I guess I’m supposed to be writing about the earthquake, but there’s not a lot to write. Initially thought someone was jack-hammering downstairs, but as the intensity increased, people started coming out of their cubicles, saying “must be an earthquake.” One co-worker was seriously scared – the look on his face was the definition of paralyzing fear. All he could find the strength to say was “run fast.” I guess with both Fukushima and Haiti still fresh in everyone’s mind, I can’t blame him too much. The company sent people home. Cell phone service completely knocked out. The Metro was running, but on a 15-mph speed limit. I walked the five miles home, stopping for a pint along the way.
So instead, I am going to write about New Belgium. Long a staple of the craft beer scene out West, it is available here in Virginia as of last night. Rustico held a release party of sorts, which C.S. and I checked out. Once again I wasn’t taking notes, so I’m commenting from memory.
Ranger IPA (6.5% ABV, 70 IBU): Nice, clean-tasting IPA, balanced but slightly tilted towards bitter hops. Relatively light in body and color. Excellent when the weather is hot but you still want a pronounced hop flavor.
Trippel (7.8% ABV, 25 IBU): Seriously fruity and a little sugary for my taste. The brewers are mum on what they add, besides coriander (which I actually couldn’t taste), but some candy sugar has got to be in there. Not that there is anything wrong with that – adding it is an old Belgian tradition after all – but makes for a bit too much artificial sweetness for my taste.
Kick (8.5% ABV, IBU unspecified): Even more seriously fruity and sour cranberry and pumpkin lambic. Not at all my style. I only got a 3-oz. taste. It’s the sort of thing you like if you like that sort of thing.
I didn’t bother ordering a Fat Tire. Like everything else, it came in 12-oz goblets, which I thought was completely silly. Out West, it’s the quintessential session beer, and it will always remind me of weekend afternoons whiled away with friends on the rooftop of Grapevine in Scottsdale.
Showing posts with label misc. Show all posts
Showing posts with label misc. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Snow
Greater Washington, DC, has been under two feet of snow since Saturday, and another foot is predicted for tonight. The temperatures have been hovering in the upper 20s and low 30s. The city, needless to say, is not handling it well. All government offices and schools closed even before the snow started on Friday, and remain closed. The subway was completely shut down all weekend, and above-ground stations didn’t open until this morning, with trains, which normally come every 3-5 minutes during rush hour, running as much as a half hour apart. The streets are a mess – practically nothing has been plowed, at least not in a way that is actually helpful, and for some incomprehensible reason, there is no evidence of anyone doing the most obvious thing: spraying salt.
I grew up in a cold place. The snow typically started falling in late October, would stick by mid-November and the ground would remain covered until at least late March, with a fresh dusting of an inch or two falling every few days. Temperatures in the single digits Fahrenheit were commonplace. More significantly, though, it was a place where both modern technology and a Western work ethic and sense of responsibility were in short supply in the best of times. So how did we do it? The subway – the city’s only piece of public infrastructure that worked almost flawlessly – ran on schedule regardless of the weather. The rest of the transit system didn’t, but then, it never did. The buses and street cars were antiquated, unsafe, overcrowded and filthy, but they stumbled along every bit as well (or poorly) in driving snow and frigid cold as they did on a beautiful summer day (itself a rare occurrence). Not once do I remember a complete cancellation of service due to weather.
Four-wheel drive was unheard of outside the military – the few people who did own private automobiles, my father among them, typically drove locally built replicas of 1960s Fiats: rear-wheel drive, 60 hp engines, skinny bias-ply tires and no safety features to speak of (power-assisted brakes were an extra-cost option; ours didn’t have them). Yet not once did my father refuse to drive because of the weather. He would take the battery out of the car and carry it indoors at night (giving himself permanent back problems in the process) lest it would be dead the next morning because of the cold, but not driving did not occur to him. Sometimes, he had to dig the car out with an ice pick, and it took a while, but off it went eventually down the slushy street, fishtailing and spinning its tires.
I do not remember seeing the streets being plowed. I am sure they were, but I cannot imagine it being done efficiently. Nothing else in that society and that system ever was, and the idea of the government, at any level, providing a decent service to its citizens without being bribed, cajoled, or threatened from above, was anathema to the very way the system worked. So while I am sure snow plows disrupted traffic in the center of the city regularly, I would bet money the streets weren’t any cleaner for it.
So how did we do it? How did we not only function, but took the miserable cold, snow and filth in stride every winter? Why is it that masses of people were absent from work regularly, but never because of the weather? Is it simply a question of being used to it?
I grew up in a cold place. The snow typically started falling in late October, would stick by mid-November and the ground would remain covered until at least late March, with a fresh dusting of an inch or two falling every few days. Temperatures in the single digits Fahrenheit were commonplace. More significantly, though, it was a place where both modern technology and a Western work ethic and sense of responsibility were in short supply in the best of times. So how did we do it? The subway – the city’s only piece of public infrastructure that worked almost flawlessly – ran on schedule regardless of the weather. The rest of the transit system didn’t, but then, it never did. The buses and street cars were antiquated, unsafe, overcrowded and filthy, but they stumbled along every bit as well (or poorly) in driving snow and frigid cold as they did on a beautiful summer day (itself a rare occurrence). Not once do I remember a complete cancellation of service due to weather.
Four-wheel drive was unheard of outside the military – the few people who did own private automobiles, my father among them, typically drove locally built replicas of 1960s Fiats: rear-wheel drive, 60 hp engines, skinny bias-ply tires and no safety features to speak of (power-assisted brakes were an extra-cost option; ours didn’t have them). Yet not once did my father refuse to drive because of the weather. He would take the battery out of the car and carry it indoors at night (giving himself permanent back problems in the process) lest it would be dead the next morning because of the cold, but not driving did not occur to him. Sometimes, he had to dig the car out with an ice pick, and it took a while, but off it went eventually down the slushy street, fishtailing and spinning its tires.
I do not remember seeing the streets being plowed. I am sure they were, but I cannot imagine it being done efficiently. Nothing else in that society and that system ever was, and the idea of the government, at any level, providing a decent service to its citizens without being bribed, cajoled, or threatened from above, was anathema to the very way the system worked. So while I am sure snow plows disrupted traffic in the center of the city regularly, I would bet money the streets weren’t any cleaner for it.
So how did we do it? How did we not only function, but took the miserable cold, snow and filth in stride every winter? Why is it that masses of people were absent from work regularly, but never because of the weather? Is it simply a question of being used to it?
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Ikea, Slight Return
I guess I should have expected the filing cabinet I bought at Ikea a couple of weeks ago to have been designed for A4 hanging folders. Not for nothing are they known for selling the same exact products in every country in which they do business.
Monday, May 18, 2009
A Miracle at City Hall
Three things, in increasing order of improbability. Someone out there has read Kafka. That someone absorbed the lessons Kafka had to impart. The person has a position at, or influence upon, the City Hall of the city where I now live. It took me all of fifteen minutes both to pay the city property tax on my car (never mind the fact that I had to pay one at all) and to obtain a parking permit for my new neighbourhood this morning. There were no lines, I had to talk only to two people (the clerk and the cashier), and both payments, although different creatures legally speaking, were handled in the same transaction and by the same person. I did not have to fill out a single form, and I even got credit for a portion of the money I paid to Arlington last year. The most amazing thing is that I had neither a utility bill nor a lease agreement to offer as proof of address. In a feat of creativity, I offered up a copy of the deed of trust, and they took it with only a minimal furrowing of the brows. Strictly speaking, the deed does not prove that I live at the stated address, it only proves that I owe someone money for the property at that address. But the fact that both my name and the address were listed on it was evidently enough. Way to go! Would that every interaction with the local government in all locations was that painless.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Moving
The blog will have to remain on life support for a while longer. I'm typing this while sitting on the floor, surrounded by the last few remaining boxes and an unnerving number of miscellaneous things that keep appearing from closets and kitchen cabinets. I spent my first night at the new place last night, where I discovered that at least in the living room, where I slept on a futon for lack of another suitable spot, with windows wide-open, I could hear the railroad and the occasional bass-mobile passing along the street at an incomprehensible hour. I also discovered that the neighborhood's avian population is quite large, and begins to make itself heard around 4:30 a.m.
As luck would have it, J. had to leave town unexpectedly for a family emergency, leaving me to do 90% of all the work involved in the move, including the actual moving of things, which I decided to do myself, in the back of her VW. Quite a job. One always has tons more stuff than one thinks, but that's hardly news. At the new place, I piled everything in what will be the guest bedroom, and neatly stacked in one place like that, it really didn't look that bad. For two people in their thirties who love books and records, we could do a lot worse.
Great big thank you to my colleague B.L. whose generous offer of his pickup truck, to say nothing of his time and energy, saved me from the U-Haul nightmare.
Up next: Probably stories of woe from City Hall.
As luck would have it, J. had to leave town unexpectedly for a family emergency, leaving me to do 90% of all the work involved in the move, including the actual moving of things, which I decided to do myself, in the back of her VW. Quite a job. One always has tons more stuff than one thinks, but that's hardly news. At the new place, I piled everything in what will be the guest bedroom, and neatly stacked in one place like that, it really didn't look that bad. For two people in their thirties who love books and records, we could do a lot worse.
Great big thank you to my colleague B.L. whose generous offer of his pickup truck, to say nothing of his time and energy, saved me from the U-Haul nightmare.
Up next: Probably stories of woe from City Hall.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Real Estate
I suppose I ought to post an update, even though I have had no time to write anything of any consequence. So a few loosely connected observations.
J. and I finally took the plunge and bought a dwelling of our own. So our largely debt-free and carefree existence is over. Scary time to buy real estate in this economy, but our guiding principle was that a house is no different than any other big-ticket item -- you buy one when you need one. So we are now the proud own... er, make that residents of a lovely two-bedroom condo, owned by the people who lent us the money to buy it.
The local real estate market makes less sense than ever. Everyone acknowledges that at the height of the real estate bubble, the prices were obscene, here no less than elsewhere in the US (more, if anything), yet they are down no more than 3% from their height. In desirable neighborhoods at least. The bubble does not appear to have burst -- on the contrary, it appears to be hardening in its inflated state. Elsewhere, in the meantime, house prices are down as much as 40+%.
The laws of supply and demand do not appear to apply. On any given Sunday anywhere in Arlington or Alexandria, the sidewalks are flooded with Open House signs. So there is no shortage of properties on the market -- on the contrary, it is flooded. Yet the prices remain sky-high. The best explanation I could come up with was that these properties are being sold not by residents who need to move, but by investors who are trying to cut their losses. I don't know if this is enough of an explanation, but thank goodness there is no house exchange the way there is a stock exchange, and that you still have to find a specific buyer for every house you are trying to sell. On the other hand, maybe the prices would have dropped noticeably if we did have such an exchange, and you could simply make a phone call and sell your house(s). Just look at the stock market.
Further insanity: while doing the final walk-through of our new condo before closing, our agent casually mentioned that the previous weekend, another client of hers offered the asking price with no contingencies on a property, an did not get it because there were four other offers. I've got your bubble right here, for anyone who's looking. I consider ourselves lucky -- our process was so normal, I felt like I was back in the sixties.
You would think that the subprime debacle and the generally sad state our banks are supposed to be in would inject some sobriety into the mortgage market. Yet the first lender we contacted, after hearing my unofficial (but accurate) account of our financial situation, literally offered to lend us an order of magnitude more than what we were comfortable borrowing. J. and I do ok, income-wise, but we are not Beverly Hills plastic surgeons, for heavens' sakes! Are these mortgage people insane? The modest (by these people's calculation) amount we did end up borrowing is a huge commitment for us, far more than we ever paid in rent, and they were perfectly willing to let us pay thousands and thousands more every month? Why have they not learned their lesson? Yes, I know, we are a good credit risk. But this was off the scale! And this lender was supposed to have been a solvent, responsible one who did not take any bailout money. We went with someone else.
No matter how hard you look, you never find all the problems in a place you're considering until after you've bought it. And a home inspection is designed to detect major problems, not minor headaches. Furthermore, even minor headaches look worse after you've been looking at them for a while. Net result -- J. and I spent the last three days painting our living room. And that's after I had to deal with the consequences of the previous owners' inept picture hanging jobs. Now the hallway looks disgusting by comparison, so we have to paint that, too. We're paying more money than we did in rent, yet have to do our own painting. How does that make any sense? At least everything we found so far is, indeed, very minor. Let's hope it stays that way.
We have some old furniture to give away -- shelves, a desk with a matching printer stand, a coffee table/end table set, and a drop-leaf dining table. None particularly nice (least of all the dining table), but all usable. Free to friends -- contact me if interested.
J. and I finally took the plunge and bought a dwelling of our own. So our largely debt-free and carefree existence is over. Scary time to buy real estate in this economy, but our guiding principle was that a house is no different than any other big-ticket item -- you buy one when you need one. So we are now the proud own... er, make that residents of a lovely two-bedroom condo, owned by the people who lent us the money to buy it.
The local real estate market makes less sense than ever. Everyone acknowledges that at the height of the real estate bubble, the prices were obscene, here no less than elsewhere in the US (more, if anything), yet they are down no more than 3% from their height. In desirable neighborhoods at least. The bubble does not appear to have burst -- on the contrary, it appears to be hardening in its inflated state. Elsewhere, in the meantime, house prices are down as much as 40+%.
The laws of supply and demand do not appear to apply. On any given Sunday anywhere in Arlington or Alexandria, the sidewalks are flooded with Open House signs. So there is no shortage of properties on the market -- on the contrary, it is flooded. Yet the prices remain sky-high. The best explanation I could come up with was that these properties are being sold not by residents who need to move, but by investors who are trying to cut their losses. I don't know if this is enough of an explanation, but thank goodness there is no house exchange the way there is a stock exchange, and that you still have to find a specific buyer for every house you are trying to sell. On the other hand, maybe the prices would have dropped noticeably if we did have such an exchange, and you could simply make a phone call and sell your house(s). Just look at the stock market.
Further insanity: while doing the final walk-through of our new condo before closing, our agent casually mentioned that the previous weekend, another client of hers offered the asking price with no contingencies on a property, an did not get it because there were four other offers. I've got your bubble right here, for anyone who's looking. I consider ourselves lucky -- our process was so normal, I felt like I was back in the sixties.
You would think that the subprime debacle and the generally sad state our banks are supposed to be in would inject some sobriety into the mortgage market. Yet the first lender we contacted, after hearing my unofficial (but accurate) account of our financial situation, literally offered to lend us an order of magnitude more than what we were comfortable borrowing. J. and I do ok, income-wise, but we are not Beverly Hills plastic surgeons, for heavens' sakes! Are these mortgage people insane? The modest (by these people's calculation) amount we did end up borrowing is a huge commitment for us, far more than we ever paid in rent, and they were perfectly willing to let us pay thousands and thousands more every month? Why have they not learned their lesson? Yes, I know, we are a good credit risk. But this was off the scale! And this lender was supposed to have been a solvent, responsible one who did not take any bailout money. We went with someone else.
No matter how hard you look, you never find all the problems in a place you're considering until after you've bought it. And a home inspection is designed to detect major problems, not minor headaches. Furthermore, even minor headaches look worse after you've been looking at them for a while. Net result -- J. and I spent the last three days painting our living room. And that's after I had to deal with the consequences of the previous owners' inept picture hanging jobs. Now the hallway looks disgusting by comparison, so we have to paint that, too. We're paying more money than we did in rent, yet have to do our own painting. How does that make any sense? At least everything we found so far is, indeed, very minor. Let's hope it stays that way.
We have some old furniture to give away -- shelves, a desk with a matching printer stand, a coffee table/end table set, and a drop-leaf dining table. None particularly nice (least of all the dining table), but all usable. Free to friends -- contact me if interested.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Midnight Oil (not the band)
I feel young again, coming home around midnight after a show at the 9:30 club, eating a bowl of instant noodles, firing up the laptop and doing some late night work. I'll pay for it in the morning, no doubt.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Happy Holidays
I don't have anything fundamentally different to say about Christmas this year than I did a year ago. There is a good reason why a holiday that started out celebrating the winter solstice has stuck around, and it has nothing to do with Jesus. Nature is cyclical, and in today's hyper-charged world, we could do well to pause and contemplate that. Whether you are celebrating with your loved ones, or taking the opportunity to get some peace and quiet, my best wishes for a nice holiday to you and yours.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Christmas cards and gifts
The Christmas cards are rolling in. J. and I are happy to receive them, of course. A few observations.
This seems to be the year of the printed address label. Last year, if memory serves, every envelope we received was hand-written. Now, at least half a dozen were printed. Fire sale at Avery? Or did Google introduce a new address book application with a label printing feature that I missed?
The photo cards have not abated. We’ve received seven so far! As last year, only one features the entire family. The rest is just kids. At least my former co-worker M.P. gets points for being cute by snapping her three kids and the dog cross their street on an old-fashioned pedestrian crosswalk, Abbey Road-style. One card is even from a childless couple – the picture is of the two of them. Tacky? I guess you could argue that it’s nice for friends and family who haven’t seen them in a long time. At least they could have air-brushed the red eyes out.
The strangest thing is that our friends C.&S., whom we visited Saturday night, only have two photo cards in their batch. I have always seen them, incorrectly perhaps, as much more family-oriented and tolerant of children than us old cranks (well, me anyway), so I would naturally expect them not only to know more people with kids, but be thought of among their friends as people who would enjoy receiving the photos. But for some reason we got the brunt, not they.
Ranting aside, though, we are happy to be receiving the cards, especially from people who live far away and whom we don’t get to see regularly. Our friends may even be eating into my Christmas card trade surplus – I still sent out more than we received this year, but the gap has shrunk somewhat. I’m counting on J. to widen it back up once she sends out her traditionally late batch.
I should also point out that people are giving us really nice presents this year. Mostly books, and really excellent or very promising-looking ones at that. Makes me feel a bit like a cheapskate. I’ve been giving people books for years, but I must admit that my thought process is frequently something along the lines of “hey, that looks like X. might enjoy it.” But a few of my friends have clearly given a lot of thought to their choice this year, in some cases remembering the conversations we’ve had earlier in the year. The highlights so far: Lenin’s Tomb by David Remnick, from S.G. S.G. always turns up with something interesting, and while I won’t presume to rank his previous presents in order of desirability, I have a feeling it won’t take me nearly as long to get to this year’s contribution as it sometimes did in the past. GULAG: A History by Anne Appelbaum, from C.S. Again, C.S. has come up with some fascinating additions to my bookshelf in the past, but I’ve been wanting to read Appelbaum ever since she published the book five years ago, and thanks to him now I have no excuse not to. In Defense of Food, by Michael Pollan (hardcover, too!), from K.R. Very pleasant surprise, and way above and beyond the call of the occasion. Thank you!
This seems to be the year of the printed address label. Last year, if memory serves, every envelope we received was hand-written. Now, at least half a dozen were printed. Fire sale at Avery? Or did Google introduce a new address book application with a label printing feature that I missed?
The photo cards have not abated. We’ve received seven so far! As last year, only one features the entire family. The rest is just kids. At least my former co-worker M.P. gets points for being cute by snapping her three kids and the dog cross their street on an old-fashioned pedestrian crosswalk, Abbey Road-style. One card is even from a childless couple – the picture is of the two of them. Tacky? I guess you could argue that it’s nice for friends and family who haven’t seen them in a long time. At least they could have air-brushed the red eyes out.
The strangest thing is that our friends C.&S., whom we visited Saturday night, only have two photo cards in their batch. I have always seen them, incorrectly perhaps, as much more family-oriented and tolerant of children than us old cranks (well, me anyway), so I would naturally expect them not only to know more people with kids, but be thought of among their friends as people who would enjoy receiving the photos. But for some reason we got the brunt, not they.
Ranting aside, though, we are happy to be receiving the cards, especially from people who live far away and whom we don’t get to see regularly. Our friends may even be eating into my Christmas card trade surplus – I still sent out more than we received this year, but the gap has shrunk somewhat. I’m counting on J. to widen it back up once she sends out her traditionally late batch.
I should also point out that people are giving us really nice presents this year. Mostly books, and really excellent or very promising-looking ones at that. Makes me feel a bit like a cheapskate. I’ve been giving people books for years, but I must admit that my thought process is frequently something along the lines of “hey, that looks like X. might enjoy it.” But a few of my friends have clearly given a lot of thought to their choice this year, in some cases remembering the conversations we’ve had earlier in the year. The highlights so far: Lenin’s Tomb by David Remnick, from S.G. S.G. always turns up with something interesting, and while I won’t presume to rank his previous presents in order of desirability, I have a feeling it won’t take me nearly as long to get to this year’s contribution as it sometimes did in the past. GULAG: A History by Anne Appelbaum, from C.S. Again, C.S. has come up with some fascinating additions to my bookshelf in the past, but I’ve been wanting to read Appelbaum ever since she published the book five years ago, and thanks to him now I have no excuse not to. In Defense of Food, by Michael Pollan (hardcover, too!), from K.R. Very pleasant surprise, and way above and beyond the call of the occasion. Thank you!
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Thanksgiving
It has become such a cliché to say that we have so much to be thankful for on Thanksgiving that many people have stopped paying attention. Truth is, I really do feel that way. Though I complain and criticize at the slightest provocation, and frequently with no provocation at all, I really am pretty fortunate in a lot of pretty important ways. So here is an annual thank you, to everyone and to no one in particular. I am thankful for J.’s being a part of my life – even with all she and I have gone through, I wouldn’t have it any other way. For my friends who put up with my antics and who, even though sometimes I have to beg and cajole and bombard them with e-mail, always come through when it’s important. For friends who trekked down from faraway places to celebrate J.’s and my wedding, even though by most standards, it was a tiny affair. For friends who never fail to send me a birthday card even though we have not seen each other in several years. For my parents, who have always supported me, frequently at a sacrifice to themselves, and despite my best efforts to subvert that support. For being in a place where I can live and work and write largely undisturbed. Sure, I love catastrophizing about the state of our society as much as the next guy, but any other society would be infinitely worse. So there. Thank you all and sundry. Next time my kvetching gets too much, please remind me of all of this. Happy Thanksgiving everyone.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Divestment
My good friend S.G. has been engaged in what he calls a divestment project over the last couple of months. The origins of the project are obscure – I gather that a friend of his gave him the idea – but the gist is that every day you get rid of one thing that you don’t need but are either too much of a pack rat to throw out or too lazy to figure out a way to donate. So you get rid of it in a “creative” way – leaving it on top of a gas pump while filling up your car, dropping it into the bed of a parked pickup truck, etc. You divest of one thing every day. After a while, you’re considerably less encumbered with stuff you don’t use. At least that’s the idea.
As much as I believe most of us own way too much useless junk, I’m not sure I really understand the appeal. I don’t think it’s too much to ask to just go through your closets, put together a couple of boxfuls of stuff, drive it to the local Goodwill and be done with it. But what I think is beside the point. Yesterday morning, I noticed a Vitamin Shoppe plastic bag sitting on top of a newspaper vending machine on a street corner outside my building. There was clearly something in the bag, for it was staying put despite the rather strong breeze. Wondering whether I should be wearing a pair of rubber gloves, I gingerly parted the folds of plastic and looked inside. I found a pair of worn-looking brown boat shoes. Did someone in my neighborhood divest of them the same way my friend was doing? Is this a cultural phenomenon now? Is there some underground message board on the internet dedicated to creative divestment of this sort? Probably. It’s just littering if you ask me, but then, there are many current cultural phenomena that I don’t get and probably never will.
As much as I believe most of us own way too much useless junk, I’m not sure I really understand the appeal. I don’t think it’s too much to ask to just go through your closets, put together a couple of boxfuls of stuff, drive it to the local Goodwill and be done with it. But what I think is beside the point. Yesterday morning, I noticed a Vitamin Shoppe plastic bag sitting on top of a newspaper vending machine on a street corner outside my building. There was clearly something in the bag, for it was staying put despite the rather strong breeze. Wondering whether I should be wearing a pair of rubber gloves, I gingerly parted the folds of plastic and looked inside. I found a pair of worn-looking brown boat shoes. Did someone in my neighborhood divest of them the same way my friend was doing? Is this a cultural phenomenon now? Is there some underground message board on the internet dedicated to creative divestment of this sort? Probably. It’s just littering if you ask me, but then, there are many current cultural phenomena that I don’t get and probably never will.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Tattoo
On a New Jersey Transit bus ride from Manhattan to Ft. Lee a few weeks ago, the man in the seat next to me – Asian, mid-twenties, sloppily dressed in ill-fitting jeans and a t-shirt, but otherwise clean-cut -- was idly paging through an issue of Tattoo magazine. I couldn’t help looking over. One two-page spread somewhere around the middle of the magazine featured images of tattoo designs, chosen presumably for their distinctiveness or skillfull execution. The image in the upper left-hand corner immediately caught my attention. It was a picture of a young woman from the waist up, dressed in a white tank top, leaning slightly to one side. Her stylishly bobbed hair was rendered in a convincing punky green, her nails raven-black. She was covering her mouth with her left hand. The image, at least as it appeared on the page, showed a stunning precision, but what caught my attention the most was the unbelievable expressiveness of the woman’s eyes and face. Her eyes – blue – were obviously on the verge of tears, and her faced registered an unmistakable shock. I could easily picture her mouth, behind that hand, to be partially open in a quiet gasp. She had a clear look of instant but major devastation. This wasn’t just a great tattoo, it was excellent art. Obviously someone’s private, and very deeply felt, tragedy, depicted on an unusual choice of canvas.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Turntables
I wrote the article below almost eight years ago. It was published on a long-since-defunct WrittenByMe.com, and got an honorable mention of the week, or whatever their equivalent of an elementary school smiley face sticker was. When I found and re-read it a few day ago, a few things jumped out at me immediately. The "new, even better digital formats" (SACD and DVD-A) never took hold, and are now all but dead. I had a reference to MiniDisc in the original version too, but that was already dead even then. The availability of used vinyl has shrunk significantly, and the prices have skyrocketed. I feel that I rode the last great wave of cheap, plentiful old records. The Tower Annex, along with the rest of Tower Records everywhere, is, very sadly, history. Thankfully, new vinyl is still being released, though it is usually no longer cheaper than the same title on CD. What I saw in 2000-2001 was the last vestige of vinyl as a normal format. Today, it is a 100% specialty market. Finally, needless to say I am no longer "not even thirty."
A turntable?!?! You just bought a turntable? And a brand-new one, no less? This is the year 2000, for goodness' sake! We have CD! Perfect sound forever! We also have MP3, and new, even better digital formats are just around the bend. Have you been cryogenically frozen for the last fifteen years, or have you simply lost your mind? Well, no. Before you burn me at the laser stake for digital heresy, allow me to explain. I have not been frozen, and I would like to think that if indeed I am insane, it is for completely different reasons. Yes, there are CDs - I have hundreds of them. I love them and I think they sound great. Although to some extent I grew up with LPs (more on that in a moment), I am really a member of the CD generation. There still are, however, very compelling reasons to own a quality turntable.
First, there is the audiophile, specifically the analog-obsessed variety. There are people out there who never subscribed to the whole "digital is better" philosophy. They are convinced that analog recordings, when properly reproduced, sound warmer, more musical and more lifelike than digital ever can. As the respected audio reviewer Steve Guttenberg puts it, there is more "there" there. This approach may seem esoteric, and I think it is. Unless you are totally bluffing your way through the whole process, it involves being able to hear extremely subtle differences in inherently unquantifiable aspects of sound reproduction, which in turn requires learning how to hear these differences and having the opportunity, time, inclination and not insignificant amounts of money to compare various gear. Besides, an argument has been made - a very good one, in my opinion - that music listening is a fundamentally holistic experience: either it grabs your soul in its entirety or it does not, and when it does, everything else, including sound quality, becomes irrelevant. To talk about individual aspects of sound is thus to miss the point.
There is a further subset of audiophiles who enjoy gear for gear's sake. There is almost nothing else they would rather do than balance tonearms, twist counterweights and optimize stylus tracking angles, and they can debate relative merits of moving-coil versus moving-magnet cartridges long into the night. At best, this is appreciation of engineering, not art. In any case, these people most likely already own multi-thousand-dollar masterpieces of industrial design fashioned out of hand-polished rosewood and aircraft-grade aluminum to caress their cherished vinyl, so they are not who I am talking about here, or who I am trying to appeal to.
Second, there is the pragmatist. There is a ton of quality used vinyl out there available at bargain basement prices. It is true that it is becoming more scarce every year, but it is also true that so much is still left that even if I did nothing but listen to LPs for the rest of my life, I would not be able to get through it all, and I am not even thirty. Some of us are fortunate to live in or frequently visit places where quality used vinyl is plentiful. Between Bleecker Bob's, Second Coming Records and the Tower Annex in New York City's Greenwich Village, one can be in collector's heaven for years. Even elsewhere, there is hope. The day after the turntable arrived, at a used book store right here in Washington, DC - a notoriously vinyl-deprived place - I picked up Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto for $1 and Keith Jarrett's Köln Concert for $6, both in pristine condition, and this was before I visited a single thrift shop or garage sale. Fifty cents apiece, anyone? Seventeen records for $10? An entire milk crate for $25, crate included? Who cares that you will never listen to three quarters of the stuff. Buy now, sort it out later. You'll still make out three to four times better than the same titles on CD, and that's before you even consider that a good part of that music is probably out of print forever. Finally, new LPs are still being released in quantities larger than most people realize, and they usually retail for less than the same title on CD. At least a third of the Fantasy Records (umbrella label for Riverside, Milestone, Prestige and Stax, among others) 2000-2001 catalog is available on LP. So, if you subscribe to the non-comparative notion that LPs can sound at least good, which they most certainly can, you just saved yourself some serious money.
Beyond the audiophile and the pragmatist, there is the nostalgic sap. To paraphrase a certain tasteless t-shirt, I am 51% pragmatist, 49% nostalgic sap. I have always felt that holding a record in my hands, especially a used one, with its sleeve edges beginning to fray and the cardboard starting to turn yellow with age, puts me in touch with the time it was made more than a CD ever can. It takes me back to the earliest childhood I can remember, when my father would always have records around the house. His own, mostly Mozart and the Beatles, which he would spin on his god-awful one-piece record player, and his friends', which he would diligently copy onto tape using his gargantuan reel-to-reel tape recorder (this was a place where all non-military technology was at least twenty years behind the rest of the world). I recall tagging along with him to the apartments of his friends - men with longish hair who smelled of cigarettes and bad aftershave - who would promptly show us their stereo systems, almost entirely self-made (nothing like the Iron Curtain to create remarkable artisans out of average joes), dominated by a jury-rigged turntable, always large and ugly, but always functional. They would pull out a record and put it on, handing my father the sleeve and turning up the volume. "Wow, an original Oscar Peterson," my father would say with admiration, and they would talk for a while about what records so-and-so smuggled in on his latest trip to West Germany and how much money might convince him to part with some of them. Then they would retreat into the kitchen to smoke and drink tea, leaving me in the living room to examine the mysterious switches and wires in awe.
Even more recent times are brought into focus by certain records for me. I recently picked up a copy of Liz Story's Part of Fortune (1986). I didn't hear a note when I listened to it for the first time - I was too busy admiring the sleeve. It features a full-size portrait of young Story, her hair teased and sprayed beyond recognition, wearing a blazer with a paint-splotch pattern and exaggerated shoulder pads. The photo is touched up with just the right amounts of powder blue and pastel pink. Today, we might see a picture like this in an ad for a retro-Eighties dance party at the local multi-level dance emporium, but this is the real thing. People looked like this as a matter of course, and touching up a photo in pastel tones was considered chic rather than tacky. Putting the envelope down and noticing that the needle has long since reached the end of a side, I reflected on just how little we notice the changes in everyday things until something so simple as a record hits us over the head with contrast. Humans are nostalgic creatures. We love things that remind us of bygone days. While living in the past is dangerous, taking an occasional trip back never hurt anyone, and there are few better ways to do so than by spinning up a record.
February 2001
A turntable?!?! You just bought a turntable? And a brand-new one, no less? This is the year 2000, for goodness' sake! We have CD! Perfect sound forever! We also have MP3, and new, even better digital formats are just around the bend. Have you been cryogenically frozen for the last fifteen years, or have you simply lost your mind? Well, no. Before you burn me at the laser stake for digital heresy, allow me to explain. I have not been frozen, and I would like to think that if indeed I am insane, it is for completely different reasons. Yes, there are CDs - I have hundreds of them. I love them and I think they sound great. Although to some extent I grew up with LPs (more on that in a moment), I am really a member of the CD generation. There still are, however, very compelling reasons to own a quality turntable.
First, there is the audiophile, specifically the analog-obsessed variety. There are people out there who never subscribed to the whole "digital is better" philosophy. They are convinced that analog recordings, when properly reproduced, sound warmer, more musical and more lifelike than digital ever can. As the respected audio reviewer Steve Guttenberg puts it, there is more "there" there. This approach may seem esoteric, and I think it is. Unless you are totally bluffing your way through the whole process, it involves being able to hear extremely subtle differences in inherently unquantifiable aspects of sound reproduction, which in turn requires learning how to hear these differences and having the opportunity, time, inclination and not insignificant amounts of money to compare various gear. Besides, an argument has been made - a very good one, in my opinion - that music listening is a fundamentally holistic experience: either it grabs your soul in its entirety or it does not, and when it does, everything else, including sound quality, becomes irrelevant. To talk about individual aspects of sound is thus to miss the point.
There is a further subset of audiophiles who enjoy gear for gear's sake. There is almost nothing else they would rather do than balance tonearms, twist counterweights and optimize stylus tracking angles, and they can debate relative merits of moving-coil versus moving-magnet cartridges long into the night. At best, this is appreciation of engineering, not art. In any case, these people most likely already own multi-thousand-dollar masterpieces of industrial design fashioned out of hand-polished rosewood and aircraft-grade aluminum to caress their cherished vinyl, so they are not who I am talking about here, or who I am trying to appeal to.
Second, there is the pragmatist. There is a ton of quality used vinyl out there available at bargain basement prices. It is true that it is becoming more scarce every year, but it is also true that so much is still left that even if I did nothing but listen to LPs for the rest of my life, I would not be able to get through it all, and I am not even thirty. Some of us are fortunate to live in or frequently visit places where quality used vinyl is plentiful. Between Bleecker Bob's, Second Coming Records and the Tower Annex in New York City's Greenwich Village, one can be in collector's heaven for years. Even elsewhere, there is hope. The day after the turntable arrived, at a used book store right here in Washington, DC - a notoriously vinyl-deprived place - I picked up Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto for $1 and Keith Jarrett's Köln Concert for $6, both in pristine condition, and this was before I visited a single thrift shop or garage sale. Fifty cents apiece, anyone? Seventeen records for $10? An entire milk crate for $25, crate included? Who cares that you will never listen to three quarters of the stuff. Buy now, sort it out later. You'll still make out three to four times better than the same titles on CD, and that's before you even consider that a good part of that music is probably out of print forever. Finally, new LPs are still being released in quantities larger than most people realize, and they usually retail for less than the same title on CD. At least a third of the Fantasy Records (umbrella label for Riverside, Milestone, Prestige and Stax, among others) 2000-2001 catalog is available on LP. So, if you subscribe to the non-comparative notion that LPs can sound at least good, which they most certainly can, you just saved yourself some serious money.
Beyond the audiophile and the pragmatist, there is the nostalgic sap. To paraphrase a certain tasteless t-shirt, I am 51% pragmatist, 49% nostalgic sap. I have always felt that holding a record in my hands, especially a used one, with its sleeve edges beginning to fray and the cardboard starting to turn yellow with age, puts me in touch with the time it was made more than a CD ever can. It takes me back to the earliest childhood I can remember, when my father would always have records around the house. His own, mostly Mozart and the Beatles, which he would spin on his god-awful one-piece record player, and his friends', which he would diligently copy onto tape using his gargantuan reel-to-reel tape recorder (this was a place where all non-military technology was at least twenty years behind the rest of the world). I recall tagging along with him to the apartments of his friends - men with longish hair who smelled of cigarettes and bad aftershave - who would promptly show us their stereo systems, almost entirely self-made (nothing like the Iron Curtain to create remarkable artisans out of average joes), dominated by a jury-rigged turntable, always large and ugly, but always functional. They would pull out a record and put it on, handing my father the sleeve and turning up the volume. "Wow, an original Oscar Peterson," my father would say with admiration, and they would talk for a while about what records so-and-so smuggled in on his latest trip to West Germany and how much money might convince him to part with some of them. Then they would retreat into the kitchen to smoke and drink tea, leaving me in the living room to examine the mysterious switches and wires in awe.
Even more recent times are brought into focus by certain records for me. I recently picked up a copy of Liz Story's Part of Fortune (1986). I didn't hear a note when I listened to it for the first time - I was too busy admiring the sleeve. It features a full-size portrait of young Story, her hair teased and sprayed beyond recognition, wearing a blazer with a paint-splotch pattern and exaggerated shoulder pads. The photo is touched up with just the right amounts of powder blue and pastel pink. Today, we might see a picture like this in an ad for a retro-Eighties dance party at the local multi-level dance emporium, but this is the real thing. People looked like this as a matter of course, and touching up a photo in pastel tones was considered chic rather than tacky. Putting the envelope down and noticing that the needle has long since reached the end of a side, I reflected on just how little we notice the changes in everyday things until something so simple as a record hits us over the head with contrast. Humans are nostalgic creatures. We love things that remind us of bygone days. While living in the past is dangerous, taking an occasional trip back never hurt anyone, and there are few better ways to do so than by spinning up a record.
February 2001
Friday, July 4, 2008
Fourth of July
Occasionally I feel regret over not having served in the military. My family was able to come to the US and build a new life here, one far better in every imaginable sense than we ever could in the country we left, and it has frequently seemed to me that I ought to have done something more than just being a law-abiding, tax-paying citizen, to express gratitude. When I stop to think about it, however, I realize that not only would I have been miserable in the military, I would have made a terrible soldier. I have a deep-seated, pervasive mistrust of authority. Not in a knee-jerk, teenage rebellion sort of way, but – I would like to think – in a way that a thinking, seeking, questioning, scientifically skeptical person questions any purported wisdom dispensed from above. In fact, the ability – no, imperative – to question authority is the greatest expression of the American ideal of freedom of speech, thought and expression. We, as a society, are unique in our respect for that kind of skepticism, or at least in the extent to which is has permeated our way of thinking about government. Say what you will about the Patriot Act or the encroachment of fundamentalist religious thinking on education in certain parts of the country. I still maintain that the US is unique in its respect for individuality in thought. Happy Fourth of July, everyone.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Gentrification run amok
For many years, there was bar near my old office in DC called Lulu's. It was a cavernous New Orleans-themed place a few blocks from the GW University campus that sold Miller Lite in plastic cups to crowds of drunk students. We Americans have a genius for turning insignificant events in other countries' histories into excuses to get plastered – Cinco de Mayo, St. Patrick's Day. I'm surprised that Victoria Day isn't an excuse for excessive embibement. Lulu's catered exactly to the kind of crowd that made these “holidays” what they are. On St. Patrick's Day, they had an infamous tradition of opening at 9:00 a.m. to serve breakfast and beer. People would form a line several blocks long; I remember seeing them on my way to work in the morning. I have never actually patronized the place, but my good friend C.M. had been a few times many years ago while in graduate school at GW. He did not have kind things to say about it, and neither did anyone else I know who has been to it. About a year and a half ago, it finally closed, with quite a bit of noise (literally – the going-out-of-business party lasted three days) and an auction of every item and fixture in the place. I could have bought my very own piece of wrought-iron balcony railing, had I had a balcony. The space, along with a section of the adjacent hotel, was gutted, and a fence went up around it with a local construction company's logos on it. Good riddance, many people thought. It was a local institution, to be sure, and a successful business, but one that was difficult for the neighborhood to respect.
The other day, by happenstance I found myself in the neighborhood. The construction has been completed. The space is now occupied by a Walgreen's and a Starbucks, and all of I sudden I found myself really missing Lulu's. There is already a CVS directly across the street, a Starbucks on the same street two blocks away, and another three blocks in the other direction, not to mention miniature ones hiding in nearby hotels. And these are short city blocks, not mile-long suburban ones. How many chain establishments can we sustain? I know they are necessary, offering predictability to their customers and steady growth to their stockholders. But wouldn't you think that the cost of opening an operating new locations would eventually negate the additional revenue they generate? Surely there is a saturation point somewhere, and it's got to be somewhere well before we have one of everything on every block. I can only hope that as companies overextend themselves and have to close superfluous branches, independent businesses like Lulu's can sweep in and snap up the vacated space for cheap, but given the way commercial real estate market operates, that's highly unlikely. The landlord will simply find another gullible chain, one that has not learned its lesson yet, to open a new location.
The other day, by happenstance I found myself in the neighborhood. The construction has been completed. The space is now occupied by a Walgreen's and a Starbucks, and all of I sudden I found myself really missing Lulu's. There is already a CVS directly across the street, a Starbucks on the same street two blocks away, and another three blocks in the other direction, not to mention miniature ones hiding in nearby hotels. And these are short city blocks, not mile-long suburban ones. How many chain establishments can we sustain? I know they are necessary, offering predictability to their customers and steady growth to their stockholders. But wouldn't you think that the cost of opening an operating new locations would eventually negate the additional revenue they generate? Surely there is a saturation point somewhere, and it's got to be somewhere well before we have one of everything on every block. I can only hope that as companies overextend themselves and have to close superfluous branches, independent businesses like Lulu's can sweep in and snap up the vacated space for cheap, but given the way commercial real estate market operates, that's highly unlikely. The landlord will simply find another gullible chain, one that has not learned its lesson yet, to open a new location.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
George Javori
I recently picked up a copy of Shivaree's Who's Got Trouble? album. Shivaree has no full-time drummer, apparently, and makes do with hired guns. Reading through the list of guest musicians in the liner notes, I came across the name George Javori. I went to high school with a guy by that name, and even back then he played incredible drums. He was the go-to guy for anything in the entire school that required a drummer. I jammed with him once or twice back in my guitar days, but frankly, my playing was a complete embarrassment to his. Not very many Javoris running around, even in New York (the name is Hungarian in origin). “Got to be the same guy,” I thought, did a little poking around on the internet, and turned up a few photos. Lo and behold, it was the same guy. He went pro, evidently, and in addition to studio work with the likes of Shivaree, eventually landed a gig as a touring drummer with Joan Baez. He also, it turned out, died in 2005. The information on him is scant, and I was not able to find the cause. The best I could do was this page on Joan Baez's site, as well as this bit on a tribute show to him done at a club in New York in early '06 by what I assume were mostly New York-based musicians who knew him. Kind of odd to contemplate all this. The world really is a small place, and maybe there really is something to the whole six degrees thing.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Deux cheveaux
For anyone wondering what that weird little red and white thing in my avatar is, here's a decent primer that I stumbled upon recently. No, unfortunately I have never owned, or even driven, one. If anyone wants the gory details, e-mail me and I'll let you borrow the book.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Motion detectors
The light switch in a public bathroom in a 24-hr. grocery store is controlled by a motion detector and hooked up to a timer. When someone walks in, the detector turns on the light. The bathroom is housed in a large room. The motion detector is located by the door, but the business end of the bathroom is a fair distance away, on the opposite end of the room. At 7:00 a.m., the foot traffic in the bathroom is very light, and if a person spends a while on the useful end of the bathroom, the timer does not realize there is someone there, and turns off the light. No amount of hand waving can then turn it back on. They don't teach that in engineering school, do they?
Monday, March 24, 2008
You can't make this stuff up
A recruiting poster at my local gym. 24 by 36, framed, with a picture of three smiling personal trainers and the following list of perks:
- Flexible Hours
- 401(k) Plan
- Continuing Eduction
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Candlelight
J. and I had invited a friend and coworker of J.'s and her husband over for dinner on Saturday. They were scheduled to arrive around 6:00. At 3:00, gale-force winds appeared seemingly out of nowhere. At 4:00, the power went out in our building.
Somehow, I have managed to avoid power outages throughout my adult life – there may have been one or two short ones when I lived in New York in the eighties, but that's about it. When I was kid, though, they were common – the power grid in that part of the world at the time was already overtaxed, ill-maintained and grossly mismanaged. To that end, my parents have always kept copious numbers of candles in the house, would light a dozen or so as soon as we lost electricity, and go about their business as if nothing happened. We couldn't watch television, but with nothing but four government-run channels, only three of which would come in with any degree of clarity, it's not like there was a whole lot to watch anyway. Perhaps it was those experiences that engendered in me a love of candlelight at an early age, more likely it was the general sense of romance and mystique associated with it. Suffice it to say I love candles, and J. and have been keeping a big box of them in the closet, but for whatever reason we've hardly used them. Until Saturday.
I briefly considered calling off the dinner and going out instead, but since most of the food was already prepared, the gas in the stove was flowing, and I had two full boxes of matches in a kitchen drawer, with our guests' consent I decided to go ahead. We lit every candle we could find, jury-rigged a flashlight over the stove, and proceeded to have one of the most memorable evenings in recent memory.
My choice of menu proved serendipitous – Italian appetizers didn't need any cooking (except for the peppers which I had roasted earlier) and the short ribs had been braised in the morning. The only thing I actually had to cook by candlelight was the risotto, and though we had only a vague idea of what it, or everything else for that matter, looked like, we could tell by the taste that I didn't mess up too badly. To my surprise, I didn't feel any more stressed about getting everything on the table than I would have with full electric lighting, and once we actually sat down to eat, it was lovely.
The candlelight sparkled in the wine and water glasses on the table and gave J.'s coworker, whose skin and hair are naturally very light, a mysterious, Feast in the time of Plague pallor. Pretty quickly we realized that you lose much more than light when the power goes out – you lose noise. We couldn't have any music on, obviously, but even beyond that, it was deathly quiet – no refrigerator sounds, no sounds filtering through from neighbor's apartments, however faint, nothing. It seems that even when there is nothing identifiable making noise, there is always some amount of white noise present, something is always humming somewhere, the silence is never total. Now it was complete. When the building's generator started up downstairs to power the emergency lighting, I could hear it so distinctly that I could have probably counted the revolutions of its drive shaft by ear.
The lack of power was also strangely liberating. In an instant, we had to accept that there were things that we simply would not be able to do, like look at photos for example, or look up on the internet random things that came up in conversation. We had no choice but to focus on the conversation and one another. We haven't known J.'s coworker and her husband for very long, and the relative lack of activity options forced us, gently, to ask more personal questions. Of course, the evening didn't pass without its comic moments. When I offered everyone coffee, and our guests smirked “how are you going to make it?” I proudly produced a French press only to realize that I had no way of grinding the beans unless I resorted to mortar and pestle.
Aafter dinner, we lingered over some delicious Australian semillon as the candles started to burn out one by one, said our goodbyes around 11:00, apologizing for having to make our guests walk down twelve flights of stairs, then turned in, happy not to be able to set our alarm clocks. The power was finally restored at 10:00 a.m. Sunday morning.
Somehow, I have managed to avoid power outages throughout my adult life – there may have been one or two short ones when I lived in New York in the eighties, but that's about it. When I was kid, though, they were common – the power grid in that part of the world at the time was already overtaxed, ill-maintained and grossly mismanaged. To that end, my parents have always kept copious numbers of candles in the house, would light a dozen or so as soon as we lost electricity, and go about their business as if nothing happened. We couldn't watch television, but with nothing but four government-run channels, only three of which would come in with any degree of clarity, it's not like there was a whole lot to watch anyway. Perhaps it was those experiences that engendered in me a love of candlelight at an early age, more likely it was the general sense of romance and mystique associated with it. Suffice it to say I love candles, and J. and have been keeping a big box of them in the closet, but for whatever reason we've hardly used them. Until Saturday.
I briefly considered calling off the dinner and going out instead, but since most of the food was already prepared, the gas in the stove was flowing, and I had two full boxes of matches in a kitchen drawer, with our guests' consent I decided to go ahead. We lit every candle we could find, jury-rigged a flashlight over the stove, and proceeded to have one of the most memorable evenings in recent memory.
My choice of menu proved serendipitous – Italian appetizers didn't need any cooking (except for the peppers which I had roasted earlier) and the short ribs had been braised in the morning. The only thing I actually had to cook by candlelight was the risotto, and though we had only a vague idea of what it, or everything else for that matter, looked like, we could tell by the taste that I didn't mess up too badly. To my surprise, I didn't feel any more stressed about getting everything on the table than I would have with full electric lighting, and once we actually sat down to eat, it was lovely.
The candlelight sparkled in the wine and water glasses on the table and gave J.'s coworker, whose skin and hair are naturally very light, a mysterious, Feast in the time of Plague pallor. Pretty quickly we realized that you lose much more than light when the power goes out – you lose noise. We couldn't have any music on, obviously, but even beyond that, it was deathly quiet – no refrigerator sounds, no sounds filtering through from neighbor's apartments, however faint, nothing. It seems that even when there is nothing identifiable making noise, there is always some amount of white noise present, something is always humming somewhere, the silence is never total. Now it was complete. When the building's generator started up downstairs to power the emergency lighting, I could hear it so distinctly that I could have probably counted the revolutions of its drive shaft by ear.
The lack of power was also strangely liberating. In an instant, we had to accept that there were things that we simply would not be able to do, like look at photos for example, or look up on the internet random things that came up in conversation. We had no choice but to focus on the conversation and one another. We haven't known J.'s coworker and her husband for very long, and the relative lack of activity options forced us, gently, to ask more personal questions. Of course, the evening didn't pass without its comic moments. When I offered everyone coffee, and our guests smirked “how are you going to make it?” I proudly produced a French press only to realize that I had no way of grinding the beans unless I resorted to mortar and pestle.
Aafter dinner, we lingered over some delicious Australian semillon as the candles started to burn out one by one, said our goodbyes around 11:00, apologizing for having to make our guests walk down twelve flights of stairs, then turned in, happy not to be able to set our alarm clocks. The power was finally restored at 10:00 a.m. Sunday morning.
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