Sara-Toga Party:
A very happy birthday to my friend Jessa, who threw down something great this weekend for her 30th birthday. I haven’t been to a cookout, thrown by someone’s mom, in many a moon. I miss it.
iSuppose:
Thanks to some seriously fierce curating from my buddy George, I’m now familiar with the possibilities behind apple’s new iTunes feature, iMix. Ostensibly it allows you create a mix from iTunes’s music library and let your friends know about it.
Neat idea. Here are a few ways it could be better…
1. Search Functionality: I only know about George’s mixes because he told me. Shouldn’t I be able to go to iMix, type in someone’s user name and see their mixes, just like I can see their Wish List on Amazon?
2. The 30 second rule. How about letting people hear songs on iMixes in their entirety and then limiting the number of times you can play before you by? 15 30-second fragments does not a mix make.
3. My iMixes. The home page of iMix is either a set of the most top rated mixes or the most recently added, both of which are useless pieces of information. The essence of a mix isn’t what’s on it but who gives it to you. A mix from a stranger is just a random collection of songs. So how about my own page with my mixes and links to my friends and theirs? A little social software action up in this piece?
Or maybe that’s where they are headed…
Home:
Back home now. A wild two days in Baltimore, complete with a 10 year reunion concert of the Mental Notes, a singing group that several friends of mine began our senior year at Hopkins. One of the original members remarked that current Mental Notes were 8 when the group began. Dayammmmnnn!
The Hillel dedication was amazing. All these familiar faces from Jewish Baltimore that I remember from my days at the BJT, the beautiful building with meeting rooms, religious services, a library and an activities center that will serve the Hopkins Jewish community for generations. My dad looked happier than I’ve seen him in a long time. I’m super proud of both my parents for putting their money where their heart is.
Now I’m home, trying to get caught up but not killing myself. May is a rather light month which just a few magazine assignments, little book business and a Litquake item or two before I leave for BEA the first weekend of June.
Off I go.
Merry All ‘Round:
What exactly is so strange about a grown man alone on a merry-go-round? And why does it merit the attention of one cop, three photographers, and maybe two dozen squealing tourists and their kids?
Its Friday afternoon. I’m in Bryant Park, right next to the New York Public Library, sending off an article for The Believer. Bryant Park is the town square of wireless access in New York City, one big green laptop heaven.
I spellcheck one more time, hit send and it’s gone. A week’s worth of work nearly 6,000 written and rewritten words. And I’m done. I have to celebrate.
It’s a beautiful afternoon. The park is teaming with folks drinking, chatting, making merry. What can I do? I was tempted to dash across the Great Lawn in triumph but it’s closed for resotting and I try to only make a spectacle of myself in my hometown.
Then I see the merry-go-round. I flash quickly to the end of Catcher in the Rye and start walking.
“How many people do you need to get this thing moving?” I ask the friendly ticket booth lady. The merry-go-round is stopped. There is nothing sadder than a still merry-go-round.
“Just one” she says and smiles at me.
I pay my ticket and hop on board. A medium-sizes brown horse calls out. I grad his mane and climb on.
And I ride.
A merry-go-round is a joy when you’re all grown up and not terrified of falling off. You can ride side saddle, lean waaaayyyy back in the stirrups or even off the side of the horse and over the ground below. No one cares, especially when you’re the only one on the merry-go-round.
I’m getting into it, a few heavy leans, a “Yee haw!” or two. A couple stop and start filming me with a video camera. A tall teenage girl starts shooting pictures. The Bryant Park cop stares as if to say “Right, today he rides. Tomorrow he’s molesting todlers.” Three sets of children are waving. Folks sitting at the tables bordering the ride gape uncomfortably.
I have a great time.
When the Italian Um-pa-pa song finishes up, I slide off, thank the nice woman running the thing and head for the subway. It’s the best $1.75 I’ve spent in New York, the sun is shining, I’m free for the weekend.
If I lived here, I’d do this every Friday.
Q:
Avenue Q is a dippy, corny little musical my mom and I went to last night. It had been years since I’d seen a show on Broadway and, puppets? I’m always down for puppets.
Avenue Q is about a street in a forgotten part of Manhattan and everyone, puppets, monsters, and humans alike who lives on it. Everyone is in their mid to late 20’s trying to figure out like. The puppeteers are visible as as actors on stage. Their facial expressions mimic those of their puppet friends.
It’s creative and clever as hell and lots of fun. It ain’t much of a musicial if you care about stuff like that (I don’t). The songs are bland and barely necessary. You’ll learn nothing about life you didn’t know after one semester in college. But the puppets, man! God bless those puppets. And mega dap to Rick Lyon, the genius who designed them all.
Oh and there’s a character named Gary Coleman. Who is Gary Coleman in the story. Played by someone who is not Gary Coleman. Don’t ask.