A while back my friend and teammate Julian Yeo, a jazz-singing accounting professor, asked me to write him a very short story. It's a quick mood-setting thing for the liner notes of his new album, Deep Purple Dreams, about the character Julian used as a touchstone while recording and choosing songs for the record. The disc will be out in January, ( Read more... )

Okay, I'll shut up about this soon, I swear.

Things I learned about appearing at the Ed Sullivan Theatre last night:

1. The studio is tiny. I guess it would have to be, to fit into your television.
2. It is cold in there. I mean, you hear that sometimes from the guests or whatever. But they don't mention that it's chilly enough for the air coming out ( Read more... )

So, um, I'm going to be on Letterman tonight, part of the chorus backing up Ray Davies and doing Kinks songs. Set your DVRs, or check it out on the Letterman show website when it goes up tomorrow. The performance is to support his current tour, which has two nights' performances at Town Hall on Thursday and Friday. I'll be in those too. (Tickets ( Read more... )

Soren "Scraps" DeSelby, aka baldanders, seems to be having another stroke. He and Velma (roadnotes) are at the hospital now. Please please send him whatever mojo you can muster. Both of them, actually. And spread the word. Oh, fuck. Fuck. This is so not fair.

The place to go for updates will be Making Light.

Dear Molly Lewis:

I'd never heard of you before Jonathan Coulton Twittered about this video this morning. And I don't really have much of a file on Lady GaGa.

But I love you.

Click to view

Fuck you, Maine.

But even more: Fuck you, Mr. President. Fierce advocate, my ass. You did not lift Finger No. 1 to discourage this result. In fact, for all that sunshine you blew our way when you needed our money and our enthusiasm to put you in that White House, you have done surprisingly little of real significance to actually promote the idea ( Read more... )

Recently found in a pile in front of our building's mailboxes: the new issue of the magazine Hybrid Mom. There was a smiling blonde on the cover, wearing a cute-yet-sensible pink long-sleeved T-shirt over a black sports bra. She stood on some random stretch of Pacific seashore and held a volleyball.

Of course I grabbed a copy as soon as I saw it, ( Read more... )

I should really be in bed at this point, but instead I need to share this with everyone.

It started with the UN job: suddenly I had time to kill on the subway again, time enough to read or whatever. Back when I worked for the kids' dotcom, I read books. When there were lots of trips to the offices of Major Publication, I read the New Yorker. But ( Read more... )

So another couple of months pass, and it's August in NYC. It's muggy and hot; it rains every now and then; we go to the beach when we are able. When you go to swim practice you don't have to wedge eighty-leven pounds of overcoat boots hats gloves sweater flannel-lined trousers into the locker, rumpling your work shirt beyond redemption.

Life here ( Read more... )

Via Rachel Maddow, I learn that Jill McDonough just won the Pushcart Prize for her lovely poem "Accident, Mass. Ave." Go read.