Mortar Bend

This concludes our blogcast

2007-12-31T12:12:00.001-05:00

Waiting for Godsnow

2007-12-13T18:05:00.000-05:00

Just came if from the second round of shoveling. I was out there for a while. In the middle of clearing the driveway, I saw the city plow making its rounds on our neighboring streets, and it didn't make sense to me to go inside just to come out again to clear the bottom of the driveway once the plow got to our street.

So I finished the driveway. And waited. And noticed that the snow was falling heavily enough that there was snow enough -- if only barely -- to clear the driveway again while I waited for the plow. So I did. In the middle of the second pass, the plow came down our street, and cleared the opposite side. This left the bottom of our drive open. So I cleared again. And again.

Somewhere during the third or fourth pass, the whole thing started to feel like something out of a Samuel Beckett play. Waiting for the promised arrival of something that promised both liberation -- once the plow came, I would be free to stop shoveling, at least for a while -- and subjugation -- before I could lay down my burden, I had to tackle the most arduous task. I knew the plow was imminent, but it traveled according to its own schedule, caring little for my needs and desires.

Vladimir: Let's go.

Estragon: We can't.

Vladimir: Why not?

Estragon: We're waiting for DaPlow.

Personally, though, I've always preferred Stoppard's existentialism to Beckett's. Like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, I could while away the time playing Questions:

Rosentom: Where is it?

Guildenbernard: Where is what?

Rosentom: What have we been talking about all this time?

Guildenbernard: You mean the plow?

Rosentom: Do you imagine I meant something else?

Guildenbernard: Do you have any other current obsessions I should know about?

And so on.

Jean Paul Sartre (Snow Exit) would say Hell is clearing other people's snow from the foot of one's driveway.

With regard to the American dramatic canon, I don't have a son, so I can't imagine how Arthur Miller would deal with matters. Tennessee Williams couldn't pull off a story set in the Northeast. Clifford Odets would have a field day with my situation, but he would have construed the plow as a surrogate for the mechanism of capitalism itself, which is somewhat beside the point.

Ultimately, though, David Mamet would render his dramatic opinion in the most succinct and accurate manner, one I certainly share:

@#$%in' snow.

If at first you don't succeed...

2007-12-10T20:32:00.000-05:00

...try and try until you don't succeed again, and again, and again.

I don't recall where I heard that line. I know it was in a some cartoon I saw years ago. Something like Animaniacs or Pinky and the Brain or Freakazoid! or something of that sarcastic and self-referential sort. Wherever it originated, the hopeful fatalism of the line resonated with me. I still think of it when faced with a new challenge. It's a reminder about the benefit of process independent of outcome, and of the journey being as valuable as the destination.

Over the past week or so, echoes of that message have popped up in a variety of places.

First, The Lovely Wife suggested I read and article in the December 2007/January 2008 issue of Scientific American Mind:

Teaching people to have a “growth mind-set,” which encourages a focus on effort rather than on intelligence or talent, produces high achievers in school and in life.

The article is worth a read, but it boils down to the idea with which I began: fostering an "if at first you don't succeed" orientation not only helps people overcome challenges, but develops their enthusiasm for challenge itself.

No sooner had I digested this article than The Kid and I rented Meet the Robinsons (2007). It's standard Disney animated fare, leavened with a variation on that eerily persistent challenge-positive message. The central theme of the story is Keep Moving Forward. Embrace failure. Learn from your mistakes, and use what you learn to keep making bigger and better mistakes, until you finally succeed.

[Fans of Monty Python and the Holy Grail will recognize this as the "burned down, fell over, and then sank into the swamp" principle.]

Then, on the heels of watching the movie, I discovered Launchball. This addictive little online game presents a series of engineering simulations masquerading as puzzles. I blasted through the first two levels quickly, and most of the third level was hit or miss.

The object of the game is simple: use the limited supply of materials you are provided to guide a ball from the launch point to a goal. The materials and the layout of the environment vary from level to level, and include things like conveyor belts, steam turbines, fans and wind turbines, lights, mirrors and solar cells, elastic blocks and inclines. Where you place your tools affects the system (e.g., heating a network of copper blocks melts ice that powers water turbines that open gates between the ball and the goal), making it possible to complete the level.

One of the things I like about the game is that the activation button for each level is marked TEST. It's not a win-lose proposition like so many other games*. It's not even about success or failure. It's about workable and unworkable solutions. It's about testing hypotheses, and adjusting the parameters of the experiment when the hypothesis fails to achieve the desired outcome of reaching the goal. Because everything is a test, the margin between an unworkable and a workable solution is simply a matter of altering some variables, and of working with the resources available.

Right now, I am (maddeningly) stuck on the third to last level of the game, which involves placing a series of four mirrors within a grid containing a number of obstacles in order to bounce a beam of light off a series of mirrors to trigger a solar cell to power a fan to push the ball to the goal. I know it's all a matter of angles and placement, but so far, I haven't determined the proper configuration. I'm sure the solution is just a few more tests away. Logically, given the size of the grid, there are only so many possibly configurations.

[Fans of jokes about manure shoveling will recognize this as the "there has to be a pony in here somewhere" principle.]

Why does any of this matter? It doesn't. Why does any of this matter to me? I figure there are worse things a parent can teach their child.

*Don't get me wrong; I like competitive games just fine. I like competition and challenge, and there are plenty of games that provide that. I also like solving puzzles, of wrestling with the conviction that the solution is within my reach, and knowing that reaching it is only a matter of time.

Five marginally more connected than my usual "Five unconnected points" points

2007-12-07T19:45:00.000-05:00

Today's magic word is "consumption."

On a recent trip to the supermarket, I paid attention to juice section of the dairy aisle. For one national brand, I counted no fewer than eight different styles of orange juice, available in seven different sizes. And that's just the fresh-picked juice. Then there are the various sizes and varieties of juice from concentrate, the certified organic stuff, and the plethora of other flavors and blends. Now multiply that by the four or five other national or regional brands, and the store's own proprietary label, and seemingly simple matter of "buying some juice" becomes an exercise in decision paralysis.

Don't even get me started on all the different types of hummus there are to choose from.

Maybe I'm just paying more attention this year, but I'm noticing more "X gifts under $X" guides than I've been consciously aware of in years past.

The week's New York magazine featured a full page advertisement for engraveable bottles of Johnnie Walker Blue label scotch. To me, this crosses the line from generosity to overkill. I can't imagine appreciating a bottle of Johnnie Blue any more just because it happened to have my name on it. (Note that anyone wishing to test the limits of my gratitude at this festive time of year should feel welcome to attempt to prove me wrong.)

I'm at the tail end of a bothersome cold. Feeling much better now, thanks. The only problem is that laughter sends me into slight coughing fits.

Pizza, Pop Culture, and Politics

2007-12-06T15:05:00.000-05:00

Watch out, this one jumps around a little.

The other night, we ordered a pizza from Hot Tomatoes in Williamstown, our favorite non-homemade pizza option. It was a chilly evening, which made the hot pizza box a welcome hand warmer on the short walk from the shop to my car.

Cool night, hot pizza, tantalizing aroma. There is something special about going out to pick up a pizza. I remember doing it as a kid, going into the pizzeria with one of my parents, waiting for our order to be ready, carrying the pizza out to our car, and then sitting with it on my lap during the ride home, tempted by the smell, and thinking our short car ride would never end.* A reminder -- as if one were really necessary -- that, done right, pizza is the food of the gods. For pizza, like grace, often comes to us only after a time of testing.

The conflation of pizza with the numinous was burned into my geek brain years ago when I read The Amazing Spider-Man #252.

While the comic book is about more than pizza, there is a sequence during the story when Peter Parker goes out to his local pizzeria to pick up a pie for dinner. Granted, this is hardly the sort of action packed sequence on which Stan Lee and Steve Ditko made their bones (in which case, the whole story would have been set in a pizza place, Stan would have teased the story by writing something like "Excelsior, Effendi! Get Set for a Magnificent Meal in the Mighty Marvel Manner!" Spidey would have ended up fighting Electro, of Sandman, or The Lizard or someone, and the pizza place would have gotten trashed in the process, for which Spider-Man would once again be branded a public menace, and poor, luckless Peter Parker would have gone home without supper, which he would, of course, already have paid for.**) but this digression into the minutia of normal life does have a particular purpose in the context of this story, aside from the revealing that Peter Parker likes green peppers on his pizza. The pizza represents a welcome, er, slice of home for a hero who just got back from an adventure in outer space. Beyond that, the real historical value of this issue is that it represents the first appearance of Spider-Man's black costume.

At the end of the previous issue of The Amazing Spider-Man , Spidey disappeared from New York's Central Park while investigating a strange alien artifact that materialized in Sheep Meadow. This sequence was repeated across a number of Marvel comics -- including The Fantastic Four, The Avengers, Thor, and The Uncanny X-Man -- during the month The Amazing Spider-Man #251 hit the stands.

The reason for this mass disappearance would be explained in Marvel Super-Heroes Secret Wars***, a 12-issue mini-series that premiered on the heels of the heroes' departure. While Secret Wars ran for a year, the heroes all returned from the adventure chronicled in that story with their following issue. So, when Spider-Man "returned" (after having been gone for about a week), he came back wearing a new costume.

Readers learned that he obtained the costume during his adventure on another planet in another galaxy. The origin of the costume, and the danger it posed for Spider-Man, played out over the course of several months of stories, culminating in Spidey returning to his iconic red and blue uniform****.

I suspect this is all of limited interest beyond the sphere of my own pathetic obsessiveness. So let me get to the point I'm trying to make. To wit:

THE RUMORS ARE TRUE.

Look at it, right there on the cover.

THE RUMORS ARE TRUE.

This comic book game out 23 years ago. At the time, North Adams was hardly a mecca of alternative culture. Rumors? What rumors? I was still buying my comics on the newsstand. I didn't know from Amazing Heroes, or Comics Buyers Guide or APAs. In 1984, I was six years away from my first email account, and wholly and untutored in the ways of Usenet. If there were rumors, they hadn't penetrated the Berkshire Hills to the level of my awareness.

But the thing is, forget the overwrought Stan Lee hype I mentioned above. THE RUMORS ARE TRUE. That meant that someone, somewhere, was starting, and disseminating, and sharing these rumors. Someone, somewhere, was in on this. THE RUMORS ARE TRUE. Say it again. THE RUMORS ARE TRUE. What does it mean? YOU ARE NOT ALONE. You may be thirteen years old, and kinda introverted, but THE RUMORS ARE TRUE. YOU ARE PART OF A COMMUNITY.

Looking back, I think these four words, more than anything else, were responsible for my first great adolescent comic book awakening. Sure, Byrne's Fantastic Four was a blast, and Claremont was cooking on X-Men, and I always enjoyed checking in on Simonson's Thor, and don't get me started on what Frank Miller did with the "Born Again" storyline in Daredevil. But without those four words, and the promise I found in them, I might not have jumped headlong into comics the way I did.

THE RUMORS ARE TRUE. And, ultimately, wholly unnecessary. Those words brought me in, and once I was in, I found a small network of fellow obsessives who shared my interest and validated my geekery. Even without that network, or similar subsequent networks, fun stories kept me around for a good long while.

Which brings me to Star Trek: The Next Generation. Specifically, the episode "Best of Both Worlds, Part 1." This was the finale of the show's third season, which aired in the late spring of 1990. Trek watching was a social ritual among my college friends, a weekly (and, yes, geekly) collective experience that was the foundation for deeper relationships, many of which remain among the closest friendships of my life.

By the time this episode aired, however, the semester had ended, and our group had scattered to the four winds for another summer. Again, this was at the very beginning of my online existence, so divorced from my usual community, I had not yet made the leap to substituting participation in a virtual community. So when I watched it back at home, sitting in my parents' basement no less -- I know, how @#$%ing cliche can you get? -- I didn't know what to expect.

All I knew was that the episode had reached the final act, and there was still a lot left to resolve. As the minutes ticked down, I became increasingly uneasy that the story could reach a satisfactory conclusion -- or indeed, any conclusion -- in the time remaining. Yet, somehow, the possibility of a cliffhanger didn't factor into my considerations.

And then...

And then, we cut back to the bridge of the Enterprise:

And then, "Mr. Worf, fire." Dramatic music. Fade to black.

To

Be

Continued.

*blink* Ho-ly @#$%!

I can only think of two other season/series finales that had that same visceral impact on me. "Anasazi," the second season finale of The X-Files, and this year's "Made in America," the last installment of The Sopranos. As with "The Best of Both Worlds," these stories wrapped in a way that left the status quo in serious doubt. Granted, the resolutions to the Star Trek and X-Files cliffhangers largely reaffirmed the respective stati quo, but the breaking point in the stories generated tremendous excitement.

It's increasingly difficult for shows to make that sort of impact and generate that level of excitement. Detailed information about plot, casting, cliffhangers and all the rest is readily available with minimal effort. Spoilers serve as a form of online currency. Indeed, today I find it more difficult to avoid spoilers than to access them.

This can be a mixed blessing. On the one hand, spoilers and capsule summaries make it easier for me to stay relatively current about TV, movies, comics, and other popular culture excreta. I don't have to invest money and time in reading Superman comics; if I really want to know what's going on in Metropolis these days, the information is just a Wikipedia search away. If I lack the willpower to wait for Lost or Heroes to come out on DVD, there are sites where I can read synopses of episodes the morning after they air. It's not even that great a loss in many cases. Spoilers are great at telling the What, but less effective at communicating the How. If the story is solid, knowing what happens is subordinate to seeing the story unfold, even if I do lose that frisson of cliffhanger surprise. If not, then a summary is all the story merits of my attention.

And this is fine when it comes to disposable culture. I care less for it in the public realm.

The political sphere is increasingly filled with spoilers. Politicians give speeches, and pre-released text is exhaustively analyzed before the speaker gets within hours of the podium. The House leadership schedules a vote, and the nose count is released -- and exhaustively analyzed, with a high degree of accuracy -- days, even weeks in advance. The actual business of governance is relegated to theater, to playing out expected roles, and conforming to pre-established narratives.

I realize it's not a new phenomenon. I'm certainly not advocating smoke filled rooms where politicians do the people's business out of sight of the people. Information is important. Knowing where one's legislators stand on issues is one half of everyone citizen's civic obligation. The other half is to advocate -- respectfully and strenuously -- in favor of or opposition to those stands. Action may rarely lead to change, but inaction always invites failure.

Understand; my earlier references to comics notwithstanding, I'm not being Truth, Justice, and the American Way-ly naive here. Politics can be good television. Knowing the What doesn't always spoil the How. At the same time, politics can be dramatic without being treated as scripted drama.

THE RUMORS ARE TRUE.

In the world of Spider-Man, rumor may be all we need. In our world, we must look beyond rumors to understand the facts.

Excelsior!

*A ride during which I sat in the front passenger seat, this being the reckless 1970s.

**You know, sort of like Do The Right Thing, only with super-powers.

***What this story is about, and why it is significant, is a much larger story.

****Spider-Man's black costume spurred similar fashion changes among other Marvel heroes during this period. Who can forget Captain America's black uniform, Thor's beard, Iron Man's scarlet and silver armor (for my money, the single greatest design variation in the character's history) the Thing's thong [all right, lying about this one], Magneto's magenta phase [I only wish I were lying about this one] or Wonder Man's truly hellacious red and green retro unitard?

Five unconnected points

2007-12-02T16:24:00.000-05:00

A while back, Eric wrote a post about perfect albums. In the comment thread for that post, I suggested that Barenaked Ladies's sophomore effort Maybe You Should Drive was superior to Gordon, their debut album. I listened to Gordon in the car yesterday. I withdraw my previous suggestion.

The folks with whom I play card and/or geeky games on a semi-regular basis crossed a nerd threshold this week. We played a game that involved...character sheets. No word yet on whether this will cause The Lovely Wife to reevaluate our relationship.

I'm watching the television adaptations of John LeCarre's [I know there should be an accent there, but I can't remember the proper keystroke at the moment] Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley's People on DVD. They are among the best-acted pieces of television I have ever seen. The opening sequence of Tinker, Tailor... has no dialogue until the final few seconds, but in the run up to those seconds, the actors convey volumes about their characters and their relationships to each other. Better still is a scene between George Smiley (Alec Guinness) and the Russian spy Karla (Patrick Stewart). Karla has no dialogue in the scene, but he is a full participant in the conversation. It's impressive to watch.

While there are times when anticipation is worth it, waiting for a snow storm to begin is not one of those times. Knowing the snow is coming -- and knowing it brings with it shoveling, and sloppy roads, and the possibility of school cancellation for The Kid -- tries my patience. I just want the snow to come and go and be done with it already. I mean, I've got new boots to field test, you know?

This is either one of life's imponderable mysteries, or something that just happens to me: For some reason, I find I wear out the toes of brown dress socks (regardless of brand) much faster than black, or blue, or grey socks. Perhaps it's something to do with the dye, but otherwise I can think of no reason this should be so.

An open letter to the Sunday, October 21, 2007, New York Times Magazine

2007-10-23T06:09:00.000-05:00

I concede. You win.

I am unable to solve the October 21, 2007, New York Times Magazine crossword puzzle. You beat me. Are you happy?

And I'd been doing so well of late. The past month and a half or so, I've just been cruising through the puzzle. And now this. I'm not certain this puzzle was any harder than puzzles I've solved with relative ease, but for whatever reason, I just couldn't wrap my brain around this one.

All right; I'll admit that recent successes have made me cocky, perhaps even a little bit arrogant. And yes, imitating the Lovely Wife's habit of placing a check mark on every puzzle she completes by scrawling AWW YEAH!!! WHO DA MAN!??! across the face of last week's puzzle upon completion was an act of untrammelled hubris, the sort that begs for comeuppance. And this week, you delivered, my old nemesis.

Kudos to you, Brendan Emmett Quigley, and, as always, to you Mister Shortz, you magnificent bastard. I'm duly chastened, and I look forward to approaching next week's puzzle with energy and humility. You won this round, but I have not given up the fight.

Dzienkuje

2007-10-22T18:47:00.000-05:00

Toward the end of my brief and undistinguished career in banking, I reported at various times -- individually and concurrently -- to two managers. One had a degree in philosophy. The other had a military background. The Philosopher was a strategist, focused on the big picture. The Soldier was a tactician, charged with defining and implementing plans to achieve strategic goals.

As someone with a better head for strategy than tactics, my natural tendency was to gravitate toward the Philosopher, if for no other reason than we generally spoke the same language. Working with the soldier was more of a challenge (for both of us, I'm certain) because we tended to approach tasks and address challenges from different starting points.

Still, I learned much working with both of them, and I'm grateful for the time and effort they put into working with me. They inherited me when my previous made a deal one of their peers, and transferred me into the department where the Philosopher and the Soldier worked. The cynical way of looking at it was my manager was looking to jettison an asset they no longer required. The more charitable interpretation is that my manager realized at the completion of a project I had been working on that I had grown beyond my position, and called in a favor to give me a shot at a more challenging assignment. Either way, the Soldier and the Philosopher were given charge of me.

It's a strange thing; as much as we can learn from those to we have much in common, it is often the case that working for those who challenge us teaches us even more in the long run. There were two teachers in high school who truly pushed me to excel. One of them was my favorite teacher. We had similar outlooks (and similar senses of humor), but he never let any student get away with simply toeing the party line. He forced us to look beyond stock answers and pat assumptions, and to consider these things from more than one point of view. To this day, I joke that this teacher ruined me for knee-jerk dogmatic liberalism. I'm a lousy partisan, because I always try to see the other side.

On the other end of the spectrum was a teacher who absolutely kicked my butt up one side and down the other. Looking back, I recognize that part of the reason I got my butt kicked so often in her class was because I did try to get away with the easy answer and the half-hearted analysis. I tried to remain standing on the tip of the iceberg, and she forced me to acknowledge the large and complicated mass below the surface. I resented it at the time, and struggled bitterly against the way of that expectation. It took me a good ten years to realize what a profound debt I owe that teacher.

I wouldn't have thought much about any of this except for the fact that I recently had a chance to reconnect briefly with the Philosopher. Talking with him, and hearing him talk about the time in my career when I worked with him and learned from him, made me realize how much of that experience I carry with me. My path has been anything but straight and direct, but there is a consistency, or at least a necessity, to the way all the pieces fit together to bring me to the place I am today.

Life is serial, not merely episodic. More than that, life is an ensemble production rather than a star vehicle. Playing our respective parts works best when we work hard to make our fellow cast members look good, and when we realize how good our castmates make us look.

I'd wager one of the first lessons most of us learn is to always say "Please" and "Thank you." Both are important, but when I think of my own life, and the acts of kindness large and small so many people have shown me, I recognize that no matter how many times I say "Thank you," I leave many acts of kindness unacknowledged. It's probably inevitable, with the only remedy being to remember those acts and do likewise whenever I can.

Five unconnected points to ponder on a Friday afternoon (Tuesday morning edition)

2007-09-11T05:58:00.000-05:00

What are the ethical implications of a bologna having both a first and a last name?

I'm working my way through Heroes on DVD. Having the character played by George Takei driven around in a car with a license plate that reads NCC 1701 is the worst kind of geek pandering. I approve.

Note for the liturgically-minded: "acclimation" is the process of getting used to something; "acclamation" is the act of making a joyful noise unto the Almighty.

Go to YouTube. Find The Muppet Show version of "Danny Boy." Laugh.

I admit nothing.

"Five unconnected points to ponder on a Friday afternoon" Rides Again

2007-08-31T17:06:00.000-05:00

Words to live by: as Tom Waits reminds us, "The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away."

"Bacony" is an adjective that should enjoy wider use and greater acceptance by officaldom.

The Lovely Wife and I have been watching Freaks and Geeks through the magic of NetFlix. I was no fan of the show when it first aired, and I was baffled at the esteem in which the critical establishment and friends whose opinions I trust held it. Still, we decided to give it a second chance. While I still believe it to be slightly overrated, I'll admit I wrote it off too quickly.

John Mitchell recently waxed rhapsodic about Mego superhero homunculi of the 1970s. Like John, I had a number of these articulated action toys when I was a kid. I wonder what ever happened to my Green Arrow -- all right, I'll say it -- doll?

And if you happen to like superheroes, might I recommend Austin Grossman's novel Soon I will be Invincible?

Mortar Bend Bandstand

2007-08-18T16:24:00.000-05:00

So Dan "The Man" Lester, Cup and Saucer's incomparable proprietor, recently mentioned he was looking for new music to play in the shop. Words were exchanged, promises were made, offers of free coffee in exchange for CDs were bandied about. Believe you me, I'm easily persuaded by the odd bit of bandy-ing. That was all it took for me to decide to inflict, er, I mean share, my eclectic (a word which here means hideously, even aggressively, bad) musical taste on my fellow coffee shop patrons.

So, if you should happen to pay a visit to the Cup and Saucer any time soon and find yourself wondering just what the @#$% the noise coming out of their speakers is, and just what %$#@head is responsible for said noise, and should said noise include any of the following, then I, I am that %$#@head...and fiercely proud of it!

Der Playlist...of DOOM!

Escape Velocity (Man…Or Astro Man?)
Guitar Was the Case (Mono Puff)
Surf Rider (The Lively Ones)
Mo' Onions (Booker T and the MGs)
Peaches en Regalia (Frank Zappa)
No One Knows My Plan (They Might Be Giants)
Super Rad! (The Aquabats)
Blue Heaven (Pogues)
Stress (Jim's Big Ego)
Short Skirt/Long Jacket (Cake)
Get Up Offa That Thing (James Brown)
Boom Boom (John Lee Hooker)
It's Tricky (Run-DMC)
Re-Hash (Gorillaz)
Hotwax (Beck)
I Miss You (blink-182)
Pump It Up (Elvis Costello)
Come on Up to the House (Tom Waits)

All in all, I'm kind of proud of this mix. There's a lot of surf guitar right at the top of the disc, but since I happen to like a good bit of surf guitar, it works for me. I suspect the instrumentals will also work pretty well in the coffee shop setting. It's good background without being too assertive. And if not, these are all relatively short tracks.

On reflection, I'm also somewhat torn about the James Brown-John Lee Hooker-Run-DMC progression. I think it would have worked better (although it does work) if I had put the Hooker before Brown. Problem there is I really like the flow from Cake to JB, so I think I'll just have to live with it.

Five (more) unconnected points to ponder on a (different) Friday

2007-08-03T19:51:00.000-05:00

So anyway, as I was saying...

Something that looks like a Swedish Fish should not taste like a Twizzler. As a personal corollary, I see no reason why anything should taste like a Twizzler.

It's spelled "ultimatum."

This week's weather serves as a reminder that if I had to choose between cold weather and hot weather, I would choose cold every darn time.

In an blind test conducted recently at Mortar Bend Labs, two out of two tasters preferred Coke Zero to Coke Classic.

I read Dennis Lehane's Coronado earlier this week. The man can write.

Five unconnected points to ponder on a Friday afternoon

2007-06-01T15:27:00.000-05:00

I've had "Judy is a Punk" by the Ramones stuck in my head for about 72 hours now. That's quite a long time to have the same 36 (largely indistinguishable) words looping through your brain on infinite repeat. On the up side, Judy displaced "The Hard-Knock Life" from Annie, which had previously implanted itself in my brain on account of The Kid has been on an Annie kick lately.

Best of luck to Colleen Reinhard and Sean Taylor of The Freight Yard Pub on their plans to open Taylor's Fine Dining in the former Gideon's location (as reported in the June 1, 2007 edition of The North Adams Transcript).

While I have railed about the provincialism of our friends in the eastern part of the state, I must note that people around Boston are not the only ones who assume that driving across the Commonwealth is some sort of noteworthy accomplishment. I recently spoke with someone from Cape Cod who told me about coming out for an event in the Berkshires, and having people express amazement that she "drove all that way..."

Wouldn't it be cool if coffee shops made the ice cubes for their iced coffee out of coffee? I know most places brew their iced coffee a bit stronger to allow for ice melt dilution, but this would eliminate the need to do that.

Finally, congratulations to Massachusetts State Representative Daniel Bosley (D-North Adams), who received the Massachusetts Alliance for Arts Education's Legislative Leadership Award yesterday.

Tipping Point

2007-05-31T21:01:00.000-05:00

Continuing my recent discussion of games The Kid and I enjoy, we recently started playing TipOver.

It's a fairly simple little one player puzzle game. It features a six square by six square plastic grid -- sort of like a Boggle board, with raised instead of recessed squares. Onto this grid, the player lays out a series of pieces (stacks of "crates") of different vertical heights, ranging from one to four cubes high. In each instance of the game, the player lays out an array of these crates, arranging them according to patterns designated on a series of game cards defining puzzles of varying degrees of difficulty, from Beginner to Advanced.

The goal of the game is to move a pawn along a path of cubes to reach the single-square cube, without touching the "floor" of the game board. The player accomplishes this by moving the pawn from stack to stack, and tipping over (hence the name) stacks where necessary to reach another set of cubes.

Trust me; it makes more sense than my semicoherent description might suggest. It's fairly straightforward, but as the layouts get progressively more complex, it can take a bit of time to navigate. It makes for a good bit of mental exercise for The Kid, and it doesn't do my grey matter any harm either.

Strategically, I find the best way to attack each puzzle is to determine which piece must be the last to fall, and then work backward from there. The Kid tends to be more of a testable hypothesis player. She looks at the starting point, and strings out a series of "what if" propositions until she cracks the solution. It leads to some dead ends along the way, and some resetting of the board when she hits dead ends, but I suspect her way is also a lot more fun.

As with most things, the question is one of values, and of what one deems most important: the journey or the destination?

Damned with excessive praise

2007-05-30T18:06:00.000-05:00

The May 30, 2007 broadcast of National Public Radio's Morning Edition included a story about employee recognition programs. In particular, the story discusses these programs as a way of engaging with a generation of early-career workers, based on the assumption that people who are in their early twenties today have grown up surrounded by abundant praise and validation, and that the workforce must constantly perpetuate this level of positive reinforcement in order to keep early-career workers happy.

It would be easy to stop there, complain about These Kids Today and observe that the world is going to hell in a handbasket. There's probably some truth to both the complaint and the observation, but that's only part of the story. The NPR piece also notes that some companies are hiring consultants to help them connect -- through recognition programs -- with these employees.

For good or for ill, consultants have never met an idea they couldn't recycle. Sure, the notion of targeting recognition primarily at younger workers is a new spin, but it's a reinterpretation of an idea that has been around for a while. When I began my professional career -- working for a large New England-based financial services company that is much larger today, but no longer New England-based -- recognition programs were a big thing. In my case, the company I worked for was into awarding Little Gold Stars. Or rather I should say the company set up a system through which people could award Little Gold Stars to each other.

Unsurprisingly, this quickly created a system in which the barest mental or physical exertion garnered recognition as evidence of outstanding service. In essence, people began rewarding people for doing their job. Less than that, really; people began rewarding each other for doing anything more than the absolute minimum their jobs required.

Now I'm all for letting people know when they've done a great job. Good work -- and especially good service -- is exceedingly rare, and deserves to be acknowledged whenever it manifests. The problem comes when we are so unfamiliar with good service that any non-atrocious service seems outstanding. When mediocrity becomes exceptional -- and even worse, when mediocrity and exceptionalism are treated as having equal value, and meriting equal praise -- then the very notion of recognition becomes meaningless.

More signs of the consumer apocalypse

2007-05-29T17:32:00.000-05:00

To borrow a page from Eric's hymnal of existential disappointment, I've come across another piece of evidence that we live in a society with almost no sense of perspective.

This afternoon, I heard a brief radio advertisement for a book that promises to teach people how to "conquer clutter." Let's be clear; I believe this is a laudable goal. My problem is not with the conquest of clutter, but rather with the implied assumption that buying a book -- that is to say, buying yet another thing that will contribute to your clutter -- is the best way to cut down on clutter.

And, really, is clutter the sort of thing one needs a system to conquer? Isn't the de-cluttering process pretty darned simple once you get right down to it? Doesn't it essentially boil down to two steps?

1) Get rid of the stuff you don't need/want

2) Put away the stuff you need/want that you aren't currently using

Once you master these steps, what else is there? How does the enterprising clutterista fill all the remaining pages of their book? Do you really need a method, a system, or a guru to crack what is, essentially, lesson that's pretty well ingrained into the fabric of our society? Clean your room. Pick up your toys. Neatness counts.

I'm afraid I wasn't paying close enough attention to retain the title of the book, which led to my second little clutter crisis of the day. When I plugged the keywords "conquering clutter" into my friendly neighborhood online bookseller's search system, it returned about a dozen results. That's right; it's not just that someone has come up with a system for eliminating clutter from our busy workaday lives, there are, in fact, multiple competing de-cluttering systems out there, which means that not only do people have to shoulder the burden of cleaning up their acts, but they also need to be sure they're cleaning up those acts in the correct way.

Is it just me, or is this how holy wars get started?

Well played, Mr. Shapiro. Well played.

2007-05-29T17:30:00.000-05:00

Over the weekend, a college friend came for a visit. I took this as an excuse to go for a walk through the new student center at Williams College. New Baxter Hall (not the true name of the building, but that is definitely how I think of it) is an impressive venue. The public spaces are very nice, and seemed quite comfortable. The building was largely empty -- although another acquaintance of mine, who works for Williams Dining Services, offered us a brief cook's tour of the kitchen, which was an added behind the scenes bonus -- so it was hard to tell how the building serves the needs of its target audience.

I'm also not sure about the enormous fireplace(s) in the center of the great hall. They look nice, to be sure, but it's hard to tell how conducive they will be to social engagement. I suspect students may gravitate to the basement-level pub (especially in the wake of the Spring Street fire that has taken the Purple Pub out of commission), or to the snack bar, although I will not be disappointed to learn my assessment was incorrect. Indeed, I will note that I saw notices for fireside storytelling, which suggests that the students will find their own ways of putting a stamp on the building, and of making the most of what is available to them (which, again, is just a hell of a lot).

While none of the administrative or organizational offices were open, it was clear just by peering through the that the occupants had some very nice spaces in which -- and with which to work. In particular, the Chaplain's Office looked very nice, as did the space devoted to The Williams Record, which looked like it just might be the envy of any major newsroom.

In terms of alumni nostalgia, I was particularly taken with the New Baxter snack bar. Located in the curved front section of the building, the new snack bar has much of the same architectural feeling of the original snack bar. More importantly, the design team did an absolutely bang-up job recreating the overall feel of the place, using tables and booth designs that were very similar to what existed in the Baxter of old. Again, it's hard to tell much standing in an empty room; the true test of the space will be to experience it when it is filled with students -- although won't that make me feel old? -- but if first impressions count for anything, then color me impressed.

I'm not entirely sure what it means, but I like the sound of it.

2007-05-29T17:28:00.000-05:00

Heard the following on the Marketplace Morning Report this morning:

You kill the chicken so that the monkey starts behaving.

As adages go, it would seem to be the polar opposite of "the squeaky wheel gets the grease." Squeaky or not, this sounds like a situation where you don't want to call attention to yourself. Either way, I'm just counting the seconds until I can legitimately work this phrase into a conversation.

Now I'm [Ashuwillti]Cookin'

2007-05-27T08:32:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I took my first bike ride on the Ashuwillticook Rail Trail. I was most impressed. It's a nicely designed -- and from what I could see, a well-maintained -- trail that winds through some gorgeous scenery. It reminds me of -- indeed, it compares favorably with -- the Minuteman Trail west of Boston.

Didn't ride that far, both because I didn't have as much time as I might have liked, and because I hadn't been on my bike in a good long while. Still, I had a nice little run from downtown Adams to around the midpoint of Cheshire Lake.

If I have to offer criticisms of the trail, I'd begin with the fact that all the distance markers I saw measured distance in kilometers, and I'm not all that good at doing unit conversion calculations on the fly. I happened to be going to Adams anyway yesterday, but otherwise, I'd feel somewhat foolish strapping my bike to my car to go for a bike ride. I know there's talk of extending the trail; I hope that happens soon.

Thirty years

2007-05-25T05:55:00.000-05:00

Han shot first.

Berkshire County: NOT the Final Frontier

2007-05-23T18:10:00.000-05:00

My western Massachusetts brethren and sistren, I post to you today as a man who has reached the limits of his tolerance. It doesn't take too much Berkshire Sense to recognize that things have to change. It's no great revelation that people take the Northwest Corner of our Commonwealth for granted. We who roam the Wooded Paths of our region are at a geographic and demographic disadvantage relative to the denser population loci that exist closer to the Hub of the Universe.

When I attend meetings at which state legislators responsible for crafting and recommending the direction of economic stimulus legislation for our entire Commonwealth make a point of noting that they are in Berkshire County for the first time in their lives, I become incensed.

How can anyone presume to know what our state needs when they are woefully ignorant of anything that exists beyond the limits of their experience, an experience bounded for decades by route 495?

When I travel to Boston for meetings and professional events, and people ask where I've come from, and they profess to be shocked that I came "all that way," I become enraged*.

Pointing out that I left North Adams at 5:30 a.m. to make an 8:30 meeting in Boston (or Waltham, or Cambridge, or Salem), and other people left Natick at 7:00 for the same meeting, and we get there at the same damn time, doesn't help. I'm invariably confronted by blank looks. People just don't want to let go of the idea that the lands of the Berkshires aren't really all that hinter.

[I mean, come the @#$% on. It's not as though getting to Boston requires me to hitch up my team a fortnight before my appointment just to be sure I'll get there on time. I don't need to take care lest I be set upon by bandits on the lonely road outside of Orange. Sure, I might need to take the Post Road to get where I'm going, but I'm confident there will be no shortage of Dunkies to sustain me should I happen to get parched or famished along the way.]

When I read jackass comments on blog posts about how it might be tough to get Bostonians to North Adams, I become radicalized.

What in the hell is so tough about getting in the car, getting on one road, and following it for two and a half hours? The picturesque rural thing on Route 2 not your cup of tea? Take the Pike. It's going to add 20-30 minutes to the trip, but you'll really zip along, and there's rest stops and everything along the way, just in case you can't last too long without seeing signs for McDonald's and all the other trappings of civilization to which you're accustomed.

And really, folks, trust and fear not. We have electricity and flush toilets and cable TV and supermarkets stocked with all manner of prepackaged, overly processed foodstuffs.

We have art out here. And culture. And higher education.

We have at least two venues for outlet shopping within an hour's drive of where I'm sitting typing this message. I'm told it's possible to play a halfway decent round of golf out here, should that happen to be your cup of tea.

The beer out here is comparatively cheap. Cocktails are less cheap, but still below market, if a Cosmo is more your speed. We've got good coffee and terrific pizza (although you have to go to Williamstown to get the really good stuff). Just be aware that things out here shut down a lot earlier than you're used to.

What is it going to take to get through to you people? Do we need to start a movement? Do we need to organize? Do we need t-shirts before you'll take us seriously? God help me, do we need...an acronym? Because if that's what it takes to get your attention, I'll damn well give you an acronym.

I hereby announce the formation of WEstern MAssachusetts Total Territorial Equity Regiment.

That's right: WE MATTER

You want to set economic policy for the state? WE MATTER

You want to bring together people from across the state to share ideas and develop common solutions? WE MATTER

You want to build a statewide network to address population loss, and job creation? WE MATTER

You want to get opinionated progressives from across the state working together? WE MATTER

There are, of course, people across the state who get it. We have a governor who knows that Massachusetts doesn't end at 495, or Worcester, or Springfield. We have a legislative delegation that works hard on our behalf. We have people who have come to the Berkshires from other places across the state, who have their eyes opened, and who tell people what this area has to offer.

They know what I have always known. They know what none of us can ever afford to forget. WE MATTER

*To be fair, this one cuts both ways. When I travel to to Boston for meetings and professional events, and I can count the number of people from the Berkshires on one hand, and still have fingers left over, then I have to admit that there are times when we're our own worst enemies out here.

"The Second Coming" or "The precipice of a crossroads"

2007-05-23T17:52:00.000-05:00

Once again, I find myself with little to say. Things are bad. Things are going to get worse. Once you break out the Yeats, there's no going back. It's apocalypse time around the pork store.

"The best lack all convictions, while the worst are full of passionate intensity." How do you tell the best from the worst? Is Tony's problem a lack of conviction or an overabundance of passionate intensity?

All I really have this week is a suspicion, one I hesitate to mention, because it's late in the game, and it's hard to imagine that there's enough time to play out this idea. But in the interest of being able to crow about being right if, indeed, my suspicion is correct, here goes:

Basically, I think Butchie, Phil's lieutenant, is the real boss of the New York mob at this point. The sequence at the end of the episode where Butchie waves off Tony and Little Carmine from the upstairs window felt wrong to me. I don't know whether Phil is being drugged, or threatened, or imprisoned, or is simply willfully ignorant of what his right hand man is doing, but I think that before the end, Butchie will be revealed as the power in New York.

Looking back to the beginning of this run of episodes, I seem to recall Phil stating pretty clearly that he wasn't up to becoming boss. Suddenly, all the other candidates started dropping like gangland executed flies, and Phil is alone at the top of the heap. Go back and look at the episodes: the camera is quite conspicuous in picking out Butchie at the scene of every hit.

At first, I thought he was simply acting on Phil's orders, and that may still turn out to be true. Now, however, I wonder whether he wasn't acting to put Phil into power so that he could be the one pulling Phil's strings.

I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm overthinking this, and reading too much into the actions of a minor character. Indeed, there's a big part of me thinks that's the case.

But then I think about the scene in the restaurant, when Tony turned the gun on Butchie and threatened to kill him. I think about the fact that if Butchie's the real boss, Tony could have solved a lot of his problems by killing Butchie. I think about the fact that Greek mythology and theatre is rife with tragedies that begin with characters acting or not acting at a time when they are ignorant of the full scope of their actions, and how it's usually the things they don't know that come back to bite them in the ass.

Turning and turning, indeed.

"Kennedy and Heidi" or "How DO you spell relief?"

2007-05-16T17:49:00.000-05:00

Anyone who has not yet seen this episode of The Sopranos, and wishes to do so without knowing plot details should click away now.

That's all the warning you're going to get. If I ruin anything for you from this point forward, you have only yourself to blame. Also, I will point at you, and laugh at you, and mock you relentlessly as you stand there blaming yourself. Because I warned you, and you chose not to listen to the warning, so you've abdicated the right to any sympathy I might otherwise be inclined to offer, which is really not all that much sympathy in the first place, because in my ground state I'm not an especially nice person (but I make up for it by being at peace with myself about how not especially nice I am, which is, I suppose, merely an indirect way of saying that any problem you may have with how not especially nice I am is just that: your problem) and I tried to warn you, but you didn't listen to me, so now I'm even less nice than I would otherwise be. But I digress.

********************

A while back, I wrote, "The only thing that makes me think Christopher might just survive is that his death seems like such a foregone conclusion that I could imagine David Chase leaving him alive just to @#$% with audience expectations."

As prognostications go, I'm batting .500. Christopher is dead. I was wrong about that. I was, however, right on the mark about David Chase @#$%ing with audience expectations. It's just that I failed to account for just how devious a storyteller David Chase (who co-wrote this episode) can be. He found a way to bring Christopher's story to its necessary conclusion without bringing it to an obvious conclusion.

A car crash? Tony seizing an unanticipated opportunity to deal with a liability? I'll confess I didn't see that coming.

In the aftermath of Christopher's death, or, rather, in the aftermath of his murder of Christopher, Tony confesses to feeling relieved, a sentiment he tries, and fails, to get others to share. Speaking as a viewer, I will confess to feeling a certain amount of relief at Christopher's death. It's the relief that comes when something you've anticipated -- possibly even dreaded -- finally comes to pass. I'd been expecting it. It happened. Now I can move on. As a viewer, I have that luxury. Tony Soprano, on the other hand, is not so lucky.

When the series returned for its final run of episodes, and Tony called on Bobby Bacala to compromise himself by killing for Tony, I was reminded that for all that James Gandolfini makes him a telegenic monster, Tony Soprano remains monstrous. He's rarely a sympathetic character, even more rarely a genuinely likable one, but there is no denying that he is, has always been, a compelling personality.

But in killing Christopher, Tony plumbs new depths. This isn't the same as killing Tony B to spare him Phil's wrath. This isn't something he can rationalize as an act of mercy, as perverted in form as that mercy might be. He has killed before -- and I suspect at some point within the next three episodes he will do so again -- but though he compartmentalizes and denies and rationalizes and deludes himself and others over the course of this episode, this feels different somehow.

As a viewer, it feels more difficult to forgive Tony for this sin. Given his struggle to rationalize his actions, and to get others to subscribe to his particular rationalization, my sense is that it's going to be harder for Tony to compartmentalize this one.

[Contrast that with AJ, who it seems can't compartmentalize anything. Contrast that with Phil, who can, arguably, compartmentalize anything, as long as everyone else accepts that there's only one compartment, and it's his. Contrast that with Paulie, who catalogues every detail and specification as he compartmentalizes, and files away every perceived slight and indignity for future reference.]

As the episode ends, a drugged Tony shouts "I get it!" into the rising sun. What does he get?

A while back, I argued that Uncle Junior still had some mischief left in him. I'm beginning to wonder if perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps Junior's situation is merely a cautionary tale that if you stick around for too long, you risk losing everything that matters.

Perhaps, given a choice between "I have become comfortably numb" and "It's better to burn out than fade away" Tony has decided the time has come to burn out. If so, the question becomes who will remain to stand on the scorched earth he leaves in his wake?

Marvel...at the obvious!

2007-05-13T19:40:00.000-05:00

I'm all for giving consumers the best information available, in order to ensure that they make informed purchasing decisions, but this just might be a case of going too far.

Does milk really need an allergy warning informing potential consumers that milk contains, you know, milk?

I get that maybe someone might purchase a delicious hot beverage and still be baffled (and scalded) when said delicious hot beverage turns out to be hot as well as delicious. I understand putting a warning label on the mochaccino, just to be on the safe side.

But milk? Is it not reasonable to assume that someone who is knowingly allergic to milk might purchase milk, pour themselves a cool glass of milk, consume that milk, and only then recognize that by purchasing and consuming a product (i.e., milk) to which they are allergic they might, just might, bring on an allergic reaction? Logically, to say nothing of linguistically, it seems to me that putting the word MILK on the package in attractive periwinkle blue capital letters should be all the warning anyone needs to recognize that if they or their loved ones have an allergy to milk, they should maybe, you know, leave this here product on the shelf and move along.

I'm sure I'm missing something (wouldn't be the first time) and there is a logical explanation behind this that goes beyond my current assumption that we live in a world gone mad.

There can be only one

2007-05-07T16:04:00.000-05:00

There's too much comity 'round these parts lately. Nobody's taking offense, picking fights, or rising to petty provocations. Greg can't get traction advancing his pet theory that people around here are reluctant to speak truth to power. Eric had people talking about music for a while, and while the discussion was robust and interesting, where was the rancor? Where was the partisanship? Where were the kneejerk character assassinations? Have we become a loosely affiliated community of virtual tea sandwich nibblers?

I say thee NAY! It's time to shake things up around here.

John Scalzi, journeyman science fiction author and blogger of no mean skill, posted the following question on his site a while back:

Cats or cheese! There can be only one! You must choose!

It is in Mr. Scalzi's spirit (and also because, you know, I've never had a single original idea in my @#$%ing life) and in the interest of picking -- or instigating -- a series of knock down, drag out, utterly pointless and inconsequential fights that I submit the following:

Bread or movies! There can be only one! You must choose!

Choose bread, and movies in all their manifestations vanish forever, with only the lingering aroma of chemically-flavored artificial butterine emulsion to commemorate a time when people sat in the dark and watched images flickering on a screen, when we believed a man could fly, that we weren't in Kansas anymore, or that the problems of three little people didn't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world!

Choose movies, and that's it for naan, and French toast, and marble rye, for bagels, and baguettes, and brioche, for the crouton in your French onion soup, or a crisp English muffin alongside your plate of corned beef hash!

There is no alternative! There is no compromise!

Only one can exist! And only you can decide!

Which will it be? Explain your choice.

Haiku reviews: Spider-Man 3 (2007)

2007-05-07T15:59:00.000-05:00

Angstful, the webhead
Black costume, villains galore
Has to save M.J.

********************

The Dude from Sideways

And That 70s Show guy

Whomp on Spider-Man

"Walk Like a Man" or...yeah, I got nothin'

2007-05-07T15:47:00.000-05:00

Things of this world act according to their nature. Fish gotta swim. Birds gotta fly. Drunks gotta drink. Thugs gotta thug. Mob bosses gotta work through their emotional baggage. And messed-up post-adolescents gotta make messed-up post-adolescent decisions.

If friend Amy is correct, and current developments on The Sopranos indicate masculinity in crisis, then that crisis is in full flower throughout this episode.

Beyond that? I don't know what else to say, except to attempt to sum up the episode in the form of a haiku review:

Chris can't kill Paulie
Kills another guy instead
AJ works through grief

"Chasing It" or "The House Always Wins"

2007-04-30T17:57:00.000-05:00

There are only two ways this can end.

Either Tony Soprano turns his luck around, or he loses everything.

Given the character's demonstrated inability to quit while he's ahead, which option seems more likely?

For whatever reason -- addiction to the rush and risk of winning and losing, a feeling of invulnerability since surviving his gunshot wound, or simply a self-destructive streak that controls and defines his actions -- Tony is getting in over his head.

He's losing money hand over fist.

He's making bad decisions fueled by his losses.

He's alienating his friends, his family, and his crew (I was especially struck by Silvio's conspicuous refusal to either condone or condemn Tony's behavior. Sometimes, the lack of judgment carries as much weight as the genuine article).

He's blaming others (Hesh, Phil, Carmela) for his problems.

He's risking his health and sanity by avoiding the people who might be able to help him (Melfi), which raises the question of if, and why, he feels a need to be out of control.

He's literally -- and quite monstrously -- betting the life of a child on a long-shot, risky proposition. Show of hands: who thinks this one is going to work out for the best? Yeah, neither do I.

And yet, in the end, Tony confesses his debts to Carmela. He makes one smart bet: he tells the truth. Is the the roll of the dice which presages his luck turning around once and for all? It's possible that the tide will turn, and that Tony will beat the odds stacked up against him and finesse a happy ending. Reaching that point will require him to muster the will and the wisdom to quit while he's ahead -- to truly accept all the things he's been claiming (although those claims ring increasingly hollow) to be thankful for -- and to walk away from the bad bets.

It's possible, but it seems unlikely.

We're starting to see the shape of this final story arc, and it's not a terribly pretty shape. The more probable alternative will take Tony Soprano to a dark place, and force him to repay any number of debts before he hangs up the white terrycloth bathrobe for good, in who knows how precious a coin? His crew? His family? His life?

Home Care Olympics, Part I

2007-04-29T15:51:00.000-05:00

Event: Gutter Cleaning

Degree of Difficulty: 3

Degree of Risk: 4

Composite score, 10-point scale: 8.4

Commentary: Gutter status observations made during recent heavy rains, combined with the recent installation of a new roof at Mortar Bend Command, made this an early priority for the Mortar Bend Home Care Squad (MBHCS). Armed with a ladder (of the rickety, aluminum, none-too-stable variety), a bucket (for dumping accumulated gutter crud), an old T-shirt (for wiping down the gutter interiors) and a hell of a lot of moxie, the squad -- led by team captain Thomas Bernard, ably assisted in the areas of crud bucket management and nervously predicting the imminent collapse of the ladder by The Lovely Wife -- undertook the systematic removal of the material clogging the gutters, the adjustment of loose gutters, and the replacement of gutter screens knocked loose by the roofers.

Working in tandem, this crack team divested the gutters of a slurry of decomposed vegetative matter, roofing shingle detritus, and substances of undetermined provenance in record time. While proximity to this slurry has to date not resulted in any member of MBHCS achieving any manner of superheroic origin, the project appears to have been an unqualified success.

Press-ing an advantage

2007-04-27T17:04:00.000-05:00

On Thursday, April 26, 2007, I attended the Hardman Lecture Series presentation by Boston Globe columnist Derrick Z. Jackson at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. During the question and answer session following his prepared remarks, a member of the audience asked Mr. Jackson, apropos of the Bill Moyers program Buying the War, which aired on PBS on Wednesday, April 25, 2007, about how (and I'm paraphrasing here) the media consuming public can make the press more accountable and responsible.

In part, Mr. Jackson's response included a suggestion that people communicate -- and encourage others to communicate -- with media outlets in response to positive as well as negative coverage. Instead of just complaining when the media gets it wrong, he recommended providing feedback when the media gets it right; saying, in essence, "I/we want to see more coverage/reporting/stories like this."

It's not an idea unique to Mr. Jackson, or to interacting with the press. It's a lesson many of us learned learned -- or at least one we had parroted at us -- as children: you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. I'll note that I've never been entirely sure why I should want to catch flies, but I understand the basic point. A more martial version of this philosophy would be kill them with kindness.

It doesn't always work. There is a time and a place for kindness, and constructive response, but there is also a time and a place for criticism, for complaint, for saying -- C'mon everybody! All together now! -- "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not..." ...well, you know the rest.

Thing is, being mad as hell all the time is exhausting. It's hard to sustain. There are too many battles to fight, from the mundane, day to day, get cut off in traffic, suffer through lousy customer service stuff to the larger, am I the only one who notices the world's going to hell in a handbasket? challenges. Still, I find something compelling in Mr. Jackson's suggestion. If it's possible to foster change with constructive means instead of by manning the barricades, then I'll confess I'm open to the effort.

I don't waive the right to call bull%$#@ when bull%$#@ needs to be called. Beyond that, I'm interested to see what can happen if I experiment with positive media reinforcement.

3...2...1...Blast Off!

2007-04-25T17:25:00.000-05:00

I'm unbelievably excited by the news of the discovery of Gliese 581 C.

I'm under no illusions about all the caveats and qualifications behind this announcement. Even if everything scientists believe or predict about this planet turns out to be true, the odds of it being anything more than an object of remote study during my lifetime are infinitesimally slim. But then, hey, even knowing the parameters of the needle they were looking for in the galactic haystack, the odds of finding such a planet were pretty long, so I'll take my victories where I find them.

No matter what it means, for this one moment I look to the stars -- or would, if it weren't, you know, raining as I write this -- with a renewed sense of wonder, and awe, and imagination.

Not to put too fine a point on it...

2007-04-23T19:26:00.000-05:00

The Kid and I have been listening to quite a bit of They Might Be Giants lately. The Kid has been enjoying listening to the music enough that I added the Direct From Brooklyn video compilation to our NetFlix queue.

Watching these videos made me realize one very important fact: I miss 120 Minutes.

"Remember When" or "The Petty Pace of Corrado Soprano" or "The Passion of Paulie Walnuts"

2007-04-23T18:00:00.000-05:00

If death -- which comes to each of us in its time, whether or not we are prepared -- is unavoidable, then then past is inescapable. Who we were helped to make us who we are, and shapes who we can and will become. Age may not bring insight or wisdom, but it can shed new light on our understanding of things we once saw from a particular point of view.

"Remember When" shows that the past, and the memories it brings, is a prison for Uncle Junior, one that may be even more powerful than the facility where he currently resides. Junior remembers who he was -- even if he can't remember the punchlines of jokes, or other such details, his sense of self remains powerfully intact -- and how far from that state he has fallen. He tries to recreate his position within the confines of his prison, after a fashion. He assembles a "crew," organizes poker games, bribes orderlies, sells contraband, writes letters (including one damn funny one) and even beats up his enemies.

But even when using his memories as a template for the new power base he builds, Junior suffers the ravages of age. His memory fails him. Junior knows this. It's clear in his avoidance of the offer to help him escape. It's clear in his resentment when people prop us his failing memory. It's there in his compliance with the terms of his incarceration. Finally, in the end it is there in his eyes after he loses control of the empire he has built, when his own right hand man turns on him. Junior recognizes his own weakness. Moreover, he knows the price of weakness in his world.

Yet there is something else in Junior's eyes as the episode draws to a close. It's not resignation. It's not hope. It's not quite anger, even. What I saw in Junior's eyes -- powerfully depicted by Dominic Chianese -- was the madness of a man who has nothing else that can be taken away from him. Freedom, dignity, and self-respect are beyond Junior at this point. What is left, it seems, is merely a desire to do harm. Despite everything he has lost, Junior remains exceedingly dangerous.

********************

As with Chianese, James Gandolfini's power in this episode erupts from behind his eyes. In the episode's opening moments, Tony looks out the bathroom window and sees Paulie Walnuts walking up the driveway. The look on his face transforms in a split second from boundless affection to a flat and deadly assessment of Paulie as a liability. Calling Tony's reaction dispassionate would be incorrect, but Gandolfini manages to bring both emotion and calculation to the moment.

It's the work of a few brief seconds, but those seconds encapsulate the entirety of these characters' relationship, and define the core questions of the episode: What is stronger -- love or self-preservation? The lessons of the past or the reality of the present? Where do you draw the line between compassion and weakness?

Throughout the episode, Tony wrestles with conflicting visions of Paulie. He sees him both as a friend, mentor, and link to his own father, and as the lieutenant who won't shut up, and whose affinity for storytelling represents a mortal danger to everything Tony stands to lose.

Tony struggles with this question, and throughout the episode, that struggle is filtered through James Gandolfini's eyes. In the end, Tony is the negative mirror image of Junior: he is the man caught between the past and the future who has everything to lose.

I feel stupid, and contagious...

2007-04-18T18:14:00.000-05:00

As a great contemporary philosopher once observed, "I guess what I'm trying to say, is that if I can change, and you can change, everybody can change!" It's not always easy, and it's occasionally quite humbling -- especially when the process of change has to begin with an admission of being wrong -- but I'm gonna give it a try.

For a good long while -- has it really been almost sixteen years? @#$%, now I feel old *and* wrong -- I've taken it for granted that Nirvana is the most overrated, and least justifiably praised, band in the constellation of contemporary music. Didn't care for them at all. For the life of me, I completely failed to understand the hype, the mystique, or the lock they had on the taste of people whose taste I otherwise respect. Try though I might, I simply couldn't crack the Nirvana code.

Lately, though, and to my amazement, even horror, I've found myself enjoying the occasional Nirvana song. Recently, I even had occasion to listen (passively; I didn't sit down and decide, "I'm feeling a tad masochistic at the moment. I know what let's do; let's listen to this album I've reflexively derided for the better part of a decade and a half." It was more a case the album happened to be playing in a place where I happened to be also.) to Nevermind. Damned if I didn't find myself enjoying it, and maybe even getting a little flash of insight into why it's such a Big Deal.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not about to go out and get one of those big posters of the sainted Cobain. I'm not going to buy myself an iPod just so I can load it with every album, EP, B-side, rarity, unreleased demo, and concert bootleg I can get my hands on. But I will admit I'm starting to appreciate the music.

Who knew?

Well, quite a lot of people as it turns out.

Everybody can change.

"Stage 5" or "Cleaving, Bereaving, and Grieving"

2007-04-17T10:20:00.000-05:00

Stage 5 of the grieving process is acceptance. It's a bowing to reality, and an acknowledgement that denial, anger, bargaining, and depression can't change a situation.

For Johnny Sack, acceptance means finding the grace to meet his impending death on his own terms. It means seeing the hopeful prognosis of his cancer held out by a fellow inmate (guest star Sydney Pollack) for the false hope it is, and deciding how he wants to leave the world.

For Phil Leotardo, acceptance means recognizing both your limitations and your limits. The heart condition that keeps Phil from becoming boss is a limitation. The amount of agita he is willing to tolerate from those around him is a limit. Where Johnny Sack's acceptance brought a measure of peace, Phil's is shaping up to be a source of discontentment.

For Christopher, acceptance is a matter of compromise. It's about recognizing that doing what you want to do and being who you want to be is a matter of tradeoffs. Living sober means distancing himself from his friends, and weathering their disapproval. Making movies means less time for his work with Tony. His (apparent) closeness with his family means putting his infidelities behind him. On the other hand, Christopher's almost reflexive smackdown of screenwriter J.T. suggests that Christopher remains vulnerable to his impulses and passions. If they come out in a spasm of casual violence, how else might they manifest? Is Christopher a model of acceptance, or just of tightly wound denial?

For Carmela, the layers of denial she has built around her keep her far from any acceptance. Denial about Tony's essential nature, even when it's put before her in a thinly-veiled form on a movie screen. Denial about Adriana, and what might have happened to her. Every time Carmela gets close to accepting Adriana's fate, she backs away, or allows herself to get distracted. The road from denial to acceptance runs through anger; when Carmela's blinders finally come off once and for all, expect wrath on a biblical scale.

And finally, there is Tony, and his continuing struggle for acceptance on any number of levels. In "Stage 5," Tony's road to acceptance runs through Little Carmine. Their conversation is the highlight of the episode, and the key to Tony's journey. Carmine found peace in accepting responsibility for his own happiness, of forging a life bounded by more than dreams of power and wealth and leading a crew and sweating the small stuff.

It's the lesson Tony has struggled against accepting since the very beginning. It's the message his world has been sending him all along. It's the picture his subconscious painted for him during his gunshot coma in the first half of this season: Live for yourself.

Acceptance is possible, but Tony is running out of chances.

Pringles, Pampers, and Potter

2007-04-15T11:33:00.000-05:00

Going through the checkout line at the Big Y supermarket in North Adams, I noticed they have a point-of-sale reservation display for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Customers who are so inclined may reserve copies of the book -- at a hefty prepaid discount -- for pickup on July 21, 2001, the day J.K. Rowling's seven book saga comes to its conclusion.

I can't fault Big Y for grabbing a piece of this phenomenon, and for carving off for themselves a piece, however modest, of J.K. Rowling's action. I can't fault Scholastic books for making the book available across multiple retail channels, both to move as many units as humanly possible, and to make said unit moving as convenient as humanly possible for the customer.

I just wish it weren't happening. I wish -- unrealistically, to be sure -- that people who wanted to get their hands on the book did so by giving their business to a bookstore.

I have no argument with convenience, or with tailoring your business's product mix to meet customer demand. I simply take it as an article of faith that a supermarket is generally unsuited to bookselling, and that selling books requires a different commercial orientation from selling tomatoes, or prepackaged snack cakes, or cat food. Granted, there's not much selling has to happen with something like a Harry Potter book. Thing pretty much sells the heck out of itself. The real trick for the retailer is to stay out of their own way and allow customers to grab hold of the book.

The problem (or at least my problem) with the "catch people where they are" model is that it places the supermarket -- or the wholesale club, or the department store, or the bait and tackle shop (all right, this last one might be a bit of an exaggeration) -- on stronger footing than the independent bookstore. Volume retailers, whether it is Big Y or BJ's or amazon.com* get their books at hefty discounts, and are able to pass those savings on to their customers.

Savings are good, right? We all want to get the best price we can, and the best value for our dollar, right? Everybody wins, right?

Yes. Yes. And no.

The loser in this case is the small retailer. Individual, independent bookstores simply cannot compete with large chain bookstores -- virtual, brick and mortar, or hybrid entities -- to say nothing of other volume retail venues. I know of one case from a past Potter release where the big box stores not only blew traditional booksellers out of the water on the retail price, but where the consumer discount offered by one large retailer was so deep that the customer was getting the book from the vendor for a price lower than a bookseller was able to obtain it from the publisher.

While I wish it were otherwise, I can't argue with the numbers. I can't argue with the success of large retail outlets. The fact that volume is anti-competitive doesn't change the fact that a large chain vendor moves more units than an independent operator. I benefit from economies of scale just as much as anyone else. So where's the problem?

For me, the problem is one of diversity. Sure, the Big Y will sell me the next Harry Potter book, but then what? A retail chain outlet may have plenty of Potter, but what if I want to combine that purchase with something off the beaten path of the national bestseller lists? The problem is when you specialize in being all things to all people -- when books, and tires, and frozen lasagna, and baby monitors are all just units to move out the door -- you're not really specializing at all. The selection may be wide, but it's not especially deep. That's fine for getting what you want when what you want is convenience. When what you really want is less concrete, then you may be out of luck.

That's one of the many reasons why I like a good independent bookstore. They'll sell you your Harry Potter book. But they'll also carry things you might not find at other stores. My favorite features at good independent bookstores are staff picks and in-store bestseller lists. Large bookstores are volume operations, which means they're oriented to sell the living heck out of the stuff at the top of the bestseller list, because they can sell a heck of a lot of it. Independents, in contrast, often have local, or store-specific bestseller lists that I personally find more valuable than what I find in the New York Times Book Review lists**.

I admit I pay a premium for that value. In the case of something like Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the decision to support an independent bookseller might cost twice as much. On the basis of a single transaction, it's not worth it, but if I want the luxury of choice, and selection, and specialization, then I believe it's worth the investment.

*for the purposes of the thing I'm deluding myself into calling an argument, despite a woeful lack of the trappings of same (logic, coherence, an avoidance of all the colors in the Crayola box of fallacy), I'm keeping online retailers like amazon.com out of the equation.

**to be fair to the Times, I will note that there is nothing inherently wrong with national bestsellers. Popularity does not necessarily imply lack of quality. Still, cross-referencing a national list like the one in the Times to a local list like the one maintained by, for example, Brookline Booksmith, makes me a lot more comfortable that there is more than hype behind a potential purchase.

Beginner's Game

2007-04-15T11:18:00.000-05:00

I love games. I always have. Give me a deck of cards, a board full of brightly-colored plastic pawns, or a couple of dice to roll -- even, Gygax help me, polyhedrals -- and I'm a happy lad.

As a parent, I play a lot of games with The Kid. We have our regular favorites -- Fluxx and Mille Bornes in particular -- but we're always on the lookout for new games to learn and play. Recently, we got our hands on two games from SET Enterprises: Quiddler and Five Crowns. These are both, essentially, variants of gin. With Quiddler, the object of the game is to score points by turning your hand of lettered cards into words; if you think of Scrabble played with cards instead of tiles, you won't be too far wrong. Five Crowns adds an extra suit -- stars -- to the traditional clubs, diamonds, hearts, and spades, but the essential object of making sets and runs remains the same. The Kid and I are just starting to get comfortable playing these games, but so far, both seem like fun additions to our repertoire.

I'm doing better in the early going than The Kid. That's perhaps not surprising, given that I have age and experience on my side; at this point, this gives me a (necessary) advantage against The Kid's native intelligence (which exceeds mine by a factor of, oh, let's say twelve). I know it's frustrating sometimes, and I try not to make learning a new game -- and losing in the process -- too onerous a chore. At the same time, I try not to make it too easy for The Kid. I know the only things separating our current levels of respective game play are time and experience, and for me, those are assets of temporary utility at best. I'm as good as I'm ever going to be. The Kid is only going to keep getting better.

Still, I am sensitive to that fact that it's important to strike a balance between losing and learning while I still enjoy a certain level of control over the playing field. I'm in favor of losing as a teaching tool, and I don't think not winning is automatically destructive of one's self-esteem. Losing teaches you to avoid mistakes. It teaches you to think ahead, and to learn from experience. It fosters a feeling of constructive discontent. Losing makes you better. However, no matter how positive a spin I put on it, losing still stings. As a parent, I'm naturally inclined to protect my child from the world's stings, no matter how character building they might be. So I play fairly. I play honestly. I play respectfully.

Or, I should say, I try to do these things. I'd be lying if I didn't acknowledge that occasionally I allow my competitiveness to override my obligations as a parent and teacher. These lapses aside, I like to believe I succeed far more than I fail, because, ultimately, I have so much fun playing that the outcome takes a back seat to the experience. While I like to win (who doesn't?), I also appreciate losing to The Kid, especially the first time I lose at a new game.

When you strip away all the external trappings (cards, dice, pawns, and tiles) the best games -- from classics like chess and Go and poker, to newer games like Fluxx and Mille Bornes and Quiddler -- are about making choices from among a range of equally attractive (or unattractive) possibilities and forging the best outcome possible using limited resources. They are about doing the best you can with a given situation, and enduring the consequences, which are admittedly of minimal import.

I won't venture so far into the realm of saccharine romanticism as to suggest games are a metaphor for life* but I do believe that games have the potential to teach skills that are transferable to real world situations. I believe that, for example, deciding which two cards from your hand to kick over into your opponent's crib, determining how many armies to place in Kamchatka, or assessing whether your trip sixes will hold up or whether the other guy filled his inside straight draw says something about the way you will address the choices that come your way as you make your way in the world.

I don't believe that a hand of cards is the only way for me to impart these lessons as a parent, and I don't think there is anything wrong with games as a form of pure play with no ulterior or existential motive. At the same time, I know I have any number of responsibilities to The Kid. If I can meet some of them and still have fun in the process? Then deal me in.

*except, of course, for The Game of LIFE, but that's obvious, isn't it?

Come fill your glasses up...

2007-04-11T17:42:00.000-05:00

I have been asked to serve as a table host at an etiquette dinner hosted by students at Williams College in conjunction with the Williams Office of Career Counseling. The meal will be overseen by an etiquette expert from the Culinary Institute of America, with an eye toward teaching, or refreshing, a sense of how one behaves in polite company. This is an important skill for students entering the workforce to learn, and for those of us who, presumably, comprise polite company, it never hurts to bone up on the basics.

I can only assume I was invited as either an example of What Not to Do, or, given the seeming inevitability of my descent into a truly Clouseau-like display of stumbling, soup-spilling, and setting things on fire, as light entertainment for the evening.

What could possibly go wrong?

Tanglewood shakedown

2007-04-11T17:35:00.000-05:00

In an article that appeared in the April 11, 2007, edition of the Berkshire Eagle, Jessica Willis wrote:

Starting this summer, Tanglewood's volunteer staffers will be required to donate more than just a little of their time in exchange for free tickets and other perks: The Boston Symphony Orchestra is now requiring all of its volunteers to donate at least $75 to its Annual Fund.

This move is part of a restructuring plan targeted at addressing the annual operating deficit of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO).

Let's look at some basic facts from Ms. Willis's article:

BSO incurred a $918,000 deficit in 2005, and lost a projected $1.4 million in 2006.

According to the article, the Boston Symphony Association of Volunteers (BSAV) has 750 members.

At $75 apiece, those 750 volunteers will generate $56,250 in revenue in 2007. That's slightly more than six percent of the 2005 deficit, and just over four percent of the projected 2006 deficit.

According to Ms. Willis's article, "the new plan has been met, in many cases, with hostility and disgust."

In the highly unlikely event that feelings of hostility and disgust prompt all 750 volunteers elect to deny BSO/Tanglewood their service in the coming year*, it would cost twice as much to replace them with paid staff as BSO stands to make by charging them this fee. BSO expects each volunteer to contribute a minimum of 20 hours of annual service. At the $7.50 minimum wage rate in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, this represents a minimum labor cost of $112,500, assuming of course that every function performed by every volunteer is entirely essential, and that there are no potential efficiencies that would enable BSO to accomplish the same amount of work in less that 15,000 volunteer hours.

Also, while the article does not discuss this detail, I do not believe this participation fee qualifies as a true Annual Fund donation. BSO appears to be predicating the charge on the notion that the benefits volunteers derive from their service carries a certain cash value. As such, it is more properly a membership fee. Indeed, I'll note the $75 amount represents the minimum Friends of Tanglewood membership level.

The decision to charge volunteers for the privilege of working for the organization -- said privilege realized tangibly in the form of tickets and other considerations -- assumes that the service these volunteers provide has no inherent value and that they were, in essence, getting something for nothing from the BSO. This is manifestly untrue. The service has, at minimum, a value of $7.50 per hour, or a minimum of $150 annually given the expectation that volunteers donate 20 hours of their time in exchange for the benefits derived. Add in the new $75 fee -- and let's be clear; it's a fee not a donation -- and we can peg the cash value of the privilege of volunteering for BSO at $225. So, the question becomes, what is the value of the tickets and perqs each volunteer receives, and is this an equitable exchange?

Let's be clear, the BSO can set whatever volunteer policy suits them. The problem is that for an organization like BSO, volunteers are the lifeblood of the organization. They fill the staffing gap, and do the thankless, routine, and frequently mind-numbingly tedious work that paid staff (and interns) are too busy to do. Volunteers are laborers of love; while some of them may have a mercenary streak, and some may indeed abuse an organization's largesse, the overwhelming majority of them are people who believe in the organization and want to give something back. In many cases they lack the resources of big ticket donors; their service is their investment, and a source of just as much proprietary interest.

What is unclear is what the cost to BSO of this move will be. How many net volunteers (if any) will they lose? How much of a hit will they take -- from donors and ticket buyers -- as a result of this announcement, and what seems likely to be the negative publicity surrounding it?

*The article does not indicate what percentage of those 750 BSAV members already contribute to the BSO Annual Fund.

"Soprano Home Movies" or "Bullets Over Bacala"

2007-04-09T16:13:00.000-05:00

[Not sure I'll make a habit out of this over the next nine weeks, but I thought I'd start in, see where the final run of episodes takes me...]

And so the The Sopranos comes at last to the beginning of the end. What that end will look like -- Who will live? Who will die? Who will stay exactly the same? -- remains uncertain. However, it's safe to say that the forces that will carry Tony and Carmela, Junior and Christopher, Meadow and Melfi, and all the others to their ultimate fates are the same forces that carried them through the previous seasons.

Greed, and generosity. Lust, and love. Envy, and admiration. Sloth, and action. Glutton, and sacrifice. Pride, and shame. Anger, and forgiveness. And, ultimately, what happens amid the tension of these opposing forces.

"Soprano Home Movies" is a story about anger and its consequences. If this story, this morality play (aren't they all?) has a moral, it is this: Nothing ever gets left behind. Nothing.

We see this moral play out in the first moments of the episode, with a flashback to Tony's flight from Johnny Sack's capture by the FBI. The gun Tony casually tosses in the snow is recovered by a kid who watches Tony making his escape. [In comic book parlance, this is what is known as a retcon, short for "retroactive continuity," a new detail introduced in flashback but intended to be accepted as established fact by the audience.] It turns up three years later, and prompts Tony's arrest on a weapons charge.

The episode ends with another gun, this one dropped by Bobby Bacala. The journey from the first gun to the second forms the spine of the story. The reappearance of Tony's gun, and a casual line about DNA evidence -- although when are lines in The Sopranos merely casual? -- implies that Bobby's gun, or at least the aftershocks of its use, will come back to haunt him.

Nothing ever gets left behind. Forgiving and forgetting are two different things. You can see that realization dawn in Bobby's eyes after a moment of anger leads him into a fistfight with Tony. Actions have consequences. When the fight ends, Bobby's first instinct is to run away, to escape the vengeance he expects will fall on him. The instinct creates fear in Bobby's eyes when Tony drives them down a deserted country road. It is there in his defeated resignation when Tony finally pronounces Bobby's act of contrition. His penance takes more out of his soul than the sin of raising his hand to Tony -- of standing with his family instead of with his Family -- ever could.

And so, in the end, Bobby stands, diminished, clutching a piece of his soul to his chest in the place of the piece he sacrificed to Tony -- the piece that was symbolically torn from him in the form of a ripped shirt in the course of obeying Tony's command.

Nothing ever gets left behind. What that will mean over the next eight weeks is uncertain. Will these actions draw the characters together, or will it drive them apart? Having crossed a line once, will Bobby find the second crossing easier, or will it instead lead to a double cross? Either possibility seems viable at this juncture, but as time continues to grow short, these possibilities will resolve themselves into outcomes. And, of course, these are but two of the threads being drawn tight during these final weeks.

All of which is merely a pretentious way of saying "I can't wait to see what happens next."

In which I confess to being galactically stupid, yet still expect the world to validate me, pat me on the head, and give me a lolly...

2007-04-04T17:52:00.000-05:00

A while back, I did some incredibly minor writing work for a certain media outlet in the region. Nothing remotely significant, nothing with any extrinsic value outside the context in which the work appeared, and with very little intrinsic value within that context.

As I understood it, this work was related to a particular instance of the media thing. I would write it, it would appear, the next version of the thing would arrive, and that would be the end of the story. Because I received no consideration for this work, aside from a contributor copy of the thing, I did the work on the basis of a verbal agreement, because, after all, it was insignificant work with a limited shelf life, so why bother to protect my rights?

Let's pause for a moment to acknowledge a few crucial facts:

I am stupid.
There is no excuse for my gross negligence and utter lack of attention to both detail and the most basic realities of creative self-preservation.
No one reading this should have a lick of sympathy for me.
I have no one to blame but myself.
I am really quite colossally stupid.

As it turns out, my "done in one" assumption was incorrect. A friend recently asked me, "Hey, did you do some writing work for a certain media outlet in the region?" When I allowed as I had done so a good long while back, this friend informed me that had seen me listed as a contributor in the most recent edition of the media thing. Imagine my surprise when I tracked down a copy of the thing, and there, in black and white, at the bottom of the page, away from everything else on the page, was my name. And sure enough, when I looked further up the page, there was the content I had provided.

Now, had my contact at the certain media outlet in the region said, "Hey, we're not going to just use this stuff in this particular media thing, where the stuff you wrote is thematically relevant, and then allow it to move on to its ultimate -- and ultimately more beneficial -- destiny as fishwrap, but instead, we're going to haul it out from time to time as the spirit moves us, or when this theme comes around again on our publication calendar" odds are I would have said, "No problem." and gotten on with my life. For I am, as previously noted, quite tragically dull. However, such was not the tenor of our communication; my understanding was that the work would be used in its original, thematically relevant, context, and that would be the end of the story. So I can't help but feel a little bit burned by the resulting reappearance of the work, and of my byline.

Again, I freely admit I have no one to blame but myself. I failed at the most basic task of a freelancer; I neglected to cover my own fundament. Near as I can figure it, absent any more structured agreement, I have no cause for complaint toward the fine people at the certain media outlet in the region.

Instead, I've earned a little wisdom, taken a couple of professional lumps, and gained a cautionary tale to share with anyone else out there who decides to jump into the freelance waters:

Although it's been said, many times, many ways: always get it in writing.

Behold! The greatest thing in the history of, well, ever.

2007-04-04T17:00:00.000-05:00

How cool is The Lovely Wife?

This cool:

She hooked me up with the ceramic version of the quintessential New York City takeout coffee cup. It's perfectly scaled, perfectly printed, and even has a fake ceramic seam running up one side of the cup, making it feel like the paper version.

When in New York City, I have been known to walk tens, dozens, even hundreds of blocks out of my way in occasionally vain quests to buy a cup of coffee in one of these cups, and then walk around the city drinking it like a real New Yorker, or at least the sort of representationally real New Yorker you see in your finer televised entertainments, major motion pictures, and police procedurals. Indeed, now I can have all the fun of pretending to be a hard-boiled NYC detective -- tossing back cup after cup of black coffee while sweating confessions out of mooks, perps, and skells (all right, cats) -- without leaving the comfort of home.

The need for Executive Spousal Privilege has passed

2007-03-29T20:32:00.000-05:00

I am Evil Ho-mer!
I am Evil Ho-mer!
I am Evil Ho-mer!
I am Evil Ho-mer!

Fight me, Jimmy!

2007-03-28T17:54:00.000-05:00

Dear Internet:

Why have you let me down? Did I do something wrong?

The other day, in commenting on a blog post commemorating Leonard Nimoy's 76th birthday, I wrote:

[L]et’s be clear about one incontrovertible truth; there is no Spock better than “A Piece of the Action” Spock.

This is a flagrantly provocative statement. Internecine geek wars have simmered for years with less cause. Science fiction conventions have turned into full-fledged, if pasty and nerdlike, donnybrooks over comments far less ill-considered than this.

Now it's two days later, and there has not been one single comment in response. No character assassinations from "Balance of Terror" partisans. No passive-aggressively abusive put-downs from from "Shore Leave" fans. No geekier than thou treatises from "Errand of Mercy" apparatchiks. No reflective epistles from glassy-eyed "Mirror, Mirror" optimists. No didactic defenses of the inherent superiority of "Amok Time."

Am I missing something? Am I not doing this right?

Will no one speak up for "The Tholian Web?" Can no one defend "Spock's Brain?*" Shall "The Enterprise Incident" find no support among the teeming online masses? Does no one dare show me "The Way to Eden?"

Seriously; what is wrong with you people? It's like you're not even trying.

Let's try this again, shall we?

There is no Spock better than “A Piece of the Action” Spock. Anyone who says otherwise is simply being...illogical.

*Trick question. "Spock's Brain" is utterly indefensible.

Convenience is not the same as laziness

2007-03-25T16:51:00.000-05:00

Had to pick up a few things at the market this afternoon. As I passed the deli section, the scent of rotisserie chicken caught my attention.

For a moment, I was tempted to pick up one for this evening's dinner. Then I realized that for the same money I could, you know, purchase a raw chicken and cook it myself. I had the time. In the past, I've demonstrated I have the requisite level of culinary skill to roast an edible bird. And, ultimately, I really enjoy cooking.

I like assembling the ingredients, deciding that I'll make a stuffing to go with the chicken. Roast potatoes were an early side dish contender, but I had some sausage to use up, so stuffing won the day. Shredding bread, chopping onions, melting butter; I find these things relaxing, almost meditative. I like listening to music while I work; this evening I rotated among Mink Car by They Might Be Giants, Disc 1 of Phish's A Live One, and the Bastards disc of the Tom Waits Orphans compilation. I don't know that there's anything meaningful behind these selections, other than they were what struck my fancy when I looked at my CD collection.

[I know; CDs. How tragically old school of me.]

So now, as I sit here typing my self-indulgent little musings, the house smells like chicken, and onions, and oregano, with an undercurrent of roast apple. Not sure if I'll go with peas or broccoli, or possibly green beans, to accompany the meal. I suppose I'll leave that up to The Lovely Wife and The Kid to decide. Regardless, I'm confident we'll end up with something I deem superior to what I could have purchased, if only because I am able to invest some pride in having done the (admittedly minor) work myself.

It's easy to get drawn in by the lure of convenience. At times it's even necessary, although those occasions are arguably less frequent than I allow myself to believe. The challenge then is knowing when I need the helping hand of pre-cooked, or reheated, or takeout, and when I'm making excuses to hide behind these things. When I make those excuses, I'm not just being lazy, but I'm denying myself something I consider one of life's simple pleasures.

Riddle me this

2007-03-21T17:51:00.000-05:00

The Lovely Wife has a birthday coming up. She suspects I have set a cunning plan in motion related to her special day. Here's my question: can I invoke Executive Privilege to keep from revealing the details of any plans (cunning or otherwise) that I may or may not have underway?

Cue "Yakety Sax"

2007-03-21T17:21:00.000-05:00

Given that a House Judiciary subcommittee voted today to authorize subpeonas for White House staffers as part of their investigation into the firing of United States Attorneys, does anyone else have a mental image of Karl Rove running, Benny Hill-like, through Washington, DC, while pursued by a process server? Or is that just me?

I suppose the other alternative would be for Mr. Rove to join Vice President Cheney in his famed "Undisclosed Location"(tm). This raises the inevitable question: Can two Machiavellian schemers share a bunker...without driving each other crazy?

Righting a grave injustice

2007-03-21T17:11:00.000-05:00

Today, history was made. Today, I corrected an error that has gone too long unaddressed. Today, I brought The Lovely Wife to Jack's Hot Dog Stand for the first time.

Aside from fielding the inevitable question of why it took me this long to introduce her to such legendary culinary greatness, a splendid time was had, and a convert was made.

Embarrassment of riches, or, Behold the power of procrastination...

2007-03-16T15:17:00.000-05:00

The snow has started to fall. In tidying up around Mortar Bend Central, I discovered three weeks' worth of recent The New York Times Magazine crossword puzzles I didn't get around to tackling. I know how I'll be weathering the storm.

You got your Zimmerman in my Geisel! You got your Geisel in my Zimmerman!

2007-03-14T16:11:00.000-05:00

Dylan Hears a Who. Two great tastes that go brilliantly together.

A perspective on North Adams

2007-03-14T16:02:00.000-05:00

Since Amy Stevens linked to it, and Jennifer Huberdeau covered the story in an article published in the March 14, 2007, edition of the North Adams Transcript, I thought I might make so bold as to throw my responses to this survey into the public domain:

What image, images, objects or ideas come to mind when you think of North Adams, Massachusetts?

The Mohawk Theater; MASS MoCA; Jack's Hot Dogs; the long-defunct Roberts Company; the view of the city from the dining room of the Golden Eagle restaurant; Natural Bridge; Windsor Lake; going to the Pizza House for dinner with my friends before catching a movie at the Mohawk or the Inn; sledding in my backyard; the strange temporal bifurcation of the place where I live now, and how it is both exactly the same and completely different from the North Adams in which I grew up.

Some ideas you have for strengthening ties between the community and the arts are:

I submit the larger question is: What is the fundamental purpose of existing or proposed ties? Certainly, the arts are a catalyst for community revitalization. We know the arts bring people to the area who would not otherwise come here, both cultural tourists and new residents, drawn here by the energy and sense of community provided by the arts.

Where North Adams has faltered, I believe, is in failing to recognize that the arts are merely one catlayst among many. In their eagerness to leverage the arts as an engine of community development, the city may have oversold the impact the arts can have. There's nothing necessarily malicious about that; it's the nature of politics.

On the other end, the community -- to the degree the aggregate has collective intelligence, intention, will, and volition -- seems to have accepted this overly rosy estimate, and has been disappointed that THE ARTS have not singlehandedly fostered a commercial and economic Renaissance in North Adams.

This has resulted in a clear -- and clearly unnecessary and self-defeating -- range of tensions: natives vs. outsiders; artists vs. "plain folks"; Us (for a range of values of "us") vs. Them.

In that light, my ideas are more by way of general suggestions than specific action items:

First, I would encourage all concerned to recognize that the arts are not the be all and end all of North Adams's future, but that having a strong arts base is an asset.

Second, I would remind everyone that the City of North Adams is a work in progress. Whatever North Adams is going to become over the next 5, 10, 15, 20, 50 years, it won't be like what North Adams was 5, 10, 15, 20, 50 years ago. Holding on to old ideas (we can be a mill town again) or old grievances (people look down on North Adams) will just hold us back. Nostalgia keeps us in our comfort zone, and the heat of self-righteous grudges keeps us warm during the long New England winters, but they don't improve our children's educations, or build our infrastructure, or attract new jobs, or grow our tax base.

Finally, I would strongly advocate the position that the arts are part of the community, and that strengthening ties begins with accepting that fact. We need to move past the divisive notion that the community exists here, and the arts are somewhere over there, resulting in a divide we need to bridge.

In reality, arts organizations are businesses like any other, and artists are just people with a certain type of job, like teachers or fire fighters, mechanics, or nurses, librarians or plumbers. No matter how long they've been here, or where they were before they came to North Adams, I submit that by and large residents of this city want the same basic things: safe streets, quality education, fair taxes, good relations with their neighbors, a good cup of coffee, a place to get a bite with friends, something to do on a Saturday night. We may disagree -- bitterly at times -- about the specifics, but that's part of community as well.

Oh Captain! My Captain!

2007-03-09T21:10:00.000-05:00

So media outlets from The New York Times to USA Today to The Colbert Report have devoted column inches and pixels to the Death of Captain America. Locally, the North Adams Transcript picked the story off the AP wire and published it on the front page of the March 8, 2007 edition, and The Last Visible Blog took a whack at the story as well.

For those not up on their comic book trivia, the deceased was a man named Steve Rogers, 98-pound weakling turned living weapon, the embodiment of liberty and justice and the American capacity to punch hell out of anyone and anything that stands in our way. Created as a symbol during World War II, and surviving to the present day (through a combination of better living through chemistry, a couple of decades of cryogenic suspension, and the awesome power of always eating your vegetables), it was Steve Rogers, man behind the shield, and not Captain America, the symbol, who was killed in the pages of Captain America #25, released this week.

To put it another way, Captain America is dead. Long live Captain America.

Why is Captain America dead? Well, first of all, to sell more issues of Captain America. Second, to garner general publicity for Marvel Comics, in the hope that it will put the Marvel name into the general consciousness in order to sell more issues of Spider-Man and Fantastic Four -- to name just two titles, both of which, coincidentally, have feature film tie-ins on tap for this very summer. Somewhere down the list, I suspect there is also a belief, one which I share, that it is possible to breathe new life into a decades-old character by shaking up the status quo, and to tell a cracking good story in the process.

Unfortunately, the Story precedes the story. It's a media frenzy fueled by Marvel press releases, and perpetrated by a press that recognizes that Captain America is an icon, but largely lacks understanding of the conventions, form, or structure of comic books as either a storytelling medium or as a business model. The people breathlessly reporting "Captain America is dead!!!" (with a stray BIFF! here and a random POW! there, because, you know, that's what comic books are all about...) don't have sufficient perspective to explain things to a non comics-reading audience, even assuming they take the story seriously enough to present it with any meaningful context. So the story becomes Marvel Comics killed Captain America, without explaining that characters "die" all the time in comic books -- and TV shows, and action films, and Sherlock Holmes stories, and Greek myths -- that it's a common storytelling convention, and that there is almost always a loophole.

We've been here before. I worked in a comic shop during the early 1990s. I saw the Death of Superman phenomenon from the retail side. Based on the early reactions, it appears the Captain America story is following a similar arc: reporting on the story leads people to try to find the comic book as a matter of curiosity; speculators create artificial scarcity, driving up the price of the comic book, and driving away all but the most gullible of the rubbernecking public; the attention dies down, sales of the Captain America comic book normalize at pretty much the level they were at before the media sensation, demand for the hot issue diminishes, and people who paid $200 for a $3 comic book feel awfully stupid.

Of course, Captain America won't be gone for long. First of all, the Captain America comic book is still being published. It was not canceled with the "death" of the title character. So, unless the invisible hand of Marvel Comics editorial intends to turn every future issue of the title into a memorial story, full of people sitting around saying, "Hey, remember when Captain America was shot and killed? Didn't that suck?" they better get someone into the red, white, and blue union suit and the bewing'd mask pretty darn quick.

It's happened a couple of times in the past. Steve Rogers gets disillusioned, or the American government decides they want someone whose symbolic understanding is more in line with a certain policy perspective, and before you can say Yankee Doodle Dandy, there's a new hand holding the shield for a little while.

But even with someone else running around in the Cap uniform for the time being, I predict it won't be too long before Steve Rogers is back. In the world of comics, death is easy to write around. Clones, Robot duplicates, Robot clones. The character was gravely wounded, went off to recuperate, and let the world think he was dead. A dream, a hoax, an imaginary story. In the Marvel milieu, there are even specialized maguffins like S.H.I.E.L.D. Life Model Decoys (LMDs) and synthezoids that can explain away apparent death.

The real question is not how you bring Steve Rogers back. The question is what does his return mean? What kind of symbol will Captain America be? What kind of symbol can he be?

As a patriotic symbol (one literally wrapped in the flag) Captain America suffers from the same problem as Superman. He stands for the absolute best of something that is absolutely imperfect. If you play the character 100% straight, the result seems corny, or naive, or unrealistic, even within the unrealistic parameters of men in tights fighting Atlantean robot monkey ninjas. If you bring in too much irony, or self-awareness, or criticism, you disrespect the essential core of the character, and alienate the readers who are fiercely loyal to What Heroes Mean.

The matter is complicated by the fact that this essential meaning is something open to multiple interpretations. Liberty and Justice for All. Or Truth, Justice, and the American Way. How? When? What happens when your liberty and mine conflict, or when serving your right to justice yields a profoundly unjust result for me?

As a symbol of the American spirit during World War II, Captain America's direction was clear. He was the embodiment of a common will. Today, in a divided and divisive, fractious and frangible society, where is the common ground on which a symbolically loaded character like Captain America can stand? If you believe in American exceptionalism, in might making right, in my country right or wrong, love it or leave it, then Captain America symbolizes these values. He is an agent of pure, unself-critical patriotism; he's John Wayne. On the other hand, if you believe in forming a more perfect union, but feel our current union is deeply imperfect, Captain America stands for something much different, patriotic activism; he's Tom Joad with less anger and more hope.

In a month, or six months, or a year, Captain America will return. Who will he be? Who can he be?

Random thoughts from a sleepless night

2007-03-09T17:50:00.000-05:00

Dueling pundits going mano a mano, and talking point a-go-go, on 24-hour news channel chat shows are no less compelling -- and are, indeed, a damn sight scarier -- at 3:30 in the morning than they are at, say 8 or 9 p.m. Watching Patrick Buchanan and Arianna Huffington spinning like speed-crazed wallabies about the I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby verdict is not merely tedious, it becomes the stuff of nightmares out of the collective unconscious.

Although I did not need it for its intended purpose, the hangover cure presented in Robert A. Heinlein's Job: A Comedy of Justice is a simple and effective general restorative. Stand under a nerve ending-scaldingly hot shower for a few minutes, then kick the water over to as close to absolute zero as your plumbing allows. If you survive the shock of transition, you'll feel great.

This in turn reminds me of an old folk remedy I once read in Foxfire, or Salt, or one of those gazetteers of hoary retro Americana folk wisdom. It was billed as the sure-fire cure for any ailment: stick your head into a bucket of salt water ten times. Remove your head from the bucket nine times.

Don't want no Cap'n Crunch, don't want no Raisin Bran

2007-03-04T18:03:00.000-05:00

The amount of space in my brain devoted to retaining (and keeping accessible for immediate retrieval) Weird Al Yankovic lyrics is simultaneously impressive and terrifying.

This is true of many things -- Beatles lyrics, Family Ties episode synopses, Green Lantern oaths, the definition of SCMODS -- that have little to no utility in day-to-day life. It makes me wonder; knowing these things, what do I not know? What information have I sacrificed in order to hang on to "Nature Trail to Hell" and "The Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota?"

Cents and Cents-ibility

2007-02-28T15:01:00.000-05:00

Call me a rank cent-imentalist if you must, but when did it become common practice for stores -- convenience stores in particular -- to lay claim to the penny's worth of change that comes from X dollar and 99-cent transactions? I've noticed recently that after handing over a dollar and reaching out for my penny, no penny is forthcoming.

Odds are better than 99% that I would just put this change in the "leave a penny/take a penny" bin and be done with it. But shouldn't that be my choice? Besides, it's not like that extra penny is going into the bin; on the occasions this has happened, that extra penny is going straight into the register.

[Aside: all those remaindered pennies must play merry heck with attempts to reconcile registers at the end of a shift, wouldn't you think?]

In essence, I'm paying a higher than average price. In essence, that stray penny represents an infinitesimally small increase in the store's profitability, and if you've seen Superman III, you know the power such infinitesimally small bits of profitability have in the aggregate.

But it's just a penny. It hardly seems worth fighting the battle to reclaim it with the clerk at the register, especially if I'm basically just going to donate it to the public till once I get it back.

Even among petty injustices, the energy I'd expend fighting for my right to my penny -- and make no mistake, it is my penny, not the store's -- could be better spent elsewhere. Leading the charge agianst people who find themselves incapable of parking between the lines at curbside meters or in store parking lots, for example, or any one of the host of daily inconveniences we all experience that take a toll on us that far outstrips the significance of any individual incident.

So, what is to be done about such non-cents?

Book 'em, Danno

2007-02-28T12:00:00.000-05:00

Over at Wooded Paths, DWPITTELLI posted a discussion about used bookstores in general, and about The Book Barn in Latham, New York, in particular. In the comments attached to the post, Greg mentioned that he likes the Northshire Bookstore in Manchester, Vermont [although he notes "their used section isn't worth a damn] , and Powell's in Portland, Oregon.

This got me thinking -- in that "in search of a new topic about which to rant semi-coherently, so why not tangentially appropriate someone else's thunder?" sort of way -- about my favorite bookstores, specifically bookstores that primarily sell new books.

I love books. I love the idea of books. I love the tangible realness of books, the arrangement of words on a page, the way that reading a book can suspend the limitations of time and space, the way well-written truths can seem timeless folktales, and the most outlandish fantasy can seem absolutely, foundationally true.

The older I get, the more I love libraries. I find that I've become more discriminating/parsimonious, and more open to the idea that in most cases, reading the book is more important than possessing it. Proud as I am that I'm becoming so @#$%ing mature, few things can compare with going to a good bookstore. I doesn't matter whether it's with a specific purpose in mind, or simply with the intention of spending some time being open to possibility, and coming away with something unexpected, even coming away with nothing at all. A good bookstore is something special.

Okay, enough of my tedious, self-indulgent navel gazing. If you're a bibliophile, you get it. If not, this is just blither. Move along, nothing to see here.

For the rest of you, a list of Bookstores I Have Loved:

The Space-Crime Continuum, Northampton, Massachusetts: A moment of silence, please, in memory of a fine institution. Always and forever at the top of my list, because the owners will always and forever be near the top of my list of good and dear friends. They sold me books. They recommended books, and I always knew I could trust their recommendation. We played Civilization in their back room, while drinking eating Indian food and drinking beer, and that counts for a hell of a lot. I was sad when they closed.

WordsWorth, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Another of my late, lamented favorites. Books and coffee (with the occasional CD thrown in) absorbed the lion's share of my disposable income during my early adulthood, and WordsWorth was where I commonly dropped my book buying coin in the days before the Space-Crime. Indeed, I wore a fairly deep path between the bookstore and the coffee shop. In addition, recommending media (books, movies, TV shows, comics, music, etc.) has always been at the root of many of my friendships. After college, when various friends scattered to the four winds, and met new and interesting people who shared our passion for recommending books, the items on the "Hey, you have got to read this..." list increased exponentially. Thanks to trusted recommendations, a decent discount policy, and a respectable selection, I acquired a number of lifelong favorites at WordsWorth.

The Northshire Bookstore, Manchester, Vermont: I still remember when I discovered this in my early 20s. It was the first time I encountered a bookstore that qualified as an Experience [or perhaps a Destination], rather than simply a place to browse and buy. A good bookstore has character, and the Northshire has character to spare. It's almost big enough to get lost in -- in a "Hey, what's this forest doing inside this old wardrobe? And why is there a lamp post over there?" kind of way. I don't get there often enough, but getting there is always a treat, always a surprise, and always more expensive than I anticipate.

Brookline Booksmith, Brookline, Massachusetts: I was fortunate enough that this was my neighborhood bookstore for a number of years. Great selection, knowledgeable staff, and a bestseller list focused more on quality than simply on economies of scale. At a time in my life during which it was relevant, Brookline Booksmith also boasted stroller-accessible -- if occasionally slalom-y -- aisles, except, frustratingly enough, in their Children's section.

The Strand, New York, New York: There are places where you go to buy books, and there are places where Book serves as a taxonomic entity. The Strand falls into the latter category. If the Northshire seems like another world, the Strand is an entire universe unto itself; as a prime people watching venue, it's a universe filled with an array of fantastic, interesting, and strange characters. It's also an ever so slightly tragic place. On the rare occasions I'm in NYC I'm usually travelling light and walking as much as humanly possible, neither of which is conducive to walking out with every interesting book or unexpected find that inevitably comes my way.

Elliott Bay Book Company, Seattle, Washington: When I was very young, and the urge to be someplace else was on me -- Oh, hell; that's not me. That's @#$%ing Steinbeck. But here's the thing; a number of years back, I spent the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas Amtraking my way back and forth across the United States. One of my favorite stops was Seattle, and I spent a terrific afternoon just wandering around Elliott Bay Book Company. I left home with a number of books, and at every stop, I would mail the books I'd finished back home, to make room in my backpack for new acquisitions. My Elliott Bay pick ups -- I know I purchased a copy of Harlan Ellison's Deathbird Stories, but I no longer remember specifically what the other 2-3 books were -- stood me in good stead on my trip back across the country.

Honorable Mention, Faceless Corporate Megalith Choking the Life and Vitality Out of the American Independent Bookseller (Brick and Mortar Division): Borders. I prefer to buy books from independent booksellers. At the same time, I can be just as impulsive as anyone else. If I have to buy from a chain, I prefer Borders. They're more likely to have what I'm looking for, and in my experience they have it in an environment that makes shopping more hassle-free that other major chains.

Honorable Mention, Faceless Corporate Megalith Choking the Life and Vitality Out of the American Independent Bookseller, (Online Division): Amazon.com. It's the 800-pound gorilla. It's a monument to convenience. It's great for gift shopping, which is how I most often use it. On the down side, the site is geared toward more regular customers in ways I find user-unfriendly. Their recommendation system -- which in theory should simulate the experience of having a knowledgeable bookseller steer you toward something you might like -- is worthless to me, as I don't do enough business with them for database records to match my interests or taste. It's a great predictor of things The Lovely Wife or The Kid might like, but I've got a pretty good handle on that already. For me, Amazon.com is a convenient resort, a last resort, and, admittedly, a lazy resort. But in the end, I prefer to acquire my books in the material world.

Anyone else care to recommend, or laud, a favorite bookstore or two?

Lüürve

2007-02-22T16:28:00.000-05:00

George Lucas is kind of a dick*. I know this isn't exactly a stunning revelation, or a bold position to stake out, but it's my story, and I'm stickin' to it.

Here's a guy who arguably created (or if you prefer, appropriated a bunch of %$#@ other people did first and better, mixed it up in his special effects blender, and fed it to his herd of cash cows) the most influential pop culture phenomenon of his generation. Even if Star Wars proper fails to endure the test of time, it spawned enough imitators and inspired enough followers that its cultural aftershocks will still be felt long after Lucas is dead and gone.

And then he lost his way. The prequel trilogy not only failed to live up to the original films -- although how could they have? -- but they failed to be fun (or even merely entertaining) or to demonstrate an understanding of the lighting Lucas captured in his bottle the first time out.

If that weren't damning enough, before he even got to the prequels Lucas decided that the original films needed fixing. He decided -- or knew all along -- that they were imperfect translations of his imagination to the medium of film, limited by the technology that was available to him at the time he made them. So, as technology caught up with his imagination, Lucas went back and fixed his original creations, adding a special effect here, a new character design there, changing the entire meaning and intent of a scene in another place. These changes make the films prettier to look at, but do they make them better? I don't believe so, since, with one exception, these cosmetic changes don't affect the core of the films.

The one unforgiveable sin? Again, I'm not exactly going out on a limb here when I point this out, but Greedo did not @#$%ing well shoot first.

Let's be clear; I don't subscribe to the notion that the hold that something like Star Wars has on the collective imagination of its fans translates into some non-tangible proprietary stake that supersedes trademark or copyright. Star Wars is Lucas's baby. It's his to play with, to alter or modify as the dictates of his vision and the scope of his technology allows. I simply disagree that the ability to do something is the same as an imperative to do something. To put it even more simply; if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

For all that I castigate George Lucas for monkeying around where no monkeying needs be done, I'll admit that it is possible to monkey to good effect. Compared with Lucas, George Martin (the legendary producer, not the literary badass) is a magnificent bastard. The Beatles's Love is a remarkable album, a triumph of engineering, production, and imagination.

Let's dispense with the inevitable, and bring in Mr. Walt Whitman to address the apparent hypocrisy of praising Martin for precisely the thing for which I damned Lucas. Old Uncle Walt knew the score, knew that we're a complicated, inconsistent, inconstant pack of monkeys. "Do I contradict myself? Very well then, then, I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)"**

The difference lies in the application of technology and engineering wizardry. Where Lucas used enhanced CGI capabilities to toss in an extra TIE fighter here, a stray Jawa there, a bit more whiz-bang into an explosion in another place, Martin picks up a bunch of familiar elements and turns them into something unfamiliar, and suprising. Was it necessary? Not at all. Does it exceed, or even equal, the original work? Hardly.

But Love does something different, something important, at least for me. It changed the way I think abut these songs I've heard dozens, hundreds, even thousands of times. It casts the familair in a new light. Nothing's going to change my opinion that "Come Together" is an infectiously bad song -- I don't care for it at all, but given the Love treatment, I found myself singing along despite myself -- or make me forget how eerie the sitar in "Within You, Without You" seemed the first time I heard it. But the changes Martin wrought offer me different angles from which to consider and experience these old familiar tunes.

Tracks like "Get Back" serve as exercises in Beatles trivia. How many riffs from how many songs can you identify merging and coalescing through the song's intro? Some of the song combinations are absolutely brilliant. The combination of "Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite!", "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" and "Helter Skelter" blend perfectly, and seamlessly together. Of course these songs should merge and flow through each other. Some of the changes demonstrate subtlety and a sense of humor; Martin changes the opening of "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" so the notes stutter and stall, like a car engine struggling to turn over, before catching and allowing the song to proceed. It's a change lasting a few seconds, but it makes a tremendous impact.

Toward the end of the album, Martin all but leaves the songs alone, letting the original works stand on their own considerable merits, or introducing minor, almost imperceptible, changes. Indeed, in some cases, I feel the need to go back to the originals to determine whether the things I identify as changes are the result of Martin's handiwork, or are merely things I never consciously noticed until I reattuned myself to really listenting to the songs I've taken for granted for so many years. Was that bass line always so prevalent at the end of "Hey Jude," or did Martin bring it forward?

Things like that nagging bass line make me want to listen to Love through a good set of headphones. Not those weak, puny things you get with your iPod. I'm talking about serious, 1970s hi-fi style, "@#$% you and the horse you rode in on. I'm listening to my music!" headphones. I want to be able to shut out the world and soak up every major change and subtle nuance Martin introduced to the Beatles' canon. It's that good.

And Han shot first.

*If Mortar Bend has a statement of principles, this is #2.

**And that would be #1.

This made me smile

2007-02-20T16:50:00.000-05:00

Bill Littlefield's Only A Game is a fun little sports show originating out of WBUR in Boston. It airs at 7:00 a.m. Saturdays on WAMC. Since I'm fortunate enough to rarely be up that early on a Saturday, I don't hear the show as often as I might like. I mean, it's good, but it's not necessarily set your alarm early on the weekend good.

I happened to be out and about early this past Saturday morning, and chanced to hear a commentary about the late Dale Earnhardt, Sr. presented by a woman who was -- in no particular order -- a NASCAR fan, possessed of a strong Southern accent, and a Buddhist. Now, stereotypically, the first two items on this list go together, but the connection of Buddhism to either is not one I would naturally make. Not saying it's an impossible connection, just that it's not where my particular brain immediately heads.

Anyway, the characterization of NASCAR as a Buddhist pursuit, or of the late Mr. Earnhardt as possessed of Buddhist qualities -- at least in the eye of this commentator -- was so surprising, and so heartfelt that I found myself (a person with little to no appreciation for NASCAR, and wholly lacking in the patience required for not only Buddhism, but for inner peace in any form) captivated.

Check it out; it's worth a listen.

Of Rice and Men

2007-02-19T13:15:00.000-05:00

Just brought The Kid to see Of All the People in the World at MASS MoCA. It's a truly remarkable exhibition, featuring representations of statistics sublime, ridiculous, and all points in between rendered in grains of rice.

Some of the statistics are surprising, especially when considered side by side. For example, I never considered that the number of people who passed through Ellis Island between 1892 and 1954 was only about one third the viewership for any given episode of American Idol.

Many are infuriating, as in the case of the number of children who die each year from diseases for which vaccines exists, or the number of HIV-infected individuals in sub-Saharan Africa who lack access to antiretroviral drugs.

Some are sobering. Every day, an England's worth of people eat at McDonalds. Seeing the population of New Orleans today side by side with the population in July 2005 brings home the scale of Hurricane Katrina.

Others are amusing, as in the representation of Marilyn Monroe's infamous rendition of "Happy Birthday" for President Kennedy.

All reinforce a humbling sense of perspective. The coffee I buy so casually at Cup and Saucer costs the equivalent of the daily wage in some parts of the world. It's not necesarily going to stop me buying coffee, but I can always use a reminder that the simple luxuries I take for granted mark me as exceptionally fortunate.

Thinking of yourself as one grain among many -- whether in the population of North Adams, or in the U.S., or in any of the representational groups where one can count oneself -- reinforces that Bogie was right: the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of rice in this crazy world. There's only one me, there's only one you, there's only one Mayor Barrett. Seen against the totality, there isn't much to any of us. Without each of us, there is no totality.

I did mention the part about being a geek, right?

2007-02-19T09:16:00.000-05:00

I've been participating in conversations about comics over at John Mitchell's blog recently, and I decided it was time to bring some of the discussion home.

One regular theme of discussion over at LVB is that the "comics aren't just for kids" philosophy has had a destructive effect on both the quality of mainstream comic book storytelling and the ability of comic books as a business enterprise to attract and retain new readers over the past 20 years.

As a general maxim, "comics aren't just for kids" makes a lot of sense. Comic books -- or if you prefer, sequential art, or graphical literature, or whatever label you want to hang on the blend of words and pictures to legitimize the medium at a level with which you feel comfortable -- are an art form that transcends the most common application of ludicrously muscled characters in brightly-colored tights punching hell out of each other. There are no shortage of creators out there telling compelling, engaging, mature stories that have nothing to do with giant typewriters or purple rays or crusading hippies who like spicy chili. The problem is that the people telling the compelling, engaging, mature stories exist on the fringes of an environment that assumes that super-heroes and world-beating villains are the norm, rather than merely one possible application -- albeit the most prevalent application -- of comic book storytelling.

In fact, there is another, more serious problem, one tied directly to the "comics aren't just for kids" formulation. Over the past 20 years or so, comic books have adopted an increasingly mature tone. Now, unlike the independent comics neighborhood -- where maturity connotes complexity, and a vibrant emotional core, and a literate and literary sensibility* -- maturity in the realm of the superheroes has more to do with ramping up the sex and violence quotients, and of piling layer after layer after layer of cheap melodrama onto what are, essentially, children's fairy tales, until they are no longer suitable for children.

As a result several things happen. First, by telling stories that don't serve a younger audience, you effectively close off your business to new customers. Second, by catering to a demographic of aging obsessives, you make it harder to attract new readers of any age. If I can't understand this month's issue of Captain Defenestrator and His Two-Fisted Bone-Cruncher Legion without having read 20 years worth of their stories, then, frankly, I have better things to do with my time. Finally, even among that dwindling core of obsessives who appreciate trailing viscera and fidelity to decades worth of continuity minutia, "Mature" storytelling is no substitute for fun. If I can't find something of what drew me to comic books in the first place, and what has kept me caring about this stuff down through the years, then, again, I have better things to do with my time.

(To be fair, DC comics maintains a younger readers line, tied to their various animated TV properties [Justice League Unlimited, Teen Titans] of their properties. I applaud that, and I often find the level of storytelling in those books to be head and shoulders above what DC puts out through their mainstream, flagship line. The existence of these titles implies an understanding that you need to bring new readers into the fold. Where this model falls down is in the lack of bridge books to transition readers from the introductory stuff to the mainstream titles.)

Let's be clear here: I believe it is fully possible to tell mature stories about people in tights running around punching hell out of each other. There are creators who do such stories very well. Unfortunately, there are even more creators who think that violence and degradation for their own sakes are the equivalent of good storytelling. The result is that stories like DC's Identity Crisis -- which glories in the chunks it takes out of its characters souls -- stand cheek and jowl with the most recent issue of Batman, which was a complex, engaging character piece. Both fall into the "comics aren't just for kids' category, but I find the latter far more defensible.

*All right, in some cases "maturity" also implies pretentiousness and self-aggrandizement and the mistaken belief that unburdening oneself on the illustrated page is in some way a meaningful substitute for the hard work of therapy.

Task management

2007-02-14T16:25:00.000-05:00

Like our esteemed Representative, I'm a fan of the television show Babylon 5. In one early episode of the series, two characters from the titular space station travel to a nearby sector of space to investigate a Bizarre Spatial Anomaly(tm).

During the journey, one of the characters, apropos of nothing more than the fact that they're on the SF version of a road trip and have time to kill, strikes up a conversation about how to put your pants on in the morning: do you fasten the tab and then zip, or zip and then fasten?

I was thinking about this while I was doing the latest phase of digging out from DoomStorm 2007. Specifically, I was thinking about the massive pile of wet, heavy, tightly compacted curds of snow at the foot of the driveway, left there by the plows running up and down our street. I tend to leave that stuff until the very end of the job, but I'm never sure that's the smartest way to do it. Like the fasten/zip conundrum, the question is, is it better to leave the hardest part of a task until the end, or to tackle it at the outset, while you're fresh and at full strength?

Pessimistically, I leave it to the end, on the assumption that were I to begin with the end of the driveway, odds are the plow would come by while I was working on the rest of the driveway, meaning I would have to clear that section twice. Instead, I slog into the home stretch.

And for the record? Fasten, then zip.

Well played, Mr. Ameen. Well played.

2007-02-13T10:26:00.000-05:00

According to a story in today's (February 13, 2007) edition of the North Adams Transcript, Boston Seafood restaurant will convert 50% of the value of gift certificates issued by the now-defunct Gideon's restaurant into Boston Seafood gift certificates. Gideon's gift certificate holders have until February 28, 2007, to change over their certificates from Gideon's restaurant only; EGL certificates do not qualify for the offer.

This is a fantastic offer, one I hope will generate new and sustained business for Boston Seafood.

Forget everybody knowing my name; I just want a beer.

2007-02-11T12:06:00.000-05:00

While I'm going to miss the olive tapenade Gideon's restaurant served with the bread basket, and Bill Gideon's lamb with cheddar bread pudding -- which came pretty darn close to culinary transcendence -- there are times when a body just craves a pint and a plate of wings. At those times -- and for me those times come along more often than a desire for a gastronomic epiphany -- I appreciate the Freight Yard Pub.

It's a good thing for both my liver and my waistline that I don't get there more often, but I dropped in last night to grab a beer with a friend, and I'm glad I did. It's not fancy, but it's solid. It does what it does well. They pull a good pint, which makes for good sipping along with their crispy, spicy wings.

I don't think it's a place you go to experience something unexpected, they way you would a fine dining restaurant like Gideon's. It's more a place you go because you want what you want, and you know they'll provide it. That level of consistency, and that respect for the customer, are both admirable.

I'm old enough, and sufficiently local enough, to remember when Heritage Park, and the Pub, first opened. I've been there with high school friends, college friends, and adult friends. There's not much from when I grew up that's still around, which makes me appreciate the Freight Yard Pub even more.

Guess what's all the rage again?/Taking center stage again?

2007-02-11T11:14:00.000-05:00

Inspired by Ross Jacobs's semi-intermittent "Questions That Really Matter" series*, and in recognition of the fact there are only three shopping days left in which to purchase artisanal chocolates, heirloom# roses, and saccharine, treacly Hallmark cards for That Special Someone(tm), I find my fancy turning to thoughts of romance.

Specifically, I find myself thinking about what I personally find romantic. There are plenty of romantic movies and books, and no shortage of Love Songs in the world, but when you get right down to it, many of them aren't very good. While Love is universal, the experience of love is deeply personal. So many depictions of love and love and romance -- especially in the movies, and especially in those movies titled after Motown songs -- focus on the universal side -- the Meet Cutes and Idiot Plots and Misinterpreted Actions and Last Minute Resolutions -- and end up watering down what makes love unique.

So, in the interest of personalizing the universal, here are some of the things I find romantic:

Movies

The Fisher King: I watched Terry Gilliam's 1991 film again for the first time in a decade a few months back. Depressingly, it doesn't hold up that well. It's a product of its time, mining the same vein Oliver Stone went after in Wall Street. Despite the overall limitations, the scene in which Gilliam transforms Grand Central Station into a ballroom remains one of the most achingly beautiful things I've ever seen on film. It's magical without being twee, and the romanticism of the scene serves as an impediment to the romantic connection between Robin Williams's Parry and Amanda Plummer's Lydia. There aren't many things in the world that move me to tears, but this scene does it every time.

Truly, Madly, Deeply: even were I not contractually obligated to find this romantic on account of it's The Lovely Wife's favorite movie , I'd still find it damned romantic, but not for the obvious reason. The notion of a love so powerful it can transcend death is appealing, but there is more romance in moving on. My favorite scene in the film is one between Juliet Stevenson's Nina and Michael Maloney's Mark as they're walking along the Thames. Mark decides that they need to tell each other their life stories, but they need to do so while hopping. It's a silly, unexpected, tender moment. It's about getting to know each other, and finding out how you work together, and being willing, in a small way, to be vulnerable to each other.

Bringing Up Baby: What can I say? I like brainy dames. I like the idea that no matter how smart I think I am, there's someone at my side who's always at least three steps ahead of me. It keeps me humble. It also reminds me that there are times that, like it or not, I'm going to look like a bumbling idiot, but also that there are things worth looking like an idiot for. Comfort zones are, well, comfortable, but they're also constricting. Sometimes, you just need to (metaphorically, at least) slip into that pink frilly bathrobe and damn the consequences.

Much Ado about Nothing: There's no denying that Kenneth Branagh is a ham and a half in this film, but it works. The interplay between his Benedick and Emma Thompson's Beatrice is priceless. It helps when you've got Shakespeare's words to work with, but the actors breathe tremendous life into their roles. And, like Benedick, what man has never asked, "She loves me...WHY?"

It's A Wonderful Life: There's no getting around the fact this is one of the most overrated great films in cinematic history. It's also contains one of the most romantic moments in cinematic history (culminating in arguably the least romantic kiss in cinematic history). The scene where Jimmy Stewart's George and Donna Reed's Mary share a telephone receiver and -- finally -- accept their feelings for each other is wonderfully charged. There's an inevitability to the scene, but also a tremendous resistance. In the end, it's a scene about getting out of your own way, which, again, is one of those lessons that's important at any point in any relationship.

Songs

"At Last" by Etta James: This was our wedding song. It's simple, and beautiful, and true. I really don't know what else to say. "My lonely days are over, and life is like a song..." That's an example of something universal that I imagine anyone who has ever been in love can understand.

"You're Aging Well" by Dar Williams, featuring Joan Baez: It's the song that was playing when The Kid came into the world. It's the music of one of the best moments of my life. It gets me every time.

Any duet by Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald: Their voices combined, and they way they turn a song into a conversation, is absolutely without parallel.

"The Rainbow Connection" by Kermit the Frog: Close friends used this as their wedding song, so the song retains emotional connections to that day. Beyond that' it's a song that invokes dreams, and the hope that we can realize them. What can be more romantic than that?

*And also, you know, stealing a little bit of Nick Hornby's schtick from High Fidelity.

#Is 'heirloom' the correct term when applied to roses? I know it's the designation for tomatoes -- which don't, you know, make nearly as attractive a bouquet -- but is there such a thing as an heirloom rose?

Coincidence? I'm not so sure.

2007-02-11T10:52:00.000-05:00

There is an article in the February 12, 2007, issue of Newsweek*# titled "Poor Among Plenty" about the rise of suburban poverty and the increase in people accessing food pantry services. The article appears on page 54 of the print edition.

And what's on page 56? An advertisement for Omaha Steaks (The Fantastic Family Feast! Only $59.99!)

There's a part of me that thinks that's just an unfortunate, and somewhat thoughtless, coincidence. Then there's the part of me that suspects it was intentional, like those stories about movie theaters wafting the smell of popcorn into the screening room to motivate people to visit the snack bar. If you assume a story about hunger makes people think about food -- and more to the point, about a lack of food -- then what better ad to follow up that story than one about excess and indulgence at rock bottom prices?

Granted, it's not as direct a manipulation as you find in, say, fashion magazines, where the content frequently exists as a platform for pushing the products advertised on the facing page, or within no more than five pages. I don't know enough about Newsweek's advertising sales process to say whether it was intentional or not, but I'm fascinated by the juxtaposition.

*The content for the February 19, 2007, cover-dated issue is up on the site at this point. The full text of this article has moved to the (paid, unless you are a subscriber) archive.

#My, but the MSNBC/Newsweek site is a slow and clunky beast.

Dynasty is such a lonely word...

2007-02-05T06:57:00.000-05:00

Now that the "Peyton Manning is a great talent, but is he a closer?" script no longer applies, how long will it be until the sports media rolls out the new and improved "Well, sure, Peyton Manning won one Superbowl. Anyone can win one Superbowl. Does he have what it takes to be the cornerstone of a sports dynasty?" storyline?

For all I know, it started during the postgame celebrations. If not, expect it within 48 hours.

To the degree I had a rooting interest, I'm just sorry Chicago coach Lovie Smith didn't unseat Lovey Howell as the most famous Lov(ie/ey) on television.

As noted previously, I'm more interested in the ads than the game. Aside from the Combos ad, they were uniformly terrible this year.

There's big money in vanity

2007-02-04T16:06:00.000-05:00

All right, so it's no great revelation that the whole point of advertising is to make us feel pathetic, useless, and hopeless, absent the redemptive power of Product(tm). I understand that, and I'm not so arrogant as to pretend I'm entirely immune to this power. On the other hand, I really object to advertising that not only assumes I'm pathetic, useless, and hopeless -- and I mean, come the @#$% on; I've got decades of cripplingly low self-esteem that handles all my requirements in those areas to begin with -- but also dumber than a bag of hammers stored in a box of rocks and the whole schmear immersed in dishwater.

Case in point: I recently saw a commercial for a men's hair coloring product in which the spokesdork complained that his grey hair kept people from seeing "the real me." The voice over announcement went on to explain (although I'm paraphrasing a bit here) that using this product -- that is to say treating your hair with this artificial coloring agent -- will make it possible for people to see you as you really are.

So let me see if I understand this: according to this formulation, using a product to cover up nature is authentic, while looking like a real person is somehow artificial, and, by extension, bad?

And people fall for this? Really?

I mean, I get it. I realize that, in general, society values certain qualities above others, and that youth is consistently at the top of the value rankings. By the same token, I can't say I've ever looked at someone with an obvious dye job or toupee and said, "Why that is one young virile go-getter who isn't at all pathetic in his overcompensation." Is this message really effective?

And I'm just talking about one hack-job ad targeted at men. Those of us in the Y chromosome cohort have it comparatively easy.

I'm not against advertising. Hell, I'm part of the group that watches the Superbowl for the commercials. Just don't insult my intelligence along the way, you know?

Update: This item about Superbowl advertising from National Public Radio's Morning Edition appears to reinforce the point about the way advertising fosters negative feelings.

My lonely days are over, and life is like a song...

2007-02-02T18:23:00.000-05:00

The Lovely Wife returns from a week in Boston (job training) any minute now. The house is still standing (and just as clean, if not cleaner, than when she left). The cats are still alive. The Kid is no more or less warped than she was on Sunday. I managed to drop her off and pick her up from school every day this week. I made sure she was reasonably well fed, and had clean clothes to wear. There weren't too many raised voices, an acceptable minimum of tears (on both sides), and we even had a few laughs along the way.

Despite the fact that I apparently remain borderline competent at parenthood, I'm glad TLW is coming home. I don't know how real single parents handle it day in and day. In particular, my heart goes out to families that have a spouse and parent serving overseas right now. I can't begin to imagine how much that adds to anyone's daily burden.

I know how hard being a parent is, but it helps to have a reminder. It also makes me appreciate the fact I have one hell of a partner in TLW.

And she's home! I stand relieved.

2007-02-02T08:45:00.000-05:00

From The Guardian, via Public Radio International's Marketplace:

Scientists offered cash to dispute climate study
Ian Sample, science correspondent
Friday February 2, 2007

Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today.

Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

In the interest of moving any discussion related to climate change beyond the Monty Python "Argument Clinic" level ["Global warming is real." "No it isn't." "Yes it is." "No it isn't."] which would inevitably degenerate into Abuse, leading me to pray for the sweet release of Getting Hit on the Head Lessons, let's stipulate that it's possible for reasonable, well-intentioned, credentialed, and intellectually honest people to disagree about the interpretation of climate data. Let's further stipulate that reasonable, well-intentioned, credentialed, and intellectually honest disagreement is in the interest of science, and is the foundation of good public policy, at least in my little corner of Cloud Cuckoo Land.

Only here's the thing: I'm hard-pressed to find much reasonableness, good intention, or intellectual honesty in this move by AEI.

Late Night Double Feature Picture Show

2007-01-31T17:47:00.000-05:00

Eric's comment in my post about Eve of Destruction(tm) movies of the 1980s got me thinking about other movie combinations I have seen.

Back when I was in high school and college, Images Cinema, in Williamstown, Massachusetts used to run some truly whacked out double and triple features. This was in the late 1980s-early 1990s, before the renovation (and contraction) of the theater. Whoever programmed the place in those days had a wicked sense of humor, and a strange sensibility.

Among the memorable bills were such classics as:

Pee-Wee's Big Adventure and Little Shop of Horrors
Robocop, Blade Runner, and Metropolis
Life of Brian and A Clockwork Orange

Just take a moment to think about that last one. Otherwise strong men and women of unimpeachable moral fiber were broken on the wheel of that combination, and left the theater shambling wrecks of their former selves. Fortunately, I have less moral fiber than a bran muffin has raisins, and I escaped the experience largely unscathed -- aside from a tendency to break into "Singin' in the Rain" at truly inappropriate times.

So, open question: what was the greatest, strangest, or most memorable movie bill you've ever seen?

Well played, Mr. Smith. Well played.

2007-01-30T16:21:00.000-05:00

Gramercy Bistro ran an insert featuring their menu in today's edition of the North Adams Transcript. I'm sure the timing of the insert was not coincidental, falling as it does close on the heels of recent news about Gideon's and EGL.

My compliments to the folks at Gramercy for recognizing the opportunity before them. It's just good sense when life hands your competitor lemons to make sure people know you happen to make a mean glass of lemonade. I'm also impressed that they had the decency to wait a few days so as to not look ambulance-chasingly opportunistic.

That said, it's a shame Gramercy's sense of opportunity doesn't extend to their online presence. I note that the About Us and Contact Us links on the main page of their site open on blank pages, hardly the ideal statement to make when you want to sell people on your business.

Cognitive Dissonance, 1980s style

2007-01-28T16:20:00.000-05:00

Flipping through the cable line-up this afternoon, it was possible to watch both Red Dawn and The Day After at the same time. My brain hurts just thinking about it.

Wolverines!

Congratulations and lamentations

2007-01-28T13:02:00.000-05:00

On Saturday, my family and I attended the mass at St. Anthony's in honor the 45th anniversary of Father Daniel O'Hear's ordination. Not to take anything away from the current pastor, but it was nice to see Father O'Hear saying mass at St. Anthony's again.

I've always thought he was a terrific priest. As a preacher, he had a terrific batting average: he frequently struck a note in his sermons that was precisely what I needed to hear at the time. He found a way to make his sermons topical and meaningful, at least to me. Pastorally, he was incredibly helpful to and supportive of my family on a number of occasions. I'm glad I had the opportunity to stand up and honor him.

At the same time, this is a difficult time for the Catholic community in North Adams. The challenge of stabilizing the current situation and ensuring the community is sustainable in the future has been all over the news in recent days. At the post-mass reception for Father O'Hear last night, I realized the parish(es) face two challenges: one in the short term, and one in the long term.

The short-term challenge is obviously one of triage: finding a way to solidify a single community from the various (broken?) elements across several parishes, and doing this in a way that is financially viable.

The long-term challenge is trickier. Looking around the room at Father O'Hear's reception offered a stark reminder that North Adams' Catholics aren't getting any younger. The faces around me were, by and large, the same faces I saw at St. Anthony when I was growing up twenty years ago, the faces I thought of as belonging to the old people back then. I won't venture to guess the average age of the congregants at yesterday's mass, but I think it's safe to say predicting the North Adams Catholic community will be decimated within ten years is a conservative estimate.

Granted, I base this assessment on a single mass, one of three every weekend. I understand that there is a fairly robust family mass on Sunday mornings, which may compensate for the aging population on Saturdays, but I doubt the local population is dynamic enough to ensure the addition of one new parishioner for every parishioner lost over time.

I'm confident that the people working on the immediate problem will be successful. I'm not sure anyone truly knows how to mitigate the long-term challenge.

P.T. Barnum would be proud.

2007-01-22T19:19:00.000-05:00

This may be the most crass thing I've ever seen.

The human race is pretty amazing, when you think about; just when you believe that there is no depth to which people will not sink, we somehow manage to find a new low. On the other hand, and to be fair, I'm equally amazed by our collective and individual capacity for kindness and generosity and compassion. We need a lot of the latter to compensate for the former.