New England New Year

Very quick, as I'm in the midst of one of those whirlwind trips through Massachusetts. I'm in Waltham now with Sue and Steve, fighting off a cold and getting ready to go visit Beckett, then into Boston/Cambridge for some grub, the Patriots game (S & S are fans, and it's the big final game of what has potential to be the first undefeated season since '72) and a show by Buffalo Tom at TT the Bear's Place. All of which should be fantastic.

Tomorrow I get to see Seattle Amy, whom I almost never get to see. And either tomorrow or Monday it's off to Williamstown for a New Year's party courtesy Sue and Kevin (all these Sues - it gets confusing, I know).

Happy New Year's Weekend, everybody.

kind of blue

Sometimes, Miles, John, Cannonball, Wynton and Paul are the only ones who can say anything worth listening to.

uptown/downtown

The argument over whether uptown or downtown yields better art/entertainment is essentially a pretty boring one: uptown art is reputedly commercial, and crassly so, whereas downtown art is presumed to be edgy and authentic. Or: uptown art is professional, highly skilled and attentive to its audience while the downtown variety is shabby, amateurish and self-absorbed.

As it happens, the cliches are true sometimes, but not all the time (shocking!), and that both good and bad stuff happens in both areas, uptown and downtown having as much to do with attitude as geography, especially since much of what used to be 'downtown' Manhattan has all-but-utterly commercialized and much of the exciting new work is being done in the outer boroughs and (gasp!) New Jersey. Yes, there has always been a bunch of crap happening on Broadway, trite, thoughtless pablum aimed at the lowest imaginable common denominator; but there are also fantastic productions put on by true artists, brilliant playwrights and some of the best acting in the English speaking world. And the downtown scene is full of posers who create intentionally oblique nonsense and couldn't put two coherent thoughts together on a bet; but it also provides some of the most adventurous, exciting and vital work I've ever seen. My personal pet peeves from working in the worlds of conventional and experimental theater extend to the stick-up-the-ass cowardice of some of the decision-makers in the more commercial environments, and the crazy disorganization and overwhelming disregard for people's time in the fringy stuff (ok, ok - maybe an inflated sense of respect for scheduling does smack of the patriarchal, but that whole thing about never starting rehearsal on time gets old. Really.)

This all returns us to the shows I started writing about last week. Rock 'n' Roll was one more example of Tom Stoppard bringing it all back home with a team of top-notch artists at the top of their game. The central trio of Rufus Sewell, Brian Cox and Sinead Cusack are impressive in a way you just don't get to see very often. Damn Brits.

And the play itself is one of those shows that you walk away from smarter than when you walked in that night. Don't know much about the history of Communism in Czechoslovakia? You will. Unclear about the progression of British intellectual thought on the subject of the Party before and after the '68 invasion? Serving of mental Windex, live on stage. Wait a minute, wait a minute: you think those subjects might be boring? The use of rock and pop music to tie the scenes to the culture of the time and place isn't sugar to help it go down; it's a dramatic framework that makes an essential connection between popular expression and political environment. The fact that it's an irresistible musical element is a pretty bitchen bonus though.

Couple quick questions: might the show have benefited from some more truly underground or radical music? Not to take anything away from the Stones, Dylan or Pink Floyd, but I'm guessing there were more radical/less 'classic rock' musical forces at play in Prague, as there surely were in London. The Velvet Underground is a little closer to a counter-cultural phenomenon, and The Plastic People of the Universe certainly fit the bill. Maybe it wouldn't have been worth the time to introduce bands that would have required explanation, but I wonder if this uptown play could have used some more downtown sounds to illustrate its points. And where was the Zappa?! Not only was he important to the London scene, and absolutely integral to the Czech scene, his music spurred the very name of The Plastic People of the Universe, and, with the Velvets, was their most important influence both musically and theatrically. He was barely mentioned in the show, and not one note of his music was used. Why not?

And the mention of that musical artist who below-the-belted his way to a permanent spot in the fringe pantheon brings me back to The Nutcracker: Rated R. What a fun show! Not polished to a shiny gleam, the rough edges were part of the point, kinda like the sharp edge of a broken bottle. The fantasy of a bourgeois girl in this version of the Tchaikovsky ballet takes a turn through pre-Giuliani (and mostly pre-Dinkins) New York of the 80s (or at least someone's version of the 80s). Some creative variations on the music were employed, and the dancing had raw energy that got through to the packed audience.

There was a nasty line in the cold for the box office, in spite of our having bought tix in advance online, that I'd have liked to avoid (ah, the downside of downtown). But I digress. The show was worth the wait, however aggravating. Good primal energy in service of good arty entertainment. The sexuality could have gone farther without crossing any dangerous line (and this show sort of tempts one to cross dangerous lines - at the very least, it advertises itself as 'R-rated' ) but they delved into different dance forms and style choices with exuberant abandon, and made living contact with the audience that, well, that you don't always get.
Not so sure about the pat anti-drug message-y kind of resolution. (Did you know that coke can give you a sense of euphoria and energy to party all night? But that then it might kill you? I know, so did everyone else.) But they had to end it one way or another, and those after-school specials were part of the 80s too. There were some sound problems early on in the performance I saw, which caused the company to stop for repairs and start over, but I actually think the way they handled it was pretty perfect, and if anything juiced the dancers up to give a little extra on this cold and rainy matinee day. Way to have a show ready to weather any storm. Good luck bringing it back next year!

Formatting

For some reason the photo at the header of my blog is now cut off in a very odd way. Anyone know why? I've played with the layout, and haven't been able to find the way to restore it.

Harrumph!

English anyone?

Well, this is the kind of thing I could do a lot more than I do, but it seems borderline unkind...
Today however, the dayjob is sufficiently annoying and crazed, that I will indulge the smug snotty side of myself and share with you a comment included in an email having to do with sales at a particular retail outlet:

They stores we extremely!

This was written by a native English speaker with (I think) a college degree. Even in the world of texting and e-speak, I really can't figure what she is trying to say.

Tee hee!

Weekend Update

After the highs of last week's concerts (which included the two I've already written about, plus a choir concert last Sunday and another YLT show on Monday) came some various lows, but also some more sustained highs with Tom Stoppard's Rock 'n' Roll, Aaron Sorkin's The Farnsworth Invention, and Angela Harriel's The Nutcracker: Rated R. Three very different pieces of performance, two On Broadway, one waaaaay Off, each with its pros and cons, but each also with an important spark of life. I'll try to put in more specific thoughts about these sometime soon; that will depend on, well... a bunch of things.

Besides that, I got to go to a really rad party in Dumbo, hosted by a designer I know and a couple people (another designer and an architect, I think) who share a studio with him. It was a good group of people, including some famous and semi-famous personalities, got to meet some interesting folks and I got to see a friend I don't get to see often enough, so that was bitchen. And I got to some other friends' Christmas Carol in Manhattan too. Oh - and some really good Ethiopian food at a place in Hell's Kitchen called Meskerem. Yum!

'Tis most definitely the season.

President Yo La Tengo

Ok, without wanting to go too deep into nose-rubbing territory, I'd like to rewrite for your amusement a missive I sent some friends up in Boston, regarding one of the best shows I've seen in a long time, courtesy of Hoboken's own...

First of all, let me just say that when I offer you guys tickets to a yo show in the 'boken, don't say no. Especially if it's one of the Hanukkah shows! Unless your own band is booked to play the Garden, you are performing on Broadway, or you're getting married that night, change what plans you have and get your ass over to Jersey. It is so worth it I can barely put it into words...

The opening band on Saturday, Dew Claw, was maybe a little on the 'eh' side, but it was still pretty neat that they featured the original YLT bass player, and also the guy who currently does many of the graphics for Tengo's t-shirts and such. And their own shirts-for-sale were designed by that guy's 9-year old daughter. Which is nice. Plus, they wore flannel pyjamas on stage.

Sarah Vowell was the evening's comedy act, and she was superfun indeed; I have to say, though, she was upstaged by Amy Poehler, who came on in the guise of Ira's Aunt Judith to tell us all about the Kabbalah in the light of a broken Menorah.

The set was amazing. Started in mellow, moody mode. I mean, very very good, just chill. Until... they did 'Mr. Tough', which not only completely rocked, but kick-started the rest of the set, which from then on was a non-stop mess-you-up powerhouse. Included a completely incendiary 'Big Day Coming,' (the raucus 'reprise' vesion, of course) and an orgasmic 'Story of Yo La Tengo.'

And then for the encore, out came Alex Chilton. Yup. Among other songs, they did: Hey! Little Child, the Modern Lovers' Government Center, Velvet Underground's Femme Fatale. I am not even kidding.

This was the kind of show that reminds you why you like music.

And I haven't even mentioned last night's show yet... :-)

Hopefully I can get some photos of that gig from Sherin for the next entry. Whew. My ears are ringing in all the right ways.

Friday

Friday I saw a play on the East Side. It was very good; in many ways one of the best new plays I've seen in a while. Interesting ideas, well acted for the most part, well staged and lit, costumes were good, if a bit obvious. But I don't want to write much about it, because there were a couple bad holes that really weakened the whole thing in the last quarter, and I don't like talking shit about my peeps in the theater in a public forum if I can help it.

Afterwards, Beth and I walked down Fifth Avenue through Tourist Christmasland. We didn't do the windowgaze routine full out, but we did check out Bergdorf and Cartier and the star at the intersection of 57th. Gaudily spectacular, natch. And, of course, since we were there, we looked at the tree at Rockefeller (so purple this year!) and passed by the skating rink.

Finally we ended up at what may be my new regular bar on the West Side. I'm definitely not going to write about that, because I don't want it getting around. So many of the great down-to-earth bars are gone now (McHale's, Dave's, Collins) or changed irremediably (McCoy's, Film Center) - when you discover one, or a new one pops up, you have to preserve it.

So then, this entry would be me almost writing about what I did the other night. Oy.

Delusion of the Fury

Holy crap, so much has been going on since the last time I wrote here! Most of it really really good, nigh unto great.

On Thursday, I went with E-beth to see and hear Harry Partch's Delusion of the Fury. Extraordinary, and almost a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Partch wrote this in I think 1967, it was performed - once - in 1969, and had never been performed since. Until last week, when Dean Drummond's Newband ensemble joined forces with stage director John Jesurun, choreographer Dawn Akemi Saito and a solid group of performers to stage it at the Japan Society. Really fascinating stuff - a musical introduction followed by Act 1, which was drawn from/inspired by a Japanese Noh Drama; then a musical interlude, followed by Act 2, which came from an African comic story.

One of the main reasons that this piece is done so rarely (read - pretty much never) is that it depends on specific instruments of Partch's invention, like these here 'Cloud Chamber Bowls'.

Parch composed in microtones, which you can sort of think of as the 'notes between the notes.' These tend not to exist in Western music, and most Western instruments can't play them (at least not very well). This didn't slow down Harry Partch though - he just invented a bunch of totally rad and innovative instruments that look like they've been pulled from Dr. Seuss stories via a mad scientist's laboratory.

This little guy, for instance, depends on liquor bottles to make its music:

Specific liquor bottles, no less. It's called a Zymo-Xyl, and when Partch was playing around with it in the early stages, he discovered that each brand of whiskey, gin, vodka, etc. has its own specific tone (some of which fall into the microtone category) So ultimately, the specs called for certain empty booze bottles to go in each slot: Tanqueray here, Bacardi there, that kind of thing.

So you need these instruments to do this music, and as far as I know, each and every one is one-of-a-kind. And most of them are big, and i suspect rather fragile, so a bunch of traveling isn't apt to happen. Result: you get to see his music, when at all, in small doses at the Partch Institute in Montclair, New Jersey. The large-scale works, you don't get to see at all.

Except for last week!

I admit, when I was told about this show, I was suspicious, especially since it was a pretty expensive ticket. The whole "Yeah, this looks fun on paper, but am I going to get there and yawn through the whole thing? 'Cause I don't want to be spending my bucks on that for the sake of doing something 'arty' just because it's rare."

But E-Beth talked me into it, and let me tell you, people - I didn't yawn. It was by turns fascinating and exciting and moving and funny. Really really fun. Plus, you know, so far it happens one time in every two generations.

As I see it, this is one of the reasons we live in New York.

The Return of Magic 8Pod

What do you foresee for the GRE for Sherin?

Happy Days - McCoy Tyner Trio. Well, gee Sherin, you can't
ask for much better than that. :-)

How about the Yo La Tengo show on Saturday?

Jack-a-Roe - Bob Dylan. Hmmm... this one's trickier. An old English folk balad, it sounds dark and moody, but it ends with triumph over great adversity. Good portent for a benefit concert, I'd say. And - the verse tacked onto the end of the story is amusinglyhopeful.

This couple they got married, so well they did agree
This couple they got married, so why not you and me
Oh, so why not you and me ?

Hehehe.

"Debate"

Seems likely that we'll be having some more discussions of politics here from time to time as the '008 U.S. Presidential Election gets nearer.

For the moment, have a look at this viddy dramatizing the 'fairness' of the medium-early Democratic debates. It's more effective if you watch the whole thing (takes about 2 & 1/2 minutes)


Brings to mind George Orwell, no? "All animals are created equal. But some animals are more equal than others."

Yeah, there's more to come on the issue of the 'liberal media' too...

Let it Snow!

Woke up after a blissful sleep in (those are pretty rare these days) to find a snowy Sunday out my window. It's been an up-and-down weekend: Friday was dinner with a Pete, of whom I've seen precious little for too long, followed by drinks with him and Rashmi, followed by the Jazz and Jewels gig benefitting Planned Parenthood with bunches of people - way to go Sherin, Jacqueline, Beth and Michelle!! - followed by more drinks at one of my new favorite bars in the Village. It was one of those evenings that devolved from French Wine to Irish Whiskey to Belgian Beer to a long walk home, thankfully impervious to the cold. So, yeah, yesterday I was moving predictably slowly, but did manage to motivate for dinner with some theater friends I also hadn't seen for a long while, and then pulled off that unlikeliest of feats: the last minute movie date with friends. On a Saturday? In New York?? Unheard of! But there it was - Susan and Daniel live around the corner from where I was, and they didn't have firm plans, so we went to see Michael Clayton. Really good film, guys - catch it before it leaves the theaters if you can. Then went home and watched the second half of Dig! which is the movie about the parallel stories of the bands The Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Dandy Warhols. If you have any interest in them, or in recent indie rock at all, you'll want to check that out too. Those crazy rock-n-rollers! Got to bed late-ish, but not unreasonably so, and woke up to the Winter Wonderland.

So this morning I went downtown in the season's first proper snowfall to get bagels and other foodstuffs, and have been just hanging around my place with the Sunday New York Times, having coffee and noshing, listening to excellent holiday music and chatting with people on the phone. No laundry will be getting done by me this weekend (unless I blow off that dinner in the East Village, but who wants to be rude?) but it's been nice just having some semi-snowbound solitude. Plus it was a reminder that I should get the actual, physical Sunday Times more often; been too slack on that for too long. Otherwise, I would have missed the article about the Hello Kitty Vibrator. I'm sorry, I mean "shoulder massager." Yeah, it's there in the online version, but no way would I have seen it. And that would have just been a shame. Oh, my!

Who's there?

Ira Kaplan is guest hosting a late night show on WFMU, and I'm tapping away at the laptop while listening to his sonic choices (the current offering sound like some kind of mix between Serge Gainsbourg and the space-age bachelor pad offerings of Esquivel. One could do worse at 11 on a Tuesday night.

For the last few days I've been coiling up to react to I'm Not There, the Bob Dylan movie Todd Haynes made with 6 actors playing Dylan in various incarnations at varying eras. A fun house mirrorview of a man who won't keep still. Saw it on Saturday night, still steeped in the remnants of Thanksgiving.

I'm not saying it was perfect (just as I'm not saying Dylan is, was, or ever shall be perfect), but I am saying it's worth watching. In fact, I'll probably go back and see it again after I let it settle in for a few more days.

Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child's balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying.

Different actors cover different facets of the Dylan diamond. No impersonation required, though Cate Blanchett does a pretty much note-perfect reading of his Bringing it All Back Home/Don't Look Back persona. Richard Gere comes closest to today's Singing Cowboy - Billy the Kid camping out in Riddle, Missouri, having faked his own execution.

His clothes are dirty, but his hands are clean

One of those films that may stick with you for a while, ride with you on the subway, go with you through your day.



It's funny to me how often people just don't get it, with all kinds of things, Dylan being one of the most obvious. I mean, yeah, he has TONS of fans, with nigh-religious devotion, and many music critics likewise treat his body of work like some kind of Holy Grail. But his detractors can be just as fervent - usually starting with some kind of resistance to his voice, then moving on to attack the cultishness of his followers.

Reminds me of a conversation I had with a Croatian co-worker of mine a few years back: this guy was and is super smart, but just did not get Dylan, especially the vocal stylings (and I gotta tell you, his Croatian accented Dylan immitation was pretty hilarious. "Mneeyeh, mnyeeaahh!") This was a dayjob co-worker, but he knew me (and, I think it's fair to say, admired me) as an actor and vocal artist, and when I put in a strong defense of Dylan's powerful vocal interpretation and blindingly original styling, he just couldn't wrap his mind around it.

"So, what are you telling me?" (you've got to try to hear a piercing Eastern European accent and attitude in this questioning. Think of an apoplectic James Bond villain.) "You are telling me that this whiny, wheezing insect has a good voice?!"

"I didn't say he has a good voice."

"Oh, you didn't?"

"No I didn't"

"You didn't say he has a good voice?"

"No, I didn't say he has a good voice. I said he has a great voice."


At this point the veins started bulging out of his neck and forehead, and a poor innocent fellow worker rolled her eyes and stood clear as he proceeded to explicate the ways he wanted to rip my artistic intestines out and knit himself a noose out of them.

It was pretty fun.

The cracked bells and washed-out horns
Blow into my face with scorn,
But it's not that way, I wasn't born to lose you.

It's not a frivolous distinction. Dylan's voice is peerlessly powerful, while not having anything to do with the smoothness and shine of Great Vocalists like Sinatra or Cole or Caruso. And the opera notion makes me think of Maria Callas, whom many would call the Best Female Singer of the Century. Yet her voice is not really the kind of 'beautiful' that is usually associated with operatic sopranos. A Great Voice, not a good one.

As for the movie, the critics' responses have been predictibly fervent, pro and con, at least if the tiny bit of reading I've done is any indication. Once again, I'm staggered at how many people miss the point. I'm tempted to tear into one particular critic, but that's always a downward spiral and a half. Plus, I try (at least here) to sort of follow the Mother's Dictum "If you can't say anything nice about someone, don't say anything at all."

Yeah, I don't always succeed on that score.

The beauty parlor is filled with sailors
The circus is in town

To the people who wonder why a filmmaker would make a 'biopic' that doesn't try to pin down and explain its subject, I say that a biopic is not what Haynes was making. To those who ask why said subject doesn't clearly define his 'character' for your benefit, I suggest that to some artists there is little that is more boring than trying to explain oneself. Much more fun to tweak some expectations, stir things up, and create. Hey, it's almost 400 years later and people are still trying to figure out who Shakespeare was.

Do I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself.
I am large, I contain multitudes.

And, to the nameless clueless critic: that puke you've got on your chest? I think it's Aristotle's. You may want to clean that up.

It's alright, Ma, I'm only sighing.

And as with anything, you can't make people get it.

The film spurred at least one enthusiast to, um, back up some data for a friend:

Could write more on this subject, but I've subjected you to enough for now...

Giants

The NY football Giants, that is.

If you know me, you know that I don't have much affinity for football. In fact, it was a pretty swell epiphany for me the day I realized that one can be a heterosexual male in America and not care about football and everything will be just fine.

But I got to go to the Giants game against Minnesota yesterday, and though it was a truly horrible game (unless you are one of those giddy Viqueens fans), it was a really fun experience, made all the more so by the fact that I got to take the radiant and irresistible Crystal as my 'date.' I had invited her husband Brandon (great friend of mine and big time football fan) who said he couldn't dare accept, as it was a lifelong dream of Crystal's to go to a Giants game, and would I consider taking her instead?



Of course! Crystal was the first person I met when I was checking out my grad school, and she let me crash on her futon for the couple days I was there. Plus she's, you know, radiant and irresistible. :-)



So, here's the view from our seats:

Yes, I know end zone seating is considered subpar, but we were close! And it was a beautiful fall day.

Now if we could have done something about those three interceptions run back for touchdowns...

Planned Parenthood Party

This isn't the kind of thing I'd normally post here, but it should be a good event, from a very good friend and for a very good cause. If you're free and in New York next Friday, consider...

Body Politic '08: Jazz & Jewels

Spread the word! Please re-post!

Details:

Come experience 3 fabulous Jazz singers - Jacqueline Antaramian, Elizabeth Soychak, and Michele - while supporting the important political work of the Planned Parenthood NYC Action Fund. Jewelry by Jacqueline on sale all night! 21 and over.

Friday, November 30

9:30-11:00pm

The Duplex - 60 Christopher St, NY NY 10014

$20 cover (includes Action Fund membership), plus 2 drink minimum

RSVP at: www.ppnycactionfund.org

The Bocce

You know bocce, right? The old Italian game where you toss a small round stone to one end of a court, then try to get larger stone balls as close to it as possible, while knocking your opponents' balls away? Well, it was an important part of T-day this year.

But we don't play that polite bocce, where you just toss the pallino from one end of a pleasant smooth sand area to the other. Ours is more of an extreme bocce...
Also known as all-terrain bocce, it involves using the whole beach - the smooth sand, the rocky parts, the shells and the driftwood, the lawn above, even - at one ill-advised point - the water. That's Kevin hurling a bocce ball in one or our 'long bocc' rounds.
And now I'm having some trouble with uploading images - more later...


Alright - more bocce madness.

Here we are prepping for bocce among the beach chair obstacles:

And this is us getting ready for Extreme Bocce Action (can't you tell?)

The characters in this boccerific image are, from left to right, Crispy, Kevin, Rudy and myself. That bottle in the sand is, um, probably caffeine-free diet coke.

Finally, we have a shot of Water Bocce. The pallino rolled down the slope of the shore and ended up right at the edge of the water. We hemmed and hawed and thought it might not be such a good idea to play that lie. But then we were like: they're rocks, right? They're not going anywhere...

So we played the round. Sure enough, the balls stayed in plain sight at water's edge. We had serious control issues trying to work the slanting sand, but this was All-Terrain Bocce, after all. And when all the stones were rolled, two were almost tied for closest to the jack:

That would be Pike, Kev, Chris and I closely inspecting the situation to determine the victor of the round. We paced it off, allowing for waves, then gathered the rocks and got ready for the next round. But as we did, Rudy said "Um, guys...? Do you have all the balls?"

Ummm... nope. While we were engrossed in the competition aspect of the game, Neptune claimed two of the Bocce balls for himself.

This was followed by about 15 minutes of us all wading up and down the shallows in a vain hope of finding those rocks in the ocean. Which was itself followed by another 10 or so minutes of the four of us just staring out at the surf, muted, scanning for glimpses of red-paint and wondering what we were going to tell Jen (who brought the bocce set in the first place). Gulp :-)

It didn't spoil the party. Fortunately, this was not an heirloom set from Jen's Italian Grandfather or anything. Her attitude was the best - "they couldn't have gone in a better way, or to a better place." And we adjusted the game for the remainder of the weekend.

But if anyone knows where I can find some good Bocce balls cheap, lemme know...

The Beach

This is the view of the beach on Edisto Island as seen from the downstairs porch at I'm guessing about midday. It was perhaps cooler than would have been truly ideal for swimming, sunning and such, but all in all it was kind of wonderful for November 8-11.

Here's a look up the beach (Northeasterly), including shots of more neighboring houses:

And here's one that cannot possibly do justice to the scene, but props to Rich for capturing it:

It's a dolphin! There were lots of them swimming up and down the beach every day. Ok, ok, it wasn't a constant thing or anything, but at least a couple people saw dolphins every day we were there. And one day, three or four of them swam very close to where we were hanging out. A few of us walked closer to the shore, and they swam back and forth a few times - which I took to be an invitation to go out and swim with them (yes, ok, I know - they probably weren't actually inviting anything, but i couldn't resist)

Not many people did much swimming at all that weekend, but I have been baptised in the ocean waters of Maine, and therefore have less fear of the cold. And although it's an exaggeration to say I swam 'with' the dolphins, I was in the water near them. But rather than swim up to me and take me for a ride on their backs, they, umm, kinda swam away. Still, it was pretty amazing!

And also amazing was that my friends resisted the temptation to bust my balls for scaring the dolphins away (again, they were probably just looking for food and not the least concerned with me or any of us), and instead totally cheered me on for going out there and taking the chance.

Which is one of the innumerable reasons why I love them.

The House

This is the house where T-day 007 happened, as seen from the beach. Felt pretty stylin', I must say.

Here's a shot of the kitchen, where so much of the magic happened:

Don't know how well you can see it, but notice the granite countertops and the tile; also worthy of appreciation are the combination of hanging fixtures and recessed lighting (anb what a ceiling! the detail work and superfine wood really blew us away)

Here's the downstairs patio:

From left to right, we have the darling Cleo, Rudy, Kevin and Pike. Would you say this is sun-dappled? I'd say it's sun-dappled.

We didn't take any shots from the street, I guess. Probably because we didn't spend any time there at all - we were pretty beachy, except for the trips to the shrimp shack and the Piggly Wiggly (which is not, as some Northerners think, a mere convenience store, but a full-out supermarket.

One last shot for now, from a bit farther away, with the peeps assembled in front:

One of the things I like about this shot is the candid nature (thanks to Rich for all of these, I think) Fairly certain that none of us are aware there's a guy down by the water snapping away.

And speaking of that - beach shots next time...

To Do Lists

We've dealt with mail art here before - and, yes, Blogger and YouTube conspired to draw attention to this, but I think it's worth a view:

You are what you list...?
Oh, she has a blog too.

T-day 007

Ok, I don't think I've really discussed T-day in this blog, except for the odd reference. It's a gathering that happens every year a couple weeks before Thanksgiving (although the specific timing has changed occasionally, that's a pretty reliable date). There is always a ton of music and revelry, and some truly magnificent communal cooking.

Permit me to anticipate some of your comments and questions.

- Wow - that sounds a lot like 'The Big Chill'

No, it's not really very much like that perfectly adequate movie, although there have been known to be some singing and dancing to go along with the cooking and cleaning. Certain key differences include the fact that T-Day involves:

• a lack of overall angst
• a lack of sexual tension and improbable hookups (umm... ok... there have been a few of those, but really, this party has happened every years for many years, that's bound to happen a little bit - how many were there in that movie that covered one weekend?)
• a decided lack of breaking down and crying in the shower. As far as I know
• and most importantly - we aren't getting together once, after years of not seeing each other, because one of us has DIED.

- How long has this been going on? Where does it happen?

It started back at my college, one or two years before I got there, and has happened every single year since. Since its humble origins in Boston (imagine a bunch of not-exactly-sober college students figuring out how to stuff and cook a turkey and prepare what trimmings they could manage in their ill-equipped kitchens), we have become a diaspora, and the location changes pretty much every year, though there have been repeat venues (Boston, Williamstown, Burlington, VT, Philmont, NY). As the years have passed, several of us have developed pretty good game in the kitchen, and our outings have become more ambitious and adventurous.

- What kinds of things do you do?

There is always some variety, but you can count on lots of:

• food
• drink
• music
• games of some sort in general
• pinochle in particular (really!)

It has always taken place in the Northeast - until this year.

T-Day 007 happened in Edisto Island, South Carolina. Jen goes there with her family a lot and turned us on to the idea. Molly found us a house online that pretty much blew us all away. Some of us have pretty nice houses, but this was essentially a new, fancy, huge place right on the beach. Astounding.

I'll have to write more later, but for now - here's a pic of me just south of the border of North and South Carolinas: