind of self-respecting concert has testimonials from Anthony Williams and Rudy Giuliani in place of program notes or text and translations for the operetta arias? And what's with the creepy renaming of the Baltimore Symphony? And why did a disembodied voice come on before the conductor came out to inform us that Salute to Vienna is the "World's Greatest New Year's Concert," bolstering the declaration in the program? Show, don't tell! And why did Austrian Ambassador Eva Nowotny (who generally seems like a cool ambassador, at least if the three concerts I've seen her at are any indication) make the argument that the music played at the concert somehow could resonate with the tragic deaths of over a hundred thousand people in Southeast Asia? Oh, yeah, I get all my musical solace from something called the "Delirium" Waltz. Quick hits: •I have here a Maryland tourism ad from the back of AAA Traveler magazine whose headline reads as follows: MARYLAND'S GOVERNOR EHRLICH SAYS: GEN. LEE INVADED MARYLAND 142 YEARS AGO. YOU MAY FOLLOW IN HIS FOOTSTEPS ANY TIME YOU WISH. Call me an alarmist if you must, but it looks like Bobby Haircut is rolling out the welcome mat for Johnny Reb! If I see any gray-clad soldiers coming up Georgia Avenue, I'm going to Atlantic Guns to exercise my constitutional rights and getting someone to take a grainy B&W pic of me so Ken Burns can pan-and-scan it. •This George Will column is hilarious — not for the argument, which is thoughtful and needs to be rebutted by abortion-rights proponents up until the last three paragraphs, but for the thought that it could serve as "a statement the president might usefully make sometime, somewhere, to disentangle the issues." Can anyone seriously imagine the president we just re-elected speaking this sentence?
Make the pie higher, baybee. •Tomorrow: Singing "Brick House" at Jordan and Barbara Baker's wedding! Oh, what a winning hand.
Sunday, 1/2/05: And I'll Shower Regularly! "Have a happy New Year," a seated, middle-aged black woman reading a tattered book said to me as I prepared to exit the Blue Line at Foggy Bottom-GWU this afternoon. As I smiled, looked down, and began to say "Thank you," she added, "And have good personal habits — no smoking and no street drugs." "Sure thing," I said, wondering what of my jacket, shirt with collar, and khakis had inspired this admonition as I walked through the open doors. It got me thinking, though, about New Year's resolutions. My main resolution, and one I hope I can keep this year, is to be nice to myself: not necessarily buying myself everything I want or eating that last piece of cake or whatever, but just laying off when I need to lay off for a moment. For example, I just watched all of "True Lies" on Fox even though I have a review due tomorrow. (It's drafted but unpolished.) This is a good start. I had been debating whether to have any additional resolutions, but my ratiocination since this encounter has led me to the conclusion that, in keeping with the main resolution, it would only be wise to make resolutions that there is very little chance I cannot keep. So I will abstain from smoking and street drugs, as the woman suggested. Also I will give props to all my peeps, because you are all supercool. Have an extremely happy year, everybody.
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