jamie lawrence-howard • highly absorbent redundant and superfluous verbiage • clogging tubes since 9.1.98
what’s missing from the nonstop election coverage today?
i’ll tell you what.
it’s a discussion of how far down the ticket the sweep went. this daily kos story is called “dems kick ass in state legislatures”.
it’s not just a victory on the national level. it’s in state houses, and i expect that it goes down to the county and city level as well.
people were just plain fed up.
news alert one just hit my email inbox: Tester defeats burns for the montana senate seat. great news, but not unexpected.
news alert two followed two minutes later: rumsfeld to resign.
damn! damn! finally we’re getting somewhere!
some random thoughts, blatantly stolen from various uncredited sources this morning:
karl rove was the mastermind of the largest electoral setback for republicans in quite some time. go karl. not such a wizard now, dude.
america’s message to george w. bush: shut the fuck up.
this is the first morning in the long march toward eliminating the evil influence of christian evangelicals in this country. christians like me are no longer going to stand for their nonsense.
the power has shifted from the south of america to the coasts, with a sprinkling of midwest for good measure.
not that i ever would have, but i’m glad i didn’t move to canada. if you actually did move to canada, shame on you. but you should come back now.
lost in the noise of this election: katrina. let’s not continue to forget it.
assuming that the democrats’ lead in virginia and montana senate races holds, the democratic party will have pitched a shutout. actually, make that a near-perfect game, except that they walked senator-elect bob corker from tennessee.
the country’s message to democrats: clean up the mess. be sensible. don’t overreach. you have a mandate for change, but it’s limited in scope.
there is so much to celebrate this morning. the house has returned to democratic control, and, much more improbably, there’s a good chance the senate will too.
but the news i’m cheering the most is from arizona. that very republican state became the first state in the country to reject a gay marriage ban.
the importance of this cannot be overstated. combined with much narrower majorities passing gay marriage bans in other states, and with the court decision in new jersey, it looks like we may have turned a corner in the battle for marriage equality.
my sense is that many arizonans possess that western conservatism, that libertarian-ish barry goldwater-like streak that says “stay outta my private life”. and those people combined with the social liberals to provide a majority to defeat the gay marriage ban.
there’s a road map there, and a great lesson for those in the marriage equality movement. that’s a winning argument that can be duplicated elsewhere. the dynamics of this victory will be, and should be, studied to an infinitesimal degree of precision. every nuance of meaning needs to be extracted.
and you combine the arizona victory with the defeat of the anti-abortion law in south dakota, and the passage of the stem-cell research proposal in missouri, and you have a formula for driving nutty evangelicals, well, nuttier.
it’s a good, good, morning in america.
did you see this coming a mile off, like i did?
i know he’s a hypocrite, and i know he’s done irreparable damage to gay rights through his support of anti-gay initiatives, and i know he’s a liar, and a scumbag, and every other pejorative word you could come up with.
but today i read that rev. ted haggard will evidently be subjected to reparation therapy as part of his “recovery process”.
and his therapy will be supervised by Focus on the Family founder James Dobson.
that’s not something i’d wish on my worst enemy, really, even though rev. ted haggard comes as close to my worst enemy as anyone does.
from the article:
The counseling process, called restoration, could take years, said H.B. London, vice president for church and clergy at Focus on the Family, a Colorado Springs-based ministry.
“I think it may be more in helping to set the requirements of the restoration, set the ground rules,” London told The Associated Press.
they may call it “restoration”, but that’s just a code word for ex-gay therapy.
i’m going to pray for ted haggard. i’m going to pray that he finds the strength to become whoever he is, honestly, deep in his heart.
i suspect that deep down there he’s a gay man. i hope someday he can face that truth, and be comfortable and happy with it.
i have a feeling, though, that all this therapy will “cure” him, and he’ll end up being as deeply unhappy and repressed as he is now.
update: rev. james dobson has withdrawn from the team. the reparation itself continues.
i saw a performance of this work on saturday–the ny times had a great review (free registration required). according to reich, it’s a “documentary video opera”. sounds dense, you say?
it’s not. and it was surprisingly engaging and enjoyable.
kirk was the assistant stage manager for touring “cave” performances for a while, so he was familiar with the piece (though until saturday, he’d never seen it from an audience perspective). he’s been going on about it for a while, so when it came to nyc as part of steve reich’s 70th birthday celebration, we got tickets.
the three-part “opera” asks (in turn) jews, muslims, and americans/christians five questions: who is abraham? who is sarah? who is isaac, who is ishmael? who is hagar? the answers go a long way toward explaining why there’s still so much tension in the middle east.
there are five video screens showing snips and clips of interviewees’ responses, and there’s an orchestra, singers, and a performer “playing” a computer keyboard that puts relevant bits of scripture (the torah, the koran, and the bible) up on the screen, underpinning the answers. the answers aren’t linear–the responses are edited down to one or two words–and the meaning comes from the repetition, and your assemblage of the clips, the chanting, the scripture, and the music into a narrative thread in your mind.
i admit to a large degree of complete ignorance on this subject. i barely even knew the basic story, so i learned quite a bit of fascinating info from this piece. i won’t bore you with vast detail, but here are some very salient points:
abraham’s first wife was sarah, and his first-born son ishmael was born not of sarah, but of her handmaid (sarah couldn’t conceive). isaac, abraham’s son with sarah, came later (guess she could after all). this is oversimplifying matters, but jews descend from isaac and muslims from ishmael. four thousand years later, jews and muslims are still fighting battles over holy sites (such as the site of the cave where abraham, isaac, sarah et al. are buried) because of the complications that ensue. jews claim primacy because sarah was the first (and legitimate) wife. muslims claim primacy because ishmael was the first born son.
reich’s piece underscores how immediate this still is for jews and muslims–for them, the four thousand years might as well be yesterday. most westerners can’t imagine this concept, a point which the third act makes.
and to complicate matters, there’s the story in scripture of abraham’s abortive sacrifice of his son on an altar at god’s bidding. the torah says that this son was isaac. the koran says that this son was ishmael.
it’s no wonder there’s so much conflict. but “the cave” itself makes you really understand how sticky and intractable this situation really is.
i can’t stop thinking about it. “the cave” is presented intermittently, and is well worth seeing if you get the chance.
good lord. ever have one of those moments when you wonder just how much more embarrassed you could possibly be?
I’m having one of those now.
i’ve been blogging (blathering, really) for years about how much i love kristin hall. about how kristin hall is my favorite artist. about how i want “peaches” by kristin hall to be played at my funeral. about how my favorite two cds by any artist of all time are “fact and fiction” and “be careful what you wish for”. and about how high my gooogle ranking was for kristin hall related searches.
blah, blah, blah.
and now i realize that i have been spelling her name wrong. for at least two years on my site.
it’s kristen hall, idiot.
i really don’t undertand how i did this. i’m a fanatically accurate speller, especially of names. i used to be rain man with names when i was a yearbook adviser. I could blow students away with my memory of who was carrie versus cari versus kerry versus cary. i could spell 12-letter polish names with ease.
it’s no wonder “kristin hall” got me so many google hits. everyone else was spelling her name correctly, and i was getting the spelling-challenged crowd to visit. and the worst part is how many times i linked to the kristen hall website and never noticed the “e” versus the “i”.
not to mention how many times i’ve looked at cd covers.
i’m sorry to have propagated this misspelling.
i’m an idiot.
hopefully this posting will somewhat mitigate my past misdeeds. and i’ve edited all the pages (and the site category) to correct the spelling.
it may seem i’m making a mountain out of a molehill. but writing this is a process–it’s a reminder to myself to be more humble about my abilities.
and to not take anything for granted.
two stories you may have missed:
andrew sullivan writes about the deliberate u.s. pullout from an area where a u.s. soldier is being held captive. does this not pretty much define “cut and run”? if this happened under the watch of a sitting democratic president, the hue and cry would drown everything else in the media. why is this not a bigger story?
from the story:
under this commander-in-chief, the U.S. military has both practised torture and abandoned a missing soldier in action. The commander-in-chief has ultimate responsibility for both decisions. he is directly responsible for betraying the honor of the armed services he is duty-bound to lead. So is Rumsfeld. So is Cheney.
and in today’s new york times (free registration required to view), a story about how the government put documents on a public website that comprise directions on building nuclear weapons.
from the story:
The documents, roughly a dozen in number, contain charts, diagrams, equations and lengthy narratives about bomb building that nuclear experts who have viewed them say go beyond what is available elsewhere on the Internet and in other public forums. For instance, the papers give detailed information on how to build nuclear firing circuits and triggering explosives, as well as the radioactive cores of atom bombs.
“For the U.S. to toss a match into this flammable area is very irresponsible,†said A. Bryan Siebert, a former director of classification at the federal Department of Energy, which runs the nation’s nuclear arms program. “There’s a lot of things about nuclear weapons that are secret and should remain so.â€
gee, i thought the whole republican thing was that “the adults would now be back in charge”.
that may change, assuming we can all get our votes to count, which is certainly somewhat in doubt.
well, to be honest, ben brantley’s review has a couple of quibbles. one about the length of the first act (i get what he’s saying, but it doesn’t bother me) and one about the actress portraying young little edie in the first act (i disagree; i think her performance is a perfectly understated complement to christine ebersole’s second act tour-de-force).
but, at any rate, you can call it a rave.
from the review:
The wit, exact detail and, above all, compassion with which Ms. Ebersole infuses each of her numbers as Little Edie are ravishing. Even dancing like a drunken U.S.O. entertainer from World War II, flapping flags as if they were flyswatters, this Edie is never merely ridiculous. And when her voice goes pure and girlish for the show’s most conventionally pretty numbers, she becomes the frightened, resentful and perversely hopeful child that persists in everyone, longing for parental approval and the sanctuary of a real home.
There is another phrase, by the way, in addition to the immortal “da-da-da-da-dum,†that I can’t get out of my head. This one is two words, “Oh, God,†and Ms. Ebersole sings them in her climactic number, “Another Winter in a Summer Town,†with a layering of despair, rebellion and surrender that becomes a heartbreaking epitaph for an entire life. Watching this performance is the best argument I can think of for the survival of the American musical.
you might as well engrave “christine ebersole” on the tony now.
this thing is here for the long haul. do yourself a favor, and get yourself a ticket. this is a performance that, in future years, you’ll brag about having seen.
so out of boredom i made an anonymous post to a thread on the “fake steve jobs” site.
wherein i hypothesized that fake steve was john gruber, of daring fireball fame.
it’s an idle guess, but one that makes a bit of sense. to me there’s always been an east coast vibe behind the west coast veneer. and john gruber has been putting up a lot of links to the “fake steve” site. the writer of the site would have to be a knowledgeable mac insider, and gruber certainly qualifies.
i’m probably way wrong. i don’t think that whoever fake steve is would have approved my anonymous comment if it was on target.
or would he? or she? hmmmm.
nevertheless, it’s a fun guessing game about a very fun site i check out regularly.
the zune is microsoft’s answer to the ipod, and it’s coming at you sometime in november.
if you do a bit of research, you’ll see that the ipod’s dominance is probably not at all threatened by this ill-conceived electronic gadget. microsoft will sell quite a few at the expense of the market share of ipod’s comeptitors, but not at the expense of ipod’s own market share.
which is about 76% of portable music players. an unheard-of market share.
anyway, microsoft’s latest salvo in the ipod wars are the tv commercials revealed here at youtube. microsoft is trying really hard to be hep, and down with the younguns, and all.
i’m sure they’ll flock to the stores after seeing dog scratch. nothing to put you in the mindset of spending $250 on a brown (!) music player than watching a dog nose its privates.
whatever.
you’d be much happier spending $29 on a refurbished ipod shuffle. that’s what i did today.
this doesn’t seem to be getting much press, but the credit freeze for new york state went into effect today (november 1). here’s a .pdf file with more information.
years ago, i had my identity stolen. it took me weeks to untangle the mess. and i was lucky, in a sense–many people spend years untangling it, and never succeed.
this puts a freeze on your credit files with the three credit reporting bureaus–experian, trans union, and equifax–and ensures that you’ll never have to deal with identity theft. there’s a bit of inconvenience on the back side (you have to temporarily unfreeze your credit if someone needs access) but it’s well worth the trouble.
if you don’t live in new york, your state may still have its own credit freeze. check it out.
do yourself a favor. spend the hour it will take to do this…you won’t regret it.
the film, and the stars of the broadway production:
David and Albert Maysles’ 1975 documentary, “Grey Gardens,” will appear on cable’s Turner Classic Movies (TCM) Oct. 29 in a presentation that includes the stars of the new Broadway musical of the same name.
The film portrait of Jackie Bouvier’s aunt and cousin, Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter “Little” Edie, is a cult classic – a portrait of social and personal decay and perseverance. It airs 8 PM (ET) Oct. 29. Check local listings for channel on your cable system.
The TCM premiere comes just days before the Broadway opening of the Grey Gardens musical on Nov. 2 at the Walter Kerr Theatre. Previews began Oct. 3.
of course, the story’s dateline is yesterday, october 30, and the airing was sunday, october 29.
mark your calendars. thanks, playbill.
early voting has begun in florida, and there are problems already.
people’s votes for democratic candidates are being recorded for their republican opponents. of course, election officials are assuring people that the errors can be fixed on the spot.
if, of course, you are savvy enough to catch the mistake, and aggressive enough to alert the people in charge, and persistent enough to make sure your vote is recorded properly. sure. lots of elderly voters are going to have the wherewithal to go through that.
right.
and why is it that, when we read these stories, the error never favors the democrats? i certainly try to avoid paranoia, but you have to wonder.
here’s the quote from the linked story that strikes fear into my heart:
Broward Supervisor of Elections spokeswoman Mary Cooney said it’s not uncommon for screens on heavily used machines to slip out of sync, making votes register incorrectly. Poll workers are trained to recalibrate them on the spot — essentially, to realign the video screen with the electronics inside. The 15-step process is outlined in the poll-workers manual.
the 15-step process.
here’s a true story: on one of my relatively recent visits to the polls, i went up to the proper table and the poll worker asked my last name. she then looked at a copy of the alphabet she had written on an envelope, so that she would know where in the book to find my registration information.
you read that correctly. she didn’t know the alphabet well enough, and had to write it down for reference.
i have other new york voting horror stories, and i assure you that this is not an isolated incident–it’s a typical incident.
and these are the people that are going to initiate a 15-step process to calibrate an electonic voting machine?
i’m really angry about this.
and if you really want to get completely frightened, here’s an online guide to stealing elections. the guide was assembled to make the point that stealing an election is now easier than ever, due to the “improvements” implemented after the 2000 election.
this country is going to hell in a handcart. we need to get the u.n. in here to monitor the elections. like they do in fledgling democracies, countries that seem to be doing a better job of having elections than the united states.
i’m really afraid for what will happen to this country if there are widespread problems with electronic voting. it could be the push over the edge into some really widespread, destructive protests, and we don’t need that.
or, maybe we do.
the old guy sitting next to me at “grey gardens” wednesday night made me very cranky. first of all, though he was ancient and practically bald, he still had a ponytail. bad form. when we were going to our seats, before i knew i was sitting next to him, i overheard him complaining about his seats to the usher. well, dude, you bought them. did you not know where they were when you bought them? it’s your damn fault that your seats are where they are. man up. take responsibility.
so kirk and i sat down, and he followed us into the row and sat next to me. great. and throughout the show, he kept passing gas. very smelly gas. and he was constantly poking his bony-ass elbow into my side, way past the armrest and halfway into my seat. i finally had to whisper “excuse me”, which got his elbow at least back onto the armrest.
do people have no clue of how they are acting in public? talk about breaking the social contract. come on, clueless usher-torturing bony-elbowed bad-ponytailed fart man. get a grip.
this morning i got cranky as well. every week or so, i treat myself to a grease-bomb burger king breakfast. i get an egg-and-cheese croissanwich meal (comes with tater tots, and a diet coke) for $2.70–it’s a splurge for me, monetarily and dietarily. but i like it, and i never go to mcdonalds, because they stupidly charge extra for the diet coke, making the equivalent meal well over $4. and i hate the log-o-hash browns. that big solid plank of potato is very unappetizing. give me individual tots anytime.
but i digress.
this morning, i go to burger king for my breakfast. there’s a roped off line to get in, but these two loudmouth idiots at the front of the line aren’t in it. they evidently can’t be bothered to walk the extra 10 feet. so they stand just outside the ropes, waiting for the guy currently at the register to finish, so they can push past all the people who have already ordered and are waiting for their food.
and since they aren’t in line, the rest of us aren’t queued up nicely, but are forced into a clump around them. though, being good people, we’ve all mentally noted who got there first and so on. you can tell with some people that they get it, and with others that they are idiots.
and there’s only one person who works the burger king counter in the morning, so it’s not the most speedy process in the best of circumstances. add to that the general slowness of new york fast food (it’s unbelievably slow, but you get used to it), and we all are waiting our turn in a confused mass of humanity.
and the two guys who can’t line up are waiting as well. and talking. loudly. very very loudly. so i have to listen to their inane conversation about their boring ass life, because they are so loud that i don’t have a choice.
and it is finally their turn. and they ignore the roped-off line, push past the people waiting for their food, and get to the counter.
and look up at the menu board, and one of them says. says.
“now let’s see here, what do you have for breakfast?”
dammit, dammit, dammit. you’ve been standing there for at least three minutes. could you not have looked up and decided what the flying fuck you wanted for breakfast? no. you have to make me wait even longer, because you are an idiot.
and most times, i would have let it go. but this time, i muttered under my breath, “oh for chrissakes”.
at least i thought it was under my breath.
it wasn’t as under my breath as i thought.
everyone in the non-line turned around and looked at me. and then turned around and looked at him.
and, to his credit, he immediately said, “i’ll have a number seven”.
and now i feel bad, a little bit. i need to be less cranky. i need to be more zen.
who knows why the old guy farted so much?
maybe this guy hadn’t seen the guy he was with for a while, and got excited, and forgot to formulate his burger king order.
i need to work on not letting little things bug me so much. in the end, if you have perspective, they aren’t what matter.
» curious as to where you really fall on the political spectrum? take this quiz. i’m Economic Left/Right: -2.75 Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.56, which puts me in the company of gandhi, the dalai lama, and nelson mandela. better than the opposite quadrant, which includes such luminaries as hitler and george w. bush.
» the greedy landlords are at it again. this time they are trying to tear down the building that houses le madeleine on 43rd between 9th and 10th, one of our favorite restaurants. do me a favor and sign the petition. the details are here.
» danny rolling was executed yesterday. i lived in gainesville when the student murders took place, and it was a truly frightening experience. i lived blocks away from victims’ houses, and blocks away from the woods where danny rolling lived in his tent. i’m against capital punishment, though something like this certainly gives you cause to reexamine the strength of your convictions.
» new jersey is on the verge of allowing gay marriages that theoretically should be honored in other states. as far as i’m concerned, i got married by a minister, and i’m married in the eyes of god, and that’s that. the state thinks otherwise, obviously. kirk and i registered as domestic partners in new york city at the time of our ceremony–i’d like to see that given the same legal rights as marriage. i don’t want to get married again–once should be enough if i have the paperwork to prove it. there should be an amnesty or something. but if going through another ceremony would give me equivalent rights, or advance the cause, i guess i’d do it.
the old grey gardens? the best show i saw last year.
the new grey gardens? one of the best shows i have ever seen.
many people thought (and i did too, on reflection) that the first act needed tightening. they’ve done it with fairly extensive changes, while plumping up everything thematic and dramatic. the second act is largely untouched, but the staging is much improved, and the ending is better.
below, i’ve scanned the old & new playbill covers, and the old & new song lists:
« click on thumbnails to view pictures »
|
grey |
grey |
grey |
grey |
changes?
» “toyland” out, “the girl who has everything” in. to be honest, i don’t remember toyland, but “the girl who has everything” works perfectly as a recurring theme; playful with a dark undertone at the beginning, devastating and haunting at the end. verdict: improvement.
» “body beautiful beale” out. great song, but the message is communicated in the book. verdict: no great loss.
» “better fall out of love” out, “goin’ places” in. the new song does a better job of foreshadowing joe kennedy’s eventual departure, and is more believable overall. verdict: improvement.
» “being bouvier” out, “marry well” in. it seems like a lot of major bouvier’s first act part was cut, or at least that’s my impression. that’s probably ultimately good, as it focuses attention on the beales. the new song gets a lot of the points across that formerly were in the book, or were not part of the original song. verdict: there’s no such thing as too much john mcmartin, but on the balance a slight plus.
» novelty numbers trimmed. “hominy grits” and the oriental featured number with the young bouvier girls have been considerably shortened. they don’t need to be any longer. you could cut them further if you wanted. in fact, you could lose “hominy grits” altogether if you ask me, although it does add to the character development somewhat. verdict: huge improvement.
» “tomorrow’s woman” gone. don’t remember it. didn’t miss it. verdict: improvement.
» horrible anachronistic lyric about howard hughes and the spruce goose gone. my complaint with this in the original was that the action took place in 1941, and the spruce goose flew in 1947. it’s gone. verdict: enormous improvement. the details count.
» sara gettelfinger out, erin davie in. i liked sara gettelfinger, the original young little edie, but erin davie does a great job. there’s a moment when she’s singing “daddy’s girl” when the tone shifts. the lyrics have to be delivered perfectly to avoid a false note, and davie does it wonderfully. verdict: a wash.
» moppets out, moppets in. sorry to be rude or crass, but the kids (jackie and lee bouvier) are largely background. the new moppets didn’t pull my focus, which is a good thing. the old ones didn’t either. verdict: no verdict necessary.
all these are first act changes which have helped things immensely. there’s a more even flow, the character development has improved, and there are lighter moments which contrast well with the darker ones.
the second act songs are the same, with the exception of the end:
» “peas in a pod” out, “the girl who has everything” in. i realize now it’s now a much, much better ending. “peas in a pod” was ironic, but lacked a certain gravitas. the new ending doesn’t sell out a bit. it’s relentlessly consistent with the action that immediately precedes it. verdict: improvement.
they’ve also echoed christine ebersole’s first act big edie in her show-ending turn as little edie, and that’s a good thing. they’ve done a marvelous job–changing the staging at the end and adding lines and the new song really reinforces the way that the edies are so much alike. and the end is so haunting–christine ebersole is such a presence, and you really could hear the proverbial pin drop.
the rest of the cast remains excellent. mary louise wilson was good in the original, but is more focused here, it seems. she’s settled in to a great interplay with christine ebersole–their time together on stage really crackles.
kirk says i tend to speak in superlatives. it’s a fair statement. i cheerlead a bit for the things i like. but i mostly don’t blather on about the things that stink, because they aren’t worth my time. and i don’t even mention a lot of the things i like a lot. i saw “the prestige” this week, and liked it a lot, but it ain’t “shortbus”, so i’m not going on about it.
usually my opinion settles out, and i’ve had a year to digest the old version of this musical, to give me a basis to compare it to the new version. and while my opinion might change over time, right now i’d say that this is one of the top five theatrical events i’ve seen in my lifetime. i haven’t been this completely thrilled in an audience since i saw elaine stritch at the public theater. it’s that level of engagement, and that level of amazement.
tonight is the night of my return to the splendor of grey gardens. i can hardly wait.
i’ve blathered on extensively about this show, and about how much i loved it when i saw it at playwrights horizons last year.
and now it’s on broadway. and, instead of hearing myself sing “la da da da da” in that perfect five-note sequence that cracks me up every time i think of it, i get to hear christine ebersole sing it. it’s part of the first song (“revolutionary costume for today”) of act two, or at least it was, and it’s the first time you see ebersole as little edie instead of big edie, the character she plays in the first act. she’s describing her inimitable clothing choices–it’s the most memorable performance of a song i’ve seen on broadway in years.
you gotta see it.
like me, tonight.
and, as a side note, we’re seeing a preview performance of the little dog laughed on friday, which we’re really looking forward to. kirk knows the playwright from back in the day in hometown pennsylvania, and we’ve heard good things about it. we’re looking forward to it.
but not like i’m looking forward to tonight.
you can sing all of emily dickinson’s poems to the tune of the theme from “gilligan’s island”. did you know that?
my former students do. most of them were forced to hear me sing “because i could not stop for death” or some such thing.
you can also sing her poems to the tune of “the yellow rose of texas”.
and now i learn, thanks to a comment on a gawker story, that you can also sing emily dickinson songs to the tune of “the battle hymn of the republic”.
aren’t the internets a wonderful place? how did we ever get along without them? remember, knowledge is power, grasshopper.
denise ousley, my former student who clued me into the “gilligan’s island” tidbit originally, would be thrilled at this news.
last night i tried to go to the iTunes music store, but couldn’t connect. i kept getting an error message.
what? my mac isn’t perfect?
no, of course not. we had an issue with the isync in kirk’s account that was particularly vexing. but other than that, i’ve had no problems and have done little to no maintenance. 99.9% of my time on the mac has been completely productive.
sometimes i kind of miss pc maintenance–spending hours tracking down a device driver conflict, or manually removing a particularly insidious piece of spyware. the detective work was kind of fun.
yeah, right.
anyway, i was aghast when i couldn’t connect to the itunes store. thought that there was a problem with my mac. fiddled a bit (though there’s not much “under the hood” to fiddle with, to be honest) and nothing worked.
today, i read that the problem is with time warner cable, and nothing to do with apple.
well, of course it isn’t.
in other news, it might be obvious to everyone but me, but i didn’t know about this fun mac activity that i just discovered:
» download a .midi file. you can start looking here. there are .midi files for every song you can imagine.
» open garage band and drag the file into the open window for the new file. it instantly populates with all the tracks and all the instruments.
» fiddle and change the instruments and sounds to your heart’s content. speed it up. slow it down. add a sound loop. hook up a microphone and sing along. send it to itunes and burn it on a cd.
instant rock star, and you don’t have to know how to play musical instrument number one. hell, i can’t keep time with a stick and a tin can. garage band sat on my computer for a year, and i never bothered with it. now i can’t stay out of it.
of course, you could do something constructive for work or whatever with microsoft office too, if you have to. i do that once in a while.
but mostly, i just have a blast, do fun stuff, surf the internet without fear of viruses and spyware and keyboard loggers and such, and generally enjoy myself. when i get a few more songs done, i may just post them for download, so you can see for yourself how easy it is to make good music, if you have some talent. and make music that’s a step above mediocre, if like me you have no talent at all.
i enjoy my mac much more than i used to enjoy a pc.