February 2010
37 posts
Amid the dross on the Studio One DVDs, Rod Serling’s episode “The Strike” is actually quite good.
January 2010
42 posts
Four Faces West (1948): Petroglyphic graffiti. 3/5
The 5 inches of fluffy powder snow already on the ground, with more coming, have put the kibosh on theater plans.
For tomorrow: student productions of Albee, Ives, Dorothy Parker, et al. at Georgetown Day School.
Riding shotgun on Leta’s WATCH assignment: Scapino at LTA.
10 cents more a trip to maintain current Metro headways: a good deal.
Dang, I’ve forgotten to bump the copyright date on the main blog again.
Safeway is always a better bet than Giant Food for peculiar supermarket Muzak. Today’s offering: a violin-heavy “Torn between Two Lovers.”
Moon (2009): Fairly silly and obvious, but you could do worse than watching Sam Rockwell talk to himself for 90 minutes. 3/5
“I’m Gonna Make You Mine” (Lou Christie) + bass ostinato - girl-group backup singers = “Every Breath You Take” (The Police).
Two shows, two chats with Ivàn working box office.
Cornus florida displays sympodial (“conjoined feet”) branching (“several twigs originate from a common branch point and are raised and spreading above the branch plane, like extended fingers from an upturned palm”).
For WATCH this weekend: The Lion in Winter and Reefer Madness, the Musical.
A neighbor’s wheeled trash can, stoved in, collapsed under last month’s plowed snow and slush, finally emerges from the last of the melting crunchy stuff.
Dinosaur Economics.
At Shorpy: a beautiful deep-perspective image of an express track on the IRT shortly before the line opened for revenue service.
We’re getting new canopies over the north side bus bays at West Falls Church. Too bad that the supporting framework doesn’t harmonize with the existing bus shelters (which were recently painted).
Arabesque (1966): Too much Stanley Donen in this Stanley Donen pic. 2/5
The Capstronaut gets an invitation to the owner’s box, reports Sommer Mathis. Is Ted Leonsis the anti-Snyder or what?
My beat-up field notebook is going to Newark, Del.
Wattstax (1973): Thanks to Wright for the tip. 3/5
Surely I’m not the first person to hear a big slice of Glenn Miller’s “Moonlight Serenade” in Brian May’s guitar solo that forms the middle section of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”? ‘Sfunny, for years somehow I thought I was hearing a Gershwin sample.
Finished the epidemiology text, so I put in about 45 minutes on a rush job, Puckett and Black, Meaningful Assessments of the Young Child, 3/e.
Louis Stettner’s Penn Station street photography: Timeless.
(Thx: wood s lot.)
First evening class in winter tree ID: we meet the madcap horse in opposition.
The music from Show Boat is particularly adhesive brain gum.
New batch of books on the free proofs shelf.
The Enforcer (1951): “Burn that tent you’re wearing and get yourself a suit!” 2/5
Tech rehearsal this morning for the festival, and we eventually got everything done that was needed. It’s pretty cool to get to work in the booth of Round House’s black box in Silver Spring.
A robin roosting in the bare pear tree outside the window of the studio gives me the fish-eye: why are you inside where it’s warm while I’m out here?
Automatic refactoring awesomeness: Eclipse’s Extract Method finds all matching code sequences in the class file and replaces them with calls to the new extracted method.
Yum: Sybil Kapoor makes porridge.
(Thx: The Morning News.)
It’s too early to be thinking about dinner, but I am hungry anyway.
La Belle Noiseuse (1991): Ars longa, and sometimes noisy and scratchy. 3/5
What type are you? (password: character)
(Thx: things magazine.)
Looking at the ground plan for next week’s mini project.
I heard a gloppy arrangement of “Smile” sung by Michael Jackson that made me want to do anything but.
Away We Go (2009): Some lovely, touching passages. 3/5
Too many conversations about ailing parents at today’s holiday open house.
Back home and recovering from vacation.
The free wi-fi at OAK supported by framed ads is just as annoying as it was last summer.
Waiting at gate 17. We’re very early.