Friday, January 23, 2004 ::: The new reliable source isn't nearly as good as the old one, but hopefully it will improve with age. In the meantime, there is the recently debuted wonkette, serving up washington gossip a la gawker, its more glamorous cousin.
Thursday, January 22, 2004 ::: So it seems I have been neglecting the sidebar lately. I'll be doing some pruning and planting, including dc area glbt blogs and dc bloggers. And yes, I know this post has note to self written all over it. That's what it is.
Wednesday, January 21, 2004 ::: Ay, it's been quite a week. I'm trying to be disciplined about reading and taking care of the rest of my life and yet nonetheless am astonished by my own ability to waste time.
Right now I'm reading Les Miserables, which I'm sure I blogged about before cause it is one very long book I've been reading since about september or so. I'm about three quarters of the way through. There are some things that I simply love about this book - I love Victor Hugo's digressions on human nature and observations about the general state of the world, observations that almost invariably are as true today as they were in 1858. I love his obvious familiarity with every boulevard, street and alleyway in Paris, down to the last cobblestone and the paint peeling off a sad little windowsill. Nonetheless, the book has some slow points. The first hundred or so pages about the soporifically good bishop of Digne should just be skipped by the reader. The bishop is nice. He is nice to everyone, including the recidivist Jean Valjean. That's really all you need to know. Once Marius and Cosette finally meet, something seems amiss in the pace. The coming riot has a certain anticlimactic quality. I find Cosette a little bland. Marius too a little, although I must admit I have a bit of a literary crush. But of course we're supposed to like them both. eh. I guess I'll wait until I finish before I come to more of a conclusion on the matter.
Monday, January 12, 2004 ::: I bought the director's cut of Amadeus which has great commentary from Milos Forman in his thick slavic accent. Read up a bit more on the Mozart/Salieri rivalry (or non-rivalry) and apparently a lot of the legend stems from a play by Pushkin later adapted into an opera by Rimsky-Korsakov. The movie also takes a great deal of dramatic license regarding the writing of mozart's requiem, which was secretly commissioned by one Count von Walsegg for his recently deceased wife. This count would host concerts and pretend that he had written the music, having copied the original score into his own handwriting, although no one was really fooled by his pretensions.
I've also been reading the January 12, 2004 New Yorker, which has some very interesting articles on defense contracting, suv safety (written by malcolm gladwell, whose writing can make anything interesting) and plastic bag in tree removal, which includes this fabulous line: "Bette Midler, as people know, is an enemy of litter, and she shares our opinion of bags in trees."
Sunday, January 04, 2004 ::: Another application done and sent. One left! Still busy, now trying to catch up on everything else I've been otherwise putting off. Christmas was nice, went up to Deep Creek Lake and went cross-country skiing.
I've been listening a lot to iTunes and among the playlists is the 25 most listened to, which is really kind of strange - are these my favorite songs? There are some that I've marked with my highest rating that I've barely listened to. iTunes seems to select some things much much more than I would choose. Anyway, this is my iTunes top 25 at the moment:
The Pogues - I'm a man you don't meet every day
Annie Lennox - A Thousand Beautiful Things
Hooverphonic - Electro Shock Faders
Rufus Wainwright - Movies of Myself
Pet Shop Boys - West End Girls
Rufus Wainwright - Complainte de la Butte
Belly - Angel
Belly - Star
Cardigans - Paralyzed
Catherine Wheel - Mouthful of Air
Dead Can Dance - The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove
Moloko - Absent Minded Friends
The Smiths - Some Girls are Bigger than others
Thompson Twins - Doctor Doctor
Cardigans - My Favourite Game
Catherine Wheel - Bill and Ben
Dukes of Stratosphear - Brainiac's Daughter
Lush - Kiss Chase
The The - This is the Day
A-Ha - Take on Me
Beatles - Martha my Dear
Catherine Wheel - Wish you were Here
Chapterhouse - Greater Power
Pixies - Monkey Gone to Heaven
St. Etienne - Goodnight Jack
