Archives for July 2005

“Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us.”

W.H. Auden, “Romantic or Free?”

“Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us.”

W.H. Auden, “Romantic or Free?”

Now that I have my tickets, I can safely advise you to go see Erin McKeown at Schuba’s August 27th. A great place to see a show, and–I can attest from personal experience–a great place to discover Ms. McKeown.

Now that I have my tickets, I can safely advise you to go see Erin McKeown at Schuba’s August 27th. A great place to see a show, and–I can attest from personal experience–a great place to discover Ms. McKeown.

It’s a hundred degrees and I’m writing on deadline! This is what you might call bad planning. We’ve known for a week, almost, that today would be the hottest day in Chicago in six years. Things might have been arranged in a such a way that I’d be writing in a more leisurely fashion right now. But I didn’t arrange them that way, and now I’m affixed to this chair and keyboard for the rest of the day.

And I’m way overdue to blog. There’s not too big an opening for this, but I have been compiling a little list of things I learned in L.A., on my recent trip:

1. My hands are the same size as James Mason’s–with slightly longer fingers.

2. My feet are the same size as Paul Newman’s. Ergo, Newman must be of smaller stature than I realized.

3. Call me philistine, but I can’t spend too long inside the Getty Center galleries without itching to get outside to the grounds and gardens again.

4. That said, my favorite room in the Getty is the one containing this still life and this portrait (so to speak). Cool details: the half-translucent lemon at the back of the bowl in the still life, and the tree stump that mirrors the rabbit in the, er, rabbit painting.

5. The staff at the Getty is about a hundred times more tolerant than the security crew at Hollywood and Highland of clusters of people loitering with clipboards in hand, solving puzzles. (I believe we might have been mistaken by the latter for Scientologists.)

6. The weather is perfect. But you knew that.

7. The traffic is intolerable. But you knew that.

What’s this about clipboards and puzzles, you say? I’ll tell you more about that later. For now, suffice it to say that it doesn’t have nothing to do with the man about to be crowned Hottie of the Times (Brain division).

Keep cool!

It’s a hundred degrees and I’m writing on deadline! This is what you might call bad planning. We’ve known for a week, almost, that today would be the hottest day in Chicago in six years. Things might have been arranged in a such a way that I’d be writing in a more leisurely fashion right now. But I didn’t arrange them that way, and now I’m affixed to this chair and keyboard for the rest of the day.

And I’m way overdue to blog. There’s not too big an opening for this, but I have been compiling a little list of things I learned in L.A., on my recent trip:

1. My hands are the same size as James Mason’s–with slightly longer fingers.

2. My feet are the same size as Paul Newman’s. Ergo, Newman must be of smaller stature than I realized.

3. Call me philistine, but I can’t spend too long inside the Getty Center galleries without itching to get outside to the grounds and gardens again.

4. That said, my favorite room in the Getty is the one containing this still life and this portrait (so to speak). Cool details: the half-translucent lemon at the back of the bowl in the still life, and the tree stump that mirrors the rabbit in the, er, rabbit painting.

5. The staff at the Getty is about a hundred times more tolerant than the security crew at Hollywood and Highland of clusters of people loitering with clipboards in hand, solving puzzles. (I believe we might have been mistaken by the latter for Scientologists.)

6. The weather is perfect. But you knew that.

7. The traffic is intolerable. But you knew that.

What’s this about clipboards and puzzles, you say? I’ll tell you more about that later. For now, suffice it to say that it doesn’t have nothing to do with the man about to be crowned Hottie of the Times (Brain division).

Keep cool!

I can’t read my blogmail while I’m using a dialup connection in Smalltown. If you’ve written to me through the blog, I’ll get back to you the first week in August.

Apologies.

I can’t read my blogmail while I’m using a dialup connection in Smalltown. If you’ve written to me through the blog, I’ll get back to you the first week in August.

Apologies.