Verbal diarrhea?

I just submitted a record review to the Washington City Paper. Their guidelines recommend a length of 700 to 2,000 words for music reviews. With a title and a byline, I managed to eek out 798 words, and that after stretching to find something negative about the record just to contradict the New York Times. Who in their right mind could write 2,000 words about a CD?! No recording, good or otherwise, needs to have that much written about it. The better the record, the less commentary it should need, and one can take this argument to its logical extreme and say that a truly great album needs nothing at all -- the music stands on its own 100%. That's pushing it, I realize. We are creatures of analogy and similarity, and even a sublime album could benefit from a few words about roughly what the listener should expect, in general terms. But 2,000 words?! Give me a break.

More of the same

Yesterday, Putin's government barred Mikhail Kasyanov, one of the opposition candidates, from the upcoming Russian presidential election on the pretext that some of the signatures he had to gather to get on the ballot were forged. What's new, right? But a couple of things struck me.

First of all, I would not be at all surprised if the signatures were forged – a megalomaniac tyrant without a democratic bone in his body like Putin no doubt inspires opposition that is worthy of him. But let's be charitable and assume they were all genuine. The polls show that even if the opposition candidate was allowed to run and the election was held fairly (which it won't be), he would stand no chance of winning or even making a credible threat to Putin's anointed successor. The national television, to whose coverage he would be entitled if he ran, already excoriates him at every opportunity. Wouldn't allowing him to run provide Putin with a perfect opportunity to use him as “evidence” that Russia does in fact have a democratic process in place?

It is true that there is already a candidate in place that is serving this function – his signatures (also suspected by some of having been forged, by the way) have recently been certified as legit. You would think the more the better – if neither one is a realistic threat, why admit one and exclude the other? There is only one obvious difference – Kasyanov is perceived as being influenced by the West. So we're back to the irrational, xenophobic, jingoistic fear of the West simply because it is the West. More specifically, in classic Orwellian fashion, what Putin is afraid of is the flow of information in from the West, and anything or anyone that is perceived to be facilitating this flow will be creatively eliminated. As I said, what's new, right?

Playing vs. listening

The other night, I felt an urge to take up the guitar again. I haven't owned a guitar, let alone played one, in years, and thought I was done for good. I was never dedicated enough to sound good even to myself, much less to others, so giving up was the responsible thing to do. The other night, though, I was reading an essay by Edward Rothstein, included in Joan Peyser's The Orchestra: Origins and Transformations, on the evolution of the music fan through the centuries, and he pointed out that while in the XIX century, people who were into music almost always played instruments, today they almost never do.

The invention of recording bears most of the responsibility for this – before recordings became widespread, there were two ways to hear music: go to a concert, or play it yourself. Today, in addition to those two, you can also put on a record. Concerts are still well-attended (surprisingly so, some might say), but of the other two, which requires less effort? You guessed it. What Rothstein points out, though, is that musicians and non-musicians listen differently, and pay attention to different aspects of a performance. A musician must pay attention to the physical experience of manipulating an instrument, dynamics, relationships between multiple voices, etc. A non-musician needs to do nothing more than register the main melody and overall mood of a work. I'm not going to reproduce Rothstein's entire argument here, but among other things, he traces the very concept of a “catchy tune” to a civilization of non-playing music fans.

This is understandable, but a little sad, I think. There is nothing wrong with enjoying a live performance or even a good recording of a great piece of music as a passive listener. It can be transformative, in fact. But I am probably missing out a bit. A greater awareness of what it means to play music would affect the way I digest a work when I listen. Rothstein says that it definitely would, and in profound ways. Learning an entirely new instrument at my age would be too steep a mountain to climb, but perhaps if I went back to an instrument I have had at least some contact with in the past would reduce the price of admission somewhat. A playable nylon-string guitar can be had for as little as $100 these days – no excuse not to make a fool of myself all over again, right?

Strong Beers Tasting

Went to the Strong Beers tasting at the Brickskeller last night with C.S. and a few of his friends. It's been a while since I've attended one of their tastings. It seemed smaller and more quiet than in years past, but it may have been due to the theme of this particular tasting -- these were not your everyday beers. To some extent they are experiments on the part of their respective brewers who want to see how far they can push the envelope. They were all very strong, sometimes overpowering, both in alcohol and flavor, intense winter seasonal brews. All tended to de-epmphasize the fresh, floral hoppiness of classic American microbrews and were, to a greater or lesser degree, sweet. There were only two beers that I could see myself drinking in any quantity. All breweries were more or less local to the Washington-Baltimore area. What follows are my highly unscientific observations about each one, in order in which they were served.

Gordon Biersch (Rockville, MD) Alte Bock
Style: Single Bock (German ale). 6.5% ABV. Dark tan color. Cloudy appearance. Not much of a nose. Reasonably balanced on the palate, creamy feel, fairly dry compared to the rest, with reasonably pronounced hops. The least intimidating and one of two most drinkable of the bunch. Soon to be available on draft at GB Rockville.

Brewer's Alley (Frederick, MD) Scotch Ale
Style: Scotch Ale. 8% ABV. Reddish color. Nose is initially sweet, eventually I thought I detected some gingerbread and prunes. Sweet on the palate, no hops, no bitterness, but reasonably fruity. A little one-dimensional for my taste, but reasonably well put together. Available now on draft at Brewer's Alley.

Red Brick Station (Baltimore, MD) 2006 Highlander Wee-Heavy
Style: Wee-heavy (Scottish strong ale). 10% ABV. Dark reddish-brown color. Weak nose. Smoky on the palate. Also somewhat bitter, but not a hoppy kind of bitterness. This beer was barrel-aged for four years. Interesting, but I would not want a pint or even a goblet. Current vintage available at Red Brick Station, if memory serves.

Wharf Rat (Baltimore, MD) Hot Monkey Love
Style: Who knows. Probably American strong ale tending towards barley wine. 10% ABV. Dark brown color. Very funky on the nose. First whiff said "dirty kitchen sponge" until I realized that what I was smelling was intense fresh yeast, like a big lump of cake yeast. Also -- go ahead and laugh me out of the house for this (one of C.S.'s friends did) -- I detected some dried bananas. Not the crunchy banana chips you find in trail mix, but the Asian-style ones. They are dried whole until they are rubbery and sticky, and have a distinctive smell (they are very good, by the way). That's what this beer smelled like. On the palate, surprisingly complex and drier than expected, with grassy notes. Maybe some celery. It is brewed with 120 lbs. of clover honey per batch, and wins the award for best name. Way too intense to drink in any quantity. Available (I think) at both Wharf Rat locations.

Gordon Biersch (Washington, DC) Baltic Porter
Style: Dark lager. Apparently, this type of beer was actually somewhat popular at the turn of the last century in certain parts of Central and Eastern Europe -- Northern Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine. It was a local approximation of Russian Imperial Stouts made in England for Russian aristocracy. 8% ABV. Very dark brown color. Strong coffee on the nose. Coffee and chocolate on the palate, with a noticeable Germanic shrimpy notes from the lager yeast. Very drinkable and hands down my favorite of the bunch. Currently on draft at GB DC. I'm going.

District Chop House (Washington, DC) Double Bock
Style: Double Bock. 9.3% ABV. Almost black in color. Plasticky on the nose. Fruity on the palate, but one-dimensionally sweet. None for me, thank you.

Franklin's (Hyattsville, MD) Imperial Stout
Style: Imperial Stout. 10% ABV. Classic stout look -- black. Coffee on the nose, but also very perfumy. Balanced and smooth on the palate. Very impressive, but too strong to drink in quantity. Available for a little while longer on draft at Franklin's.

Sweetwater Tavern (Merrifield, VA) High Desert Imperial Stout
Style: Imperial stout. ABV: neglected to write down. Black color. Slightly smoky and tarry on the nose. Some bitterness on the palate, especially in the finish, but like the Highlander, not a hoppy bitterness. One of C.S.'s friends described it perfectly: blackstrap molasses.

DuClaw (Baltimore, MD) Hybrid Strong Ale
Style: Strong ale/barley wine. ABV: 21.92%. I kid you not. Evidently, it has been independently verified by a lab (hence two decimal places). Clear amber color. Candy on the nose. Cloyingly sweet on the palate -- cola and ripe strawberries. Sheer insanity.

One of the topics of discussion, both in the audience's questions and among the brewers, was the current US hops shortage. A crop failure is sending prices through the roof and making availability tight, but apparently there is a more permanent problem -- hop growers in the Pacific Northwest are tearing out their hop vines and planting apple orchards instead for economic reasons. The brewers tried to put up a front of optimism by saying that other varieties of hops will eventually be grown by others and/or elsewhere, resulting in some interesting new flavors down the line, but I got a sense that they are worried.

Grmiaud vs. Ashkenazy

A while ago, I pitted Hélène Grimaud’s rendition of Beethoven’s Tempest sonata against that of Andras Schiff. Grimaud’s most recent CD is that of Beethoven’s Emperor concerto (No. 5, E-flat) accompanied by the Dresden Staatskapelle under Vladimir Jurowski (about whom I know nothing). I own the CD, and since in addition to it, I also have a recording of Vladimir Ashkenazy performing the Emperor with the Chicago Symphony under Solti (part of a complete cycle of Beethoven concertos), I figured another comparison would be fun.

I should start out by saying that the comparison is not entirely fair. Grimaud was recorded barely a year ago, in December of 2006, while Ashkenazy dates back from the early 1970s; it was digitally remastered for a CD release in the mid-1990s. As a result, the Grimaud disc sounds vastly better. The orchestral accompaniment in particular sounds rich, with each instrument clearly delineated and recorded with impressive fidelity to its natural timbre. The orchestral tracks on the Ashkenazy disk, by comparison, sound a bit like a muddy mess. Still, for its vintage, it sounds good enough to attempt a meaningful comparison.

It would be fair to say that the two interpretations are not dramatically different. Neither one is radical. A listener who already has a copy of one does not need to spend money to buy a copy of the other. That said, identifiable differences do exist. The most obvious one is once again in the recording – on the Grimaud disc, the balance overwhelmingly favors the soloist. It is clear that the orchestra is there to accompany and provide support. The focus is unrelentingly on Grimaud herself. Ashkenazy, by contrast, is more of an equal partner with the Chicago Symphony. The balance is even, and both the soloist and the orchestra command roughly the same amount of attention. In that respect, the Ashkenazy/Chicago approach actually appeals to me more. Beethoven’s orchestral writing in the Emperor is so rich, varied and interesting that it’s a shame to gloss over it.

Solti’s tempos are a little slower than Jurowski’s. They are not slow in an absolute sense, but the difference is noticeable, and once again I think Solti’s approach works better. He directs his orchestra with enough brio not to lose the momentum, but at the same time I think the music benefits from a little deliberation, and Solti’s experience trumps Jurowski’s youthful (judging by the liner photos, at least) energy. Beyond tempos, Chicago’s Emperor, especially in the first movement, sounds more ceremonial, weighty, more, well… imperial. Normally, I shy away from such pompous renditions, preferring more casual approaches, but here I think it works to the music’s advantage. So on the orchestral front, the Ashkenazy disc wins.

The soloists are another matter. Grimaud is more passionate and emotional throughout the concerto, especially on the first and last movements. In the rubato introduction, her rhythm is more free, she almost syncopates her phrases. By comparison, Ashkenazy sounds mechanical and robotic, and continues to sound that way throughout the movement. This is all relative, mind you – Ashkenazy is not bad, he is a virtuoso of the highest caliber, and there is enough emotion in his playing to result in a solid, satisfying interpretation. In a side by side comparison, however, Grimaud, aided no doubt by the de-emphasized orchestra, swept me off my feet with her feeling.

The difference is the least pronounced in the slow movement. Here, the music obscures any variance in interpretation. I don’t normally dwell on slow movements. They can frequently be, not to put too fine a point on it, plain boring. Not so in the Emperor. It is breathtakingly gorgeous music, but even beyond that, every time I hear it, I am struck with just how modern it sounds. It is impossible to believe that it was composed in 1809. Both Grimaud and Ashkenazy, and both orchestras, do it full justice.

If I were to take the relative age of the recordings and the resulting difference in audio quality out of the equation, and assign points in various categories, I would have to call the comparison a tie. Ashkenazy/Chicago win on the orchestral front, but Grimaud edges Ashkenazy out as a soloist, even if by a tiny margin. Fundamentally, though, it doesn’t really matter – both are first-rate recordings, even a demanding listener would be happy with either.

A bit of a personal disclaimer, though I am not sure it has any bearing on anything: decades ago in Moscow, long before I was born, my father, even though he was much younger, knew Ashkenazy’s father personally; they frequently played chess backstage. Ashkenazy’s sister was also a talented pianist and an aspiring soloist in the mid-1960s. When Ashkenazy defected to the UK, however, the Soviet government destroyed her budding career in retaliation.

Gas caps

Ford has reported that it is eliminating the gas cap on all US-market vehicles. It will use a capless self-sealing mechanism instead, eliminating the hassle and potential loss of the cap and providing a better seal of the tank that will result in reduced fumes. Great idea, right? Of course... except in Washington, DC. How much do you want to bet that the DC DMV, which conducts a gas cap test as part of its vehicle inspection (the only test, I should point out, that my car has ever failed when I lived in DC), is not going to have any idea what to do with a capless Ford, will fail every single one, and when told that the car does not come with a gas cap, will yell at the owner to go buy one?

Told you so

A little over a month ago, when Russia accused the British Council, a UK cultural and educational organization, of operating illegally in Russia as retaliation for expelling Russian diplomats, I predicted how the dispute would unfold. I am sad to report that I was absolutely correct.

Rant: Complexity

For the first time in my life, I am feeling truly overwhelmed by complexity.

One of my main responsibilities at work is the maintenance and enhancements of a certain software system. The system has been built by others who no longer work at my company. It has been a nightmare; a nightmare of a sort that doesn't have to happen. The system is perversely complex and obfuscated relative to the work that it performs. It takes me days – days! -- to answer simple questions about the system. This, to me, signals a resounding failure on the part of the original designers. Albert Einstein knew whereof he spoke when he said that everything should be a simple as possible. Granted, he added “but no simpler,” but that is exactly the point – the monstrosity currently in front of me could have been way, way less complex without violating the “but no simpler” clause.

The reason for this nightmare is simple – arrogance. The system is written in a certain programming language, and it abstracts and models certain entities and aspects of the application domain. It is, pardon the cliché, bigger than a breadbox, but we're not launching ICBMs, either. Normal, workaday stuff. The original creators, however, used every single feature of the language in question, and every single modeling technique in vogue at the time. Just because they could. They clearly thought they were hot stuff, and since no one had enough guts (or enough understanding) to put their foot down, they went wild, and now I get to deal with the consequences. Would that I were here in those days.

Spanish class

First Spanish class last night. Completely entry-level, for people with no previous experience with the language. It went well, and I must admit that while no foreign language is easy in objective terms, Spanish does seem to live up to its reputation of being relatively easily grasped by a beginner. To compare with French, the only other language I've studied in a classroom setting, Spanish is far easier not only actually to pronounce, but to understand and remember how letters are pronounced. Silent letters are always silent. Non-silent letters are pronounced the same exact way every time, or, at most, two different ways based on the letter that follows. Certain sounds that we have in English do not exist. The instructor claimed that there are only twelve basic sounds in Spanish – six vowels and six consonants. While that is a bit of an oversimplification, it is not that far from the truth. And before I am accused of overstating the case because of my knowledge of French which, like Spanish, is a romance language, I should point out that I am not talking about myself – I am talking about a class of about 25 people ranging in age from college student to retirement.

Sure, people did have the kinds of trouble that you might expect native speakers of American English to have. The rolling “r,” especially the double-”r”, which is actually a separate letter in the Spanish alphabet, gave people grief. Even those few who could roll their “r”s could not hear the different between the two. The distinctly emphasized “d” was a challenge – people tended to deemphasize it the way we do in English, which made it sound like the Spanish “r,” and claimed not to be able to hear the difference. There was one woman who, while she was catching onto the concepts relatively quickly, spoke with such a pronounced San Fernando Valley accent and inflection that it was difficult not to laugh. She looked the part, too – bleached blond hair, tanning-booth tan and a pink sweatshirt. To think that in most Spanish-speaking countries, she would be the archetypal American...

By and large, however, people were getting it. After about two hours of class, everyone was able to read simple prose from the first few pages of the textbook with minimal stumbling, and make themselves comprehensible. Try that with French or German! I attribute the success rate to the ubiquity of Spanish in our daily life. In any urban area in the US these days, there is simply no way to avoid hearing it – you hear it in stores, you hear it on the radio, you hear it blaring from low-riders on a Saturday night. And our brains absorb it, whether we realize or not, and become comfortable with its sound. It may be a foreign language, but it is a lot less foreign than just about any other.

From the “Only in Washington, DC” Department:
Only in Washington, DC, do you learn how to say “Environmental Protection Agency” in the first few minutes of an introductory foreign language class. For the record, it is Agencia de Protección Ambiental.

Rustico

Dinner at Rustico with a couple of friends last night. With a perfect combination of creative new cuisine and bar favorites and a beer list that makes the Brickskeller seem old and dusty, it has become one of my favorite restaurants in the area a while ago, and last night only reinforced it. Though I was very tempted by the curry and sweet potato soup, it was a cold and rainy night, and I was in the mood for comfort food, so I opted for pizza. I had had Rustico's pizza before, but for some reason it tasted particularly good last night – the crust had a perfect yeasty chewiness to it, and the anchovies seemed extra plump. Against my better judgment, I ate the entire thing. An even bigger highlight, however, was Gouden Carolus Noël – a Belgian Christmas seasonal ale which I had never had before. Belgian Christmas ales, as much as I like them, can get a little syrupy, but this one was perfectly balanced and far less sweet than I expected. It had a slightly resiny quality and a pronounced flavor of black liquorice. Delicious; strong at 10.5% ABV, but Rustico gave me a sensibly-sized portion in a genuine Gouden Carolus glass. Next winter, I will have to try to find it in a bottle.

Bill Evans, You Must Believe in Spring

For Christmas, J.’s father gave me a copy of Bill Evans’s You Must Believe in Spring. Recorded in 1977 with Eddie Gomez on bass and Eliot Zigmund on drums, it ended up being Evans’s last studio recording with a trio. It is absolutely spectacular.

It would be easy to dismiss the album as a downer: Evans dedicates the opening B-Minor Waltz to his estranged wife who committed suicide shortly before the sessions; We Will Meet Again, another Evans original, is dedicated to his brother Harry, who suffered from clinical depression and also committed suicide around that time, and Evans closes the original LP with the theme from the film and TV show M*A*S*H, subtitled Suicide is Painless. I suppose the fact that I love the record so much says something about my own natural predilections, but I do think Evans is doing much more than metaphorically slashing his wrists. True, much of the music is melancholy, and Evans favors minor keys more than usual (and he had always been more generous towards them than many other jazz musicians). But it is also beautiful in a way that is readily apparent. You don’t have to know a thing about jazz to hear instantly that this is simply gorgeous music. Evans’s soloing also sounds like he is doing much more than just crying into his beer. It is energetic, full of momentum, and the ease of his phrasing belies the underlying rhythmic complexity. The CD also includes three bonus tracks that lean much more in the direction of straight jams. They don’t have the expressive power and lyricism of the main LP material, but they do prove than Evans was still perfectly capable of cooking.

The standouts, for me, are the opening B-Minor Waltz which, while too short to develop properly, functions as a great intro and sets the mood for the rest of the material, the title track, and We Will Meet Again. The award for the most interesting track, though, has to go to Jimmy Rowles’ The Peacocks. Whether Evans dusted off for the occasion the music of Ravel and Bartok that he had studied decades earlier, or whether he was a keen observer of the then-new players coming to prominence in the seventies, I don’t know, but his solos’ harmonic and melodic turns are dark in an atmospheric sort of way that the rest of the album isn’t. I can hear Keith Jarrett, Ritchie Beirach and Steve Kuhn in microcosm.

I have only one complaint – Eddie Gomez again. Too loud, too assertive, not nearly enough subtlety. The more I hear him with Evans, the more surprised I am that Evans has kept him as long as he did. I guess he was willing to suffer Gomez's brash soloing in exchange for his expert comping. Overall, though, the CD is highly recommended. Come to think of it, it wouldn’t be a bad place to start with Evans. Not as classic as his Riverside stuff from the fifties, but probably more accessible to a novice.

Heart surgery

I just found out that a friend's father had heart surgery over Christmas. He seems to be doing well, but still -- what a way to start the year. Best wishes and a speedy recovery to him.

Belgian ales

Woo-hoo. I'm finally hip. Evidently, Belgian ales are officially hot. I've been drinking them for years. Now, if I was a real hipster, I would need to stop immediately and find something new to drink. Instead, being the curmudgeonly old man that I am, I am going to continue drinking Belgian ales complaining all the while how trendy nightclubs are driving up the already high prices.

Walter Tejada

When I moved from DC to Arlington last February, I consoled myself by thinking that the relative loss of the urban environment I loved so much would be partially offset by not having to deal with activist, nanny-like local governments under the likes of which DC and Maryland have been suffering since time immemorial. Instead, we have Walter Tejada, our newly elected county board chairman. Apparently, he is threatening to push on us a triple whammy of proposals – banning trans fats in restaurants à la Montgomery Cty., banning smoking in public places and encouraging people not to own cars. The last one is the least offensive – it amounts, as far as I can tell, to an advertising campaign, though there are murmurs of a shared bike program. Spending public money on such advertising is problematic, no question about it, but I suppose we need to learn to live with the fact that if that's as far as it goes, we're not so badly off.

The other two are completely infuriating, but not because I want to eat Wonder Bread slathered with margarine while puffing on a Marlboro. They cut straight to the question of a government's job. I've struggled for years with the idea of public health, and finally concluded that there is no such thing. It is not the government's job to ensure that its citizens are healthy, even if “healthy” is defined according to well-researched science. It's simply none of its business what lifestyle choices its citizens make. But wait, you might reply, we're only talking about the public sphere, and it is the government's job to care about that. It is not trying to prevent you from eating trans fats at home, after all, only in restaurants. Even if you accept that premise, the argument doesn't hold water. A restaurant is not public sphere; being open to the public does not make it so. It is a private enterprise, and the government has no business dictating what goes on in its kitchens (unless they are making a dirty bomb out of smuggled uranium, I suppose, but even that is a tough sell unless the government can prove an intent to detonate it). Banning trans fats in a public school cafeteria is one thing. Trying to ban it in restaurants is something entirely different, and much more sinister. Someone who cares enough about trans fats has the responsibility to learn which foods have them and then avoid ordering them when going out, or patronize restaurants, which already exist, that voluntarily eliminate them.

Smoking is no different. I concede that second-hand smoke from your cigarette is more harmful to those around you than the trans fats in the margarine on your plate, and more difficult to avoid. But the principle is the same. Non-smoking restaurants and even bars have long existed, and if the government stopped trying to ban smoking by fiat, they would become a tremendous business opportunity, and I guarantee you many more would open very quickly. The same public/private principle applies: I can buy a smoking ban in a county courthouse, but not in a privately owned business.

About the only sensible thing Tejada has proposed so far is allowing the addition of rental units to private houses, though unfortunately it's couched in affordable housing rhetoric. House owners should be able to add rental units to their houses simply because the house is their private property. And if your neighbors don't like the fact that a large immigrant family just moved into your English basement, it's not the government's job to ensure that your neighbors are happy – it is the neighbors' own.

Home, sweet home

The holiday travels are over. A little hectic, but mostly good. Part One took J. and me (separately – J. flew, while I drove up the following day, with a detour to my parents' house in N.J.) to Schenectady, NY, to spend Christmas with her folks. It was my first ever actual Christmas there despite the amount of time J. and I go back, and I am happy to report that I escaped mostly unscathed. I even cooked Christmas eve dinner – pan-seared salmon, roasted sweet potatoes and spinach sauteed with garlic, preceded by a romaine lettuce salad with a walnut-gorgonzola dressing. Dead-simple and delicious, it came off without a hitch, even on J.'s parents' glass-top induction range. Everyone loved it, and the food snob in me was happy to have an opportunity to introduce people to salmon that hasn't had the life cooked out of it. Christmas morning was spent opening presents, the worst part of which was the fact that no coffee was made until after the entire affair was over. Next year, I'm marching into the kitchen and making a pot, manners be damned. In the evening, it was J.'s mother's traditional Christmas dinner -- ham, kielbasa, pierogi and sauerkraut. It did not feature anything even remotely green or crunchy, but was delicious nonetheless, simply because I never eat that kind of food. For someone who professes to hate cooking and is utterly incapable of relaxing in the kitchen, she did a great job. J. and I drove home the following day after meeting an old friend of hers for breakfast.

It has been said that spending winter holidays with a family gives one insight into its workings and dysfunctions that is otherwise unavailable. I have to agree. Though I've known these people for fifteen years, the visit did give me a new appreciation for some of the things that go on under the surface.

Part Two kicked off last Saturday, when, after two days at home and work, we drove back to Fort Lee, N.J., for New Year's eve with my parents. On Sunday, we spent the day in Manhattan, attempting to go to MoMA but failing. It was so insanely mobbed that we would not have been able to see a thing, and since admission is now $20, we bailed. Instead we walked around, J. did some shopping, and we had some coffee at La Lanterna. We had dinner back in Fort Lee, at Silver Pond – for my money, one of the best Chinese restaurants in existence. It was great to have a quiet day to ourselves. New Year's Eve, of course, was my mother's traditional big dinner, and it was as delicious as always – I can't think of a single occasion when it didn't come off beautifully. We drove home New Year's day, managing to beat the traffic for the first time in years, and catching up on sleep upon arrival. It's great to to be home.