Readers should know that I'm no longer writing for the Washington City Paper.
The proximate cause for my dismissal was a letter to the editor, which the paper forwarded to me two weeks ago. In the letter, a reader asked for a correction with regard to something I'd written for the best-of issue. An April correction would have meant back-to-back corrections for articles I'd written. (In March, I wrote that the "Collectors Select" exhibit at Arlington Arts Center showcased the efforts of five curators. There were in fact six/seven: five collectors and one husband-and-wife collector team, all of whom I discussed in the piece.)
I stood behind what I'd written in the April issue and protested the correction. A subsequent investigation (including two interviews with persons involved in the story) conducted by editor-in-chief Erik Wemple proved me right. No correction was run.
But vindication did not change the fact of the matter: It's time that the paper and I part ways. I've enjoyed working with Mark Athitakis and Matt Borlik and my work has benefited from their editing. I won't talk out of turn so I'll just say that I'm proud of the reporting and criticism I've written on the city's visual art scene for the last two years.
No doubt, I'll continue writing about District gallery shows, primarily in art magazines. Reviews for April/May shows will hit newsstands in a couple months and I'll let you know when they pop up online. Other reporting and opinion-y stuff will appear elsewhere. So keep reading.
Southby blogging can be found here. In the first edition, I run into folks from the District as well as Dan Grant, a candidate for Congress who found some favor among some friends of mine whose word you can trust.
Tomorrow you should be reading about my exciting adventures seeing Pterodactyl, Parts & Labor, the Russian Futurists, Paper Rad, Yeasayer, and other sundry groups but alas, instead, I'm on my friend's couch watching Species because my stomach is killing me. You could read my thoughts about Species or you could check out rock photography by my pal Eric Uhlir, whose stomach would seem to be in better shape.
Species: Not That Great a Movie. —End—
I'm wondering today: How are soundtracks written? Doesn't the movie need to be shot and edited in its entirety before a composer can know what moods to match and for how long within a given scene?
I invite the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library (for which I've publicly spoken and written as a devoted advocate) to host one of these video game–based amnesty contests so as to give me a shot at winning away the double-digit penalty I owe in outstanding library fines. This platform would be just fine.
(Via JPYG)
Fubar. I'm looking into it. Apologies if you've tried to riposte.
Ram for your Mac turns out to be ridiculously cheap, so long as you're not buying it through Apple. Courtesy Yglesias, whose insight on Clinton's prospects after Iowa is well worth the cost of your click.
Last year I spent an unreasonable amount of money in Miami on cabs, often only to idle in Miami traffic, which is worse that I'd ever been lead to believe. The fairs advertise shuttles between South Beach and the Wynwood District, but I found that they never arrived. So this year i'm thinking about renting a bicycle, or, if that's not an easy option, buying some beater from a pawn shop or secondhand store, just for the week. Miami's flat, so getting around by bike should be easy—thing is, I don't remember seeing anyone actually riding a bike while I was there, so I'm wondering if a bike isn't a good prospect for some reason. Too much sand and not enough road? Too many little friends to say hello to? Anyone know?
This is a reasonable depiction of what I'm hoping to accomplish (soundtrack included).
Skipping town for Chicago this weekend to visit with Sarah & Ed. I imagine I'll see the Richard Misrach show and I might bop over to Bodybuilder & Sportsman (though I have no idea what if anything's showing since the Charles LaBelle show came down a week ago and the tough guys need to update their Web site). Ed works in a Mies building, so I'll scratch that itch. Frankly I'm kind of most excited about visiting a different H&M and doing my part to accelerate the degeneration of smaller prestige design. Boots and dogs are also on the agenda.
Off "topic", but I've decided that nothing could be more satisfying than seeing the Green Bay Packers dismantle the Patriots in the Super Bowl. It's a beautiful dream of mine.
You know, I'm going to take a little break here. I'll keep the sidebar updated with pieces that I publish, and I'll have a few in the next week I believe (and I do hope you read them), but as far as the blog is concerned I'm calling in sick and staying in. For the time being.
I'm having one of those weeks where I'm scheduling business calls for when I'm walking from one place to another. Sorry it's so slow around these parts. I've also fallen behind on personal correspondence. Bear with me!
It's clever enough that the District voting rights bill's supporters have pledged that the bill, which is being debated even as I type, will not be a slippery slope toward acquiring two senators for the District. But if we get our House representative today, is there an action plan for getting our Senators tomorrow? If the Congress proffers a vote of no support for the reading of the Constitution that says that the District shouldn't have any congressional representation, then I really don't want to spend another day without full congressional representation. There's no halfsies in Congress. I have greater respect for Mitch McConnell's (R-KY) cockblock, however informed it may be by crypto-racism and pure partisan politicking, than I do for the view that we should be happy with this bone that they throw us.
UPDATE: Cloture invoked, 57–42. Here's to not paying federal taxes.
I read yesterday's error message to the tune of The Who's "You Are Forgiven." Dang, dang, dang, dang, dang, dang, dang, dang.
"It takes a special writer to impress me one sentence and make me want to kill myself the next." —Subject line from an email, inadvertently forwarded to me with an email returning edits on a piece I'd written.
Please and thank you for e-mailing me or otherwise contacting me with your cell phone number, if you think I should have it. My old phone met its tragic demise at the bottom of a purse pool.
Too late do I realize that the guy who tried to steal my bike was hoping to do me a favor. Last night, riding home from the Townhouse Tavs, I fell off my bike and broke a rib. The longer version is whinier and more embarrassing, so I'd do better to keep that to myself. (Maybe I will share it on a vlog and finally realize this descent into utter ridiculousness that I find myself pursuing as of late.)
I walked away from the accident wary, as I'd felt a ping in my side, but convinced I was find because I didn't feel any pain. I even rode the rest of the five or so blocks home. Only this morning did I realize I walked away scathed after all: my leg was a horror show, and moving was not so much an option. On the bright side, I haven't been coughing, which is good news, because coughing is supposed to provoke a miserable cycle of violence (coughing, pain, more coughing, more pain); but putting on my pants this morning took approximately 45 minutes. As I was walking home from the hospital I pulled something out of my pocket, and a five-dollar bill fell out and fluttered to the ground. I stared at it longingly, but let it go in the end: apparently, I will pay $5 to not endure the pain of bending down.
Now, writing about art is less lucrative than you've been led to believe all these years. No one covers my benefits—national health care really can't come too soon for the long-suffering freelance members of the creative class—so, a while back, I bought a modest catastrophic coverage policy. In fact, I was shamed into doing so, perhaps inadvertently, by a (liberal) friend who said it was irresponsible and also unfair to go out in this trapeze of a world and expect society to catch me when I fall. But of course, the class of catastrophes that my insurance will consider (without the benefit of a ludicrous premium) is quite queer. I imagine that were my bike-oriented demise to put a dent in someone else's property, some ebenezer at insurance HQ would reluctantly issue a check to cover a fraction of his damages. I've always been a miser, but I'll pay $5 to spare myself extra pain; my insurance company won't pay a damned dime to help alleviate the cost of this injury. I'm not blegging, only moaning.
To add insult to injury, the bike is fine. Topanga leans there against the wall in smug self satisfaction, as if she played no part in this casualty.
On puns: Originally I was going to go with a Pavement reference (as that's what pounded me)—maybe touch on "Transport Is Arranged," the inspiration for the title of this very blog. But I must tip my hat to Amanda for the choice pun she let me steal.
On helmets: Bell helmets are both stylish and reliable. May I recommend one in matte black? I may, and I will.
On hospitals: Elizabeth Barrett Browning writes,
I think it frets the saints in heaven to seeWell. No worry of that at Howard University Hospital this morning, let me tell you, friend.
How many desolate creatures on the earth
Have learnt the simple dues of fellowship
And social comfort, in a hospital.
On drinking: I'm the sort who meets a really agreeable guy out at a bar and likes to cement the new friendship with way too many terrible shots. Agreeable guys, being so agreeable, will always respond in kind and with enthusiasm. There has to be a better expression of mutual admiration than the kamikaze.
On pity parties: Oh, I'll let you tell me.
I'm making my way over to Baltimore today for Artscape. Full report here by Monday. Holla at me if you're going.
Off to New York for a few days. When I went up last month, I scheduled a whirlwind daytrip and ran into a bunch of frustrations: such-and-such gallery was installing, so-and-so's gallery wasn't in fact opening until Thursday, summer hours, and so on. Why didn't anyone tell me that the MoMA is closed on Tuesdays? This time around, I'm swearing I'll get some work done.
So I have at least a good dozen ideas for things to write here, and some shows to discuss (and some shows to discuss that are now closed), but I'm much shorter on time than I thought I'd be at this point into the summer. This is good thing, as I was half worried that my freelance career might come to an end when I starved to death for lack of work.
I might post some things if I get any writing done on the bus ride awesome stealth jet trip up there. Otherwise, you should look around for writing this week in the City Paper, Express, and Onion.
Here's a note: I think I don't like Brooklyn, or rather the parts of Williamsburg I've had the good fortune to visit and stay in when I've been up there. If it's on a grid, I can't tell. There doesn't seem to be any way to get from north burrough to south, and some of the young hip kid activities that take place in McLaren Park are hopelessly, appalling, unforgivably twee.
On the other hand, it's not a far jog from there to this place, which might be my favorite restaurant.
If I've lent you a book, you may return it this summer without shame or late fee. There are some holes on my bookcase and I can't remember in every instance what used to fill them, so here's a post to jog your memory about that book you borrowed that one time that we've both since forgotten about.
Full posts RSS feed? Voila. If you'd rather sample a few words before you commit to reading a full post, lesser RSS feeds are available on the sidebar under "Syndicate".
I've been in New York for a few days and failed to note here that Artkrush mentioned G.p in its issue about the art blogosphere. Reading over it makes me feel first appreciation, and then guilt for drafting a post about the long offseason that awaits the Dallas Mavericks. Well, if Mark Cuban can get away with writing nothing about his team's humiliating defeat on his blog, I can too.
I've been keeping a wary eye on the pet food recall situation; to date, Wreck's favorite food—well, okay, not his favorite food, which is tortilla chips: the little guy really loves his tortilla chips—hasn't made an appearance. Cold comfort, though, as I watched Wreck get sick over and over tonight. I don't think he's ever been so ill. Hours later, now, he seems okay, asleep on his ratty dog pillow and twitching and woofing in that muffled dog-dream pitch, actually, as I write. With the dog there's no holding the hair back or suggesting some Vitamin Water; he's certainly no good for help cleaning up, and the best I can hope for, as I'm following him all around with paper towels, is that I don't ruffle him too hard when he looks at me with that look of total incomprehension over what his body's doing to itself, and in so doing make him puke pathetic all over again.
He's not quite done, I think, but it's too late for me to be too productive or noisy. In the interest of passing the time:
Oh, and have we ever talked about what an amazing literary convention the radio is for this show? All these folks associated with high-school football, tuning in as they drive to AM talk radio about the high-school football team.
A couple of Superpixel programs have made my life easier, and you might like them, too. Resize is an easy, free program for resizing image files—perfect for the Mac-based art & photo blogger in your life. Put is an absurdly handy little FTP client; use it when you want to jog a file (like an mp3) to your site without a lot of to-do. Put is strictly for uploading files, but that's just what you want in a quickee transfer. It's free, too.
The Boston Globe has the scoop. I'm doing my part to boost the Google presence of this critical exposé.
Mims's "This Is Why I'm Hot," explained graphically. I do so love a good Venn diagram.
It's about time for a redesign around here, no?
. . . is that, for reasons that passeth understanding, she runs her hairdryer every 20 minutes or so.
Back from Texas, feeling better after food poisoning (!), still reeling from the brackets-breaking loss to the dread Trojans, but ready to return these weathered, leathery hands to the soily business of writing about art.
We here at G.p headquarters have taken it upon ourselves to solve the spine-tingling case of the secret valentines. Preliminary findings follow.
Exhibit A: Valentines
File photographs of the valentines may be viewed via this link.*
Exhibit B: Princesses
Presumed to be pawns in the game of a master puppeteer. Characters with known records in related crimes are not being ruled out, but as intra-animated criminal activity falls under federal jurisdiction, they are excluded for the purposes of this report.
Exhibit C: Maryland
In 1629, George Calvert, 1st Lord Baltimore in the Irish House of Lords, fresh from his failure further north with Newfoundland's Avalon colony, applied to Charles I for a new royal charter for what was to become the Province of Maryland. George Calvert died in 1632, but a charter was granted to his son, Cæcilius Calvert, 2nd Lord Baltimore, later that year. Today, the State of Maryland is the second most wealthy state in the United States, with a median household income of $61,592. Maryland possesses a great variety of topography, hence its nickname: "America in Miniature." The state bird, the Baltimore Oriole, can be seen throughout the state and is a source of much pride for Marylanders. The Chesapeake Bay provides the state with its huge cash crop of blue crabs, and the southern and eastern portion of Maryland is warm enough to support a tobacco cash crop.
Another fact: Each mystery valentine was postmarked "Southern Maryland".
Figure 1: Victims
A Venn diagram depicting the social relations within the network of valentine recipients ("the victims") (click to enlarge). Catherine, who received the largest share of valentines, holds a central social position within the victims network.
A review of this network—including RSS analysis and IM interviews—has revealed at least five potential valentine senders ("the suspects"): Matt F—, Rob G—dsp—d, Kan/shka, the Nabob, and Drew McD—.
More information on these individuals is provided in Figure 2 and the following section.
Figure 2: Suspects
Figure 2 provides a detail of Figure 1 with suspects superimposed over their corresponding intersections within the victims network. Please consult Figure 1 for clarification of the network. NOTE: Everyone in the network unions with Catherine.**
Additional analysis has revealed a prime suspect, one who intersects with every element in the network.
Figure 3: Prime Suspect
Every suspect is innocent until proven guilty, Governess—but that's one mighty convenient alibi.
* Yglesias has concluded that a suspected copycat crime is in fact an unrelated incident.
** Huh-huh-huh
Thank you very much. Mr. Speaker, Vice President Cheney, members of Congress, distinguished guests, Spencer, fellow citizens: As we gather tonight, our nation is at war, our economy is in recession, my iPod's nowhere to be found, and the civilized world faces unprecedented dangers. Yet, it's my birthday. (Applause.)
Every year, by law and by custom, we meet on this day to consider my birth. It's pretty awesome, when you think about it, my being born. This year, we gather in this chamber deeply aware of decisive days that lie ahead. Thanks again for crowding into the dining room—can y'all hear in the back? (Applause.)
In all these days of promise and days of reckoning, we can be confident. In a whirlwind of change and hope and peril, my hearing is sure, my eyesight is firm, and my back is strong, for up to 12 consecutive hours a day. (Applause.)
Hey, you, jerks in the robes, you up front—the f? You're too good to clap? Someone let those pie-throwing protesters in here. (Applause.) Mm, pie—everybody loves pie.
In the coming day, there will be efforts to join me to see helicoprion skeletons at the National Geographic Museum, take me to the Wizards–Suns game, and buy me beers at the Tavs. I applaud all these efforts. (Applause.) Apparently, you do too.
Some might call this a good record; actually, I would, too. Pretty, pretty good. Tonight I ask for the House and Senate to join me in thanking friends and family for making the last year fun and to wish for an even better one at 27. And so long as I have the attention of the House and Senate, some representation in your august bodies would be appreciated. Also, Hillary Clinton must be stopped. (Roaring applause.)
Thanks for the well wishes! (Applause.)
Thanks, good day. (Applause.)
Seriously, y'all get out of my dining room. (Applause.)
I come to you with glad news from the front lines of the great war. For even as I speak does the tide turn in our favor, as the squirrel has been cast out into darkness, and the Heart of Dupont beats again with pride, and renewed vigor.
Verily did I go do battle with the squirrel, it is true. His beady black eyes shewn with wrath, and armed as I was with a broken broom and one of the Express boutique bags that line the floor of the fair lady's lair where the squirrel had taken residence, the outcome was uncertain. Briefly I hesitated before I entered the lair, remembering to don the Hoodie of Bevo—to think about the match's outcome had I not!, for several times did the creature reach for my extremities (though not that extremity), to gnash at them with his razor fangs or claw them with his . . . uh, claws, and once even lunging and landing for a spell on my head seriously like in my hair y'all.
Brave Spencer did second my effort, ready with mighty oven mitt to stand as the West's last best defence should my mission fail. Wettham Saiselgy did consider the matter with great philosphye, no doubt while listening to crystal-clear indie pop from Montreal on his kick-ass new speakers. And lo! was one of the mightiest of our number deceived! Taken in by the dark visions of the squirrel, fearless Wreck, Killer of Rats, turned in confusion on the Lady Catherine. (She was really cool about this and I was and still am so very sorry and glad that she's an understanding roommate and Wreck's so grounded.)
So the battle raged across all four square feet of Catherine's lair, with advantage changing hands e'er between the both of us; and for long did the squirrel evade my sight by taking refuge under the Lady's Helm of Wahoowah. Nearly did I give the animal the tools to bring about his escape, perhaps even victory (I shudder to think), since in my haste to acquire my armor I forgot to close the door again to my lair, which is down the hall (we have four lairs on the top floor), giving the squirrel an avenue of escape when I had chased him from the Lady's realm. Nevertheless, having screamed like a girl only twice, I did capture the squirrel and eject him to the outer darkness. Devil take him!
Heading back to the District. Flights and shuttles won't leave me much time to mess around on the webs, so keep yourself occupied with this Artnet year-end market report. Wow:
. . . 2,800 new auction records were set in the fine-art auctions of October and November 2006. Of these new records, 72 were over $1 million. In May 2006, 45 of the new record prices were for $1 million or more.It might yet take an act of god to curb the art market; of course, the catastrophic crashes of the dollar and global climate are both nigh, so we may yet see the day. It will be known that twilight of Western civilization featured a strong arts bubble, at least. Some artists are even prepared for it.
Anyway, the Artnet writer alleges that a weak dollar draws buyers from Europe even as the imbalanced domestic economy continues to create extravagant wealth (and new collectors). I'm curious about the dollar's role in the focus on American artists today. Project for the new year: Systematize art history (a la Moretti) by plotting plastic-arts trends against regional affluences and global currency dynamics. If other projects don't take precedence.
I did nothing to provoke it one way or the either, but the site's back up. May it always be.
I'm spending the day writing and putting things back in orbit, but over the course of the week I'll post about the fairs here. No tan, but Miami was outstanding nevertheless. The fairs were more conservative than I'd been led to expect, and the high-profile galleries brought as much blue-chip 60s art as new work by younger artists. I saw more Albers and Rauschenberg than I've seen anywhere. I'll also note here for the record that Artforum has the best brownies, period.
At least a couple of us are thankful for Charles for hosting Thanksgiving again for the area Tex-pats. The Cowboys lost the game this year, so Chaz will be serving some gloat, but also generous helpings of turkey, casseroles, fixins, and booze. Happy Thanksgiving, y'all.
Do me a favor? Leave a comment to test the all-new, terribly annoying, Turing test–enabled, comment spam–blocking plugin, will you? Here, let's do a poll. The focus of the new Democratic legislative majority should be:
Comments are off for now. I'm under a huge spam attack, and I can't tweak Movable Type's trojan horse intuitive spam-lookup system to both prevent this spammer's comments and permit mine and yours. (You see, the spam comment that wasn't blocked then becomes "trusted," and the lookup system gives me no way to ban e-mail addresses, usernames, or links or otherwise reconsider its decision to trust this 'bot.) I've given Movable Type a lot of money in the past in hopes of getting immediate and personalized support and fixing these problems—other people using Movable Type 3.2 don't seem to have them—and while they showed me how to clean out the tens of thousands of lines in the database, this is only a bandaid and it's super annoying. What I'm saying here is: Don't give Movable Type your money. Use Typepad or Wordpress instead.
It's not like I even get that many comments, but still, every one is a precious little gift to me. E-mail me for now; I'll probably install one of those annoying Turing tests or search for some other solution.
Back on after a week of technical difficulties. See, even though spam doesn't show up in the comments, it still shows appears in my database tables, hogging disc space. When I go over my limit, my host grounds me, but deleting the lines from the database (tens of thousands of them) wasn't doing the trick this time around. Many thanks to Becks for encouraging to stand up to my host and demand my SQL insert rights! It's an Election Day miracle.
Speaking of, and I don't know anything about anything, I'm on the books for a pickup of 23 House seats, 5 Senate seats, and 7 governors. (Chris Bell, I'm afraid, won't be one of them.) If we do win back the Senate today, I think it's important for the Democratic Party to honor appeals to not bog down the legislature in investigations & prosecutions and, instead, skip straight to the executions. The NRCC ought to be the first against the walls. To the polls, and the gallows beyond!
The New York Observer goes off the record with my roommate Spack and discusses his termination from TNR. Apparently, no one bothered to tell him that starting a blog is very 2003, but he went and did it anyway and turns out to be a total pro. He was d00ced within the week!
Also new but not really new to the nabe: Catherine and Tommy each have blogs (again). I should hope that they don't lose their jobs, too, but if Catherine does, it will mean that everyone in our happy home laptops it from the house and area cafes. Speaking of desktop publishing, I'll have more fascinating content on this site soon, but having lost a week to the flu and various personal crises I need to resume billable work first.
I forget that this blog isn't merely a web screen that I occasionally complain at, but also something a few people read. It's a surprise when, in real life (IRL), people say something like, "I was going to invite you to the baseball game [or whatever], but then, I read your blog; sorry about your news." And on the other hand, it's sometimes easy to forget that posting something on a vanity site doesn't count as conversation, especially with friends who don't read these things. Okay. Point being, thanks for kind wishes and thoughts, all. (And take me out to the ball game!) Should anything come up, I'll update.
I really appreciate that a number of you thought to forward to me information on the Andy Warhol Foundation writer's grant program, which of course I've been considering. After some thought over the weekend—well, after some thought, and after some late deliberations with the prospective publisher—I decided to sit out the first application round. I'm going to buff up my proposal, consider some other angles and research, and apply on the next go-round.
I find myself in the awkward position of admitting, too, that I'm concerned about taking on too many future obligations just right this minute. (Too many more than the projects I'm already working on, that is.) As it happens, this month has witnessed a downturn in both my parents' health. Recently, my mom began experiencing complications from a surgery she had several years ago to address a spinal injury; those complications mean more surgeries. My dad has apparently developed kidney problems very suddenly.
This isn't a hiatus announcement—I'll be around, though the foreseeable future may find me writing from Dallas for some stretches, and I don't think that would jibe with the proposal I had in mind. Maybe, though, it was overcautious of me to not apply if I couldn't commit. Mostly I say all this to explain that, rightly or wrongly, I decided I wasn't prepared to think about committing to my proposal. Plus, other reasons. So thanks to those of you who gave me advice—I appreciate 'cha—and don't steal my ideas while I'm mulling them over.
We got a house! We got a house! The long national nightmare is over, and Yglesias and I won't be homeless after all. It's got the ugliest goddamned floors you've ever seen—they're a color that might generously be termed "seafoam green," and it's impossible to say what, exactly, they're made of—but they're our goddamned floors, goddamnit. The place is near 13th and Florida NW, which the owner hilariously advertised as being in "Dupont Circle." The Seafoam House on Dupont!
Pardon me while I do the Snoopy dance.
If in an idle moment you've ever wondered what domestic life must be like for me and MY, here's a hint. I leave it to commenters to determine who plays whom. It must be said that I'm exceedingly drunk just now and that serious stuff is forthcoming. Happy weekend, all!
"Grammer.police" is listed as the Eponym blog of the day! I hate to look a gift horse in the mouth, so I'll note that the fine admins at Eponym correctly keyed this blog's punctuated title. My favorite eponym construction: the Waldorf salad. Although the source of the name is apocryphal, the leading theories each point to Waldorfs—albeit different ones:
It was first created in 1896 at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York by Oscar Tschirky who was the maitre d'hotel. (An alternative theory is that it was created by the Waldorf Lunch System, an early 20th C. lunchroom chain- starting in the 1920's the company logo was an apple.)It's also great for being the tastiest salad. I sometimes make one using baby spinach but typically stick to a lettuce and arugula mix. Some might say it's too liberal a stretch for a salad bearing the Waldorf brand, but I favor a lemon vinaigrette over the traditional mayo-based dressing. (It's the apples and walnuts that distinguish a salad as a Waldorf.)
I'm hoping that my first day as a full-time freelancer doesn't set the tone for the foreseeable future, since it seems to involve a lot of walking around the neighborhood looking for the dog, who escaped from the backyard at some point this morning. I figured on sweating a lot over, say, paying double FICA on the quarterly tax schedule that is mandatory for freelancers, not because the sun is crowding my 'do. So the jury's still out on my change in careers. And anyway, what does the dog do while Yglesias and I are at the office?
In any case, the blog is back. The database needed a month off, but all systems are go now. Tell your friends! Test the comments! Enjoy a Krackel! I'll get back to you after I find the Wreckage.
I've run into some wicked luck flying this year, but yesterday's experience takes the cake. I arrived only to find that my flight home from Chicago was canceled due to rain. Despite the fact that Chicago sees months of snow and even massive blizzards every year, a steady drizzle was enough to throw O'Hare off its game. (Now, if they'd blamed the Cubs, I'd've believed that.) I secured a ticket home this morning, but decided to try my luck flying standby before I shuttled to the hotel. Naturally, while I passed through security, the woman who checked my boarding pass marked it with a curious "P," which might stand for "pester," since I was hauled out of line for special security precautions. At which time the airline discovered a lighter in my pocket that the standard security gate failed to detect—a sign they read as a Plot Against America, rather than incompetence of a kind with canceling all outbound flights to the eastern seaboard at the first sign of April showers. (This post is brought to you by Midway Airport Co.)
But I skated through on that standy flight last night, which was delicious; many passengers didn't make it onto the flight, and Schadenfreude is the best compensation an airline can deliver. Anyway, you know you've got a severe puntuality problem when your friends aren't surprised that your flight returns late. Back in the District now and looking forward to writing about Nova. In the meantime, check in with Icono-Dan, who's back to blogging (and is a helluva nice guy IRL to boot).
Anyone receive any postcards yet? I uploaded pictures from Istanbul to Flickr, if you're interested in seeing them. Using my pedestrian point-and-click and foregoing both technical training and Photoshop software, I achieve results of a piece with recent themes advanced by the new German photographers, had they been struck or otherwise greatly confounded before shooting.
Unfortunately, Flickr abruptly restricted my alloted monthly bandwidth before I was able to completely upload my pictures. (That's called an F-stop.) So I have only images from the big three tourist destinations: Aya Sofia, Blue Mosque (pictured), and Topkapi Palace.
MT just chewed up a thousand words on "Dada." Mother of pearl! Given the subject, I think I'm going to, I don't know, smack someone with a mackerel. Shorter version, while I rewrite: the best moment in the show was when a U of Maryland student yelled out, "That concept is dope!"
Anyone know how I can make MT display Alt + [keystrokes] coded characters (e.g., accents, em dashes)? MT 3.2 seems to <3 the &whatever; command characters, but I'm used to doing it the other way and don't want to learn a new trick. Where I usually find an em dash by typing Alt + 0151, now I get —. It just won't do.
Thought I would have time for more writing today, but I have a last-minute errand or two to run before I take a combo of planes, trains, and automobiles to get to Baltimore airport. Then some flying, a layover at the Tate Modern, some more flying, Istanbul, lather, rinse, repeat.
But!
If you e-mail your address to me, I'll send you a postcard. No joshin. If it's not too Internet-y weird for you to get a postcard from some guy who has demonstrated that he can use a modem, a 3" by 4" piece of Turkish printed cardstock could be yours. Meatosphere friends, too; I don't know where y'all live.
JL is rappin bout Istanbul, which reminds me: I'm going there! Tomorrow! (Holy shit, tomorrow!) I hope you won't fret over the absence of exciting housekeeping posts while I take a weeklong furlough from dot-policing.
I'm feeling like old Yves about my predeparture to-do list—lots of packing left and probably a little panicking, too. This is my first trip abroad since Moscow in 2003, but moreover, it's the first expedition I've taken that wasn't preceded by a college-level art history or language course. I think I've taken the right steps to educate myself, but only yesterday I discovered there is an entire class of regional mythological creature of which I was previously unaware: daevas! Let's Go: Pandaemonium is silent on this score.
Dearth of knowledge aside, I'm terribly excited. In great detail I just told the local deli cashier, who's never given me any real indication that he understands English, about my ongoing negotiations with Volkan the Hotelier, who frankly doesn't want my business if he thinks I'm paying tourist-season rates once the calendar flips to March 1. Anyway, I'm dusting off my Byzantine texts (heh) and will see some of Turkey's contemporary stuff, but I'm there to spend a week on the Bosphorus with my lady. See you back here in a week.
UPDATE: Of course! Can't forget to mention that I'm adding to my global funny hat collection. The top model I already own; the bottom will soon be mine.
