Monthly Archives: June 2005

Why Do We Like that Song?

June 28, 2005
Musical taste is an inscrutable thing. Some songs are immediately pleasing to the ear, while others demand a lot of work and repeated listens. Some are hailed by critics and spurned by the public, while others are panned by critics as they ascend to the top of the charts. On a much smaller scale, two people could have the same reaction to nine bands, but then diverge greatly on the tenth. There are a number of bands that I have failed to like, even though I have tried quite hard to like them, and even though the critics adore them–even though my friends whose musical tastes I respect have recommended them. At the risk of disappointing some of my friends, here are a few of the acclaimed bands and musicians that I *want* to like but somehow can’t…
Posted in music | 8 Comments

Books I Would Read If I Were

June 24, 2005
I’ve read a few books in my life, and I hope to read a few more. But there are many that I’ll never be able to get through, even if I’d really like to. The big irony of recent years is that while book sales are going up, reading is going down. At least, that’s what I’ve read. So, here is my list of books–some I’ve already bought, some I haven’t–that I probably will never read. They are books I *would* read if only I were…
Posted in self-indulgence | 2 Comments

Compleat Steve

June 21, 2005
I’ve never been all that wild and crazy about Steve Martin’s Saturday Night Live years. But the essays he’s written for The New Yorker’s “Shouts & Murmurs” section over the past few years are some of the funniest I’ve ever read. The other day when I was searching for one of those articles, I came across the website The Compleat Steve, which has an enormous collection of writing by and about Steve Martin, including transcripts of speeches and the Academy Awards show that he hosted a couple years ago. It’s hard to believe that the site isn’t infringing on a copyright somewhere, so maybe you should check it out soon, before the owner gets a “C and D” letter from somebody’s attorney. Here is an excerpt from one of my favorite essays…
Posted in society | 3 Comments

Learning PHP the Fun Way

June 14, 2005
A friend of D. Keith Robinson made up a MadLib for Keith’s birthday the other day and asked him to post it on his website and start a “meme.” It looked fun to me, but all of the fill-in-the-blanks were embedded right in the story, so it was missing that element of goofy surprise that I remember about the MadLibs I did as a kid…
Posted in technology | 5 Comments

The Best Part of the Trip

June 13, 2005
The family took a trip down to Chicago this past weekend to celebrate nephew Michael’s high school graduation. We had a terrific time seeing family, catching up, eating good food, looking at Michael’s stellar photographs, doing the family thing. On Sunday we went to the Brookfield Zoo, which is probably the nicest one I’ve ever seen (I’ve never been to the San Diego Zoo, which I hear is spectacular)…
Posted in family | 2 Comments

The Cutter of ‘The Cut’

June 9, 2005
The premiere episode of The Cut is airing tonight at 8:00 p.m. on CBS. It’s a “Project Runway” type of show—not that I’ve ever seen “Project Runway,” but that’s what I’ve read. Tommy Hilfiger puts 16 fashion designer wannabes through their paces to decide who will get a gig working for the master.
Posted in friends and neighbors | Leave a comment

An Odd Relationship with Words

June 6, 2005
Jose Saramago’s writing is so peculiar that three weeks after I finished reading his latest novel, The Double, I’m still baffled by how he pulls it off. It wasn’t just the long, sinuous sentences or the simultaneously disturbing and comical events that teeter on the brink of absurdity, but also the odd voice of the narrator, who most of the time seems omniscient, though never omnipotent, and, at times, almost ineffectual, that made me love this maddening book so much…
Posted in language | Leave a comment

Changes in Site

June 1, 2005
The time seemed right to change the site, so that is what I am doing…
Posted in self-indulgence, technology | 7 Comments