Miscellaneous

One more Spitzer post, and then

Posted on March 15, 2008
One more Spitzer post, and then we'll move on. I haven't heard anyone say anything about it, but isn't interesting to think about the arc of this story? It was such a stunner-- hard-nosed prosecutor brought down by his own hypocrisy-- that I'm not sure anyone has thought about it much, but consider this: Spitzer wasn't charged with anything when the Times released the story...

I want a bumper sticker that says,

Posted on March 11, 2008
I want a bumper sticker that says, "Don't Blame Me, I Voted for Suozzi". I am of half a mind to haul my Suozzi lawn sign out of the basement, actually. A. says, "I am trying not to see this as an example of why change is impossible," and that more or less captures my mood about the whole mess...

I was awoken yesterday to a news

Posted on March 10, 2008
I was awoken yesterday to a news report about a local judge who was implicated in a prostitution investigation. My mind raced, but it turned out to be a judge I'd never met.I've never met Client 9, either, but I had been optimistic about Eliot Spitzer...

I was just thinking about "The

Posted on March 07, 2008
I was just thinking about "The Capeman", actually. Derek Walcott, with whom Paul Simon collaborated on the doomed Broadway project is coming to Buffalo as part of Just Buffalo's Babel series, and I was thinking about at least checking my calendar for it...

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Here's my question: how come Tim

Posted on March 07, 2008
Here's my question: how come Tim Russert doesn't ask questions like this? If they'd let the kids ask follow-up questions, we'd really be getting somewhere.What is kind of galling, actually, is that CNN plays this story for cute laughs, rather than for what it is...

I am having a real hard time getting

Posted on March 05, 2008
I am having a real hard time getting my mind around the notion that somehow Hillary Clinton is Fritz Mondale and Barrak Obama is Gary Hart, but that seems to be how it is shaking out. It is interesting that HRC continues to confound conventional polling methodology, and it is extremely interesting that both Clinton and Obama seem to attract highly motivated voters...

What's on Bruce Springsteen's iPod?

Posted on March 04, 2008
What's on Bruce Springsteen's iPod? And also a pretty good interview with The Boss. (Via Bill Simmons'column.) "I always look at my work as trying to measure the distance between American promise and American reality," Springsteen says. It is an interesting statement- certainly a very self-aware thing for a guitar player to say, and as I think about it, it seems true...

I have given up resisting Bill

Posted on March 03, 2008
I have given up resisting Bill Simmons. He can call himself The Sports Guy, he can be a big Boston fan, he can write columns that are five times longer than they need to be-- at the end of the day he is plain funny, and I can forgive a lot if you are funny...

We always had the National Review

Posted on February 27, 2008
We always had the National Review around the house growing up, a magazine that I dipped into but never got into, if you know what I mean. William F. Buckley, though, he was cool. He'd loll back in his chair and absolutely drill some hapless sap who'd agreed to come on "Firing Line", and he did it with that Larchmont lockjaw accent-- even if you disagreed with him-- as I always did, you had to admire his style...

Scrolling around for something

Posted on February 26, 2008
Scrolling around for something to watch before going to bed last night, I came upon Game Three of the 1969 World Series. Jackie O and John-John were in the stands, sharing a box with Jerry Lewis. Nelson Rockefeller was there. And the Metropolitans blew past the Orioles 5-0...

To the Tap Room Saturday night

Posted on February 25, 2008
To the Tap Room Saturday night to see Willie Nile. I stand by my assessment from two years ago: Nile is certainly a pro, but he only has warning track power. On the way home A. asked, "So what's his claim to fame, exactly? Was I supposed to know any of those songs?" "He came along too late to be a New Dylan," I told her, "But once he was going to be a Next Springsteen...

At this festive time of the year,

Posted on February 25, 2008
At this festive time of the year, when the sports world is all about how the Sabres will fold and college hoops, I'm glad I've got the Chilly Challenge and the Shamrock to divert me. College basketball just makes me want to grind my teeth, and that's a shame, because it should be a lot more fun than it is allowed to be...

For a long time I resisted the

Posted on February 22, 2008
For a long time I resisted the sides Miles Davis made after "Jack Johnson" on the grounds that I couldn't tell where Miles ended and Teo Macero began. I am more open minded now-- fact is that jazz is a collaborative art, and although Miles is (properly) viewed as a leader, he was a collaborator throughout his career...

We got a marketing call from AARP,

Posted on February 21, 2008
We got a marketing call from AARP, who wanted us to buy advertising in their directory. "So, we could get injunctions to get those kids off the lawn?" I asked.

I don't know what it is about college

Posted on February 20, 2008
I don't know what it is about college basketball. College football is obviously every bit as corrupt, but hoops seems more exploitive to me somehow. Sure, there are "clean" programs-- I hate to admit it, but Duke seems like one-- but the whole set-up looks kinda dodgy to me...

We saw short ribs at Wegman's late

Posted on February 19, 2008
We saw short ribs at Wegman's late last week, but the weekend did not yield an opportunity to cook them, so last night I made two dinners. Working with LCA to prepare my mise en place, on one burner I prepared a sort of pork chops Lyonnaise, and on the other I made the short ribs, in a Provençal manner...

Although ordinarily I am pretty

Posted on February 18, 2008
Although ordinarily I am pretty much strictly an IPA man, something about the quality of the light this time of year stirs a Guinness tropism in me. In a similar way, I sometimes feel a vague inclination to read something Irish. A few pages into "Ulysses" and the urge generally passes, but on occasion I'll take a run at "The Third Policeman" and marvel at how wierdly funny it is, like Kafka on 'shrooms...

Earlier in this political season

Posted on February 15, 2008
Earlier in this political season I think it was easier to remember that one of the nicest things about the Democrats' field of candidates was that the array of choices looked so appealing. Now that we are down to the last two chocolates in the Whitman Sampler box it is easy to lose track of the fact that what we have is still a lot more appealing than the stale, fused together after-dinner mints the Republicans are offering...

In another context altogether King

Posted on February 13, 2008
In another context altogether King Kaufman writes, "I have a bootleg recording of a concert at which a woman yells out "I love you, Bruce!" After a little cheer dies down in the crowd, Springsteen says, "But you don't really know me."Kaufman is talking about the fact that we can't know public figures through their portrayal in the media, although it seems as though we do, an interestingly clear eyed observation, and an important one in the context of our civic lives this electoral cycle...

Nice write-up about Peepshow.

Posted on February 12, 2008
Nice write-up about Peepshow.

A weekend characterized by three

Posted on February 11, 2008
A weekend characterized by three or four weekends worth of stuff. CLA and the rest of the Geneseo Warthogs were in town for Winterfest, a Sevens tournament sponsored by the Buffalo Rugby Club, played at Front Park, on the shores of Lake Erie. There's a lot more sports that goes on than anyone knows about-- this thing, which was crazy Rugby, played in snow and mud, had forty teams, from all over-- Potsdam and Albany, Syracuse and South Buffalo...

So many things were responsible

Posted on February 08, 2008
So many things were responsible for the failure of Mittens' campaign for the Republican nomination, but I feel a little bad about the fact that a big part of it has to be ascribed to religious intolerance. That's the hell of being a liberal, I guess-- Romney gets to make a speech full of bigotry, and we get to feel remorse over the fact that it didn't work...

As the New York Observer notes,

Posted on February 07, 2008
As the New York Observer notes, "calling for debates is something you do when you're behind." So is loaning your campaign money. Still, I think HRC is a long way from finished. Obama's edge may be that his contributors haven't been maxed out, but the fact that he did so well in the caucus states this week suggests to me that he has an advantage that other "insurgent" (if that's the word) candidates for the nomination have not had in the past-- he plainly has strong organizers working for him...

This is the sort of toy I have

Posted on February 06, 2008
This is the sort of toy I have wanted on election nights my entire life. I really thought Obama had a better shot at New York than it turned out, but California didn't surprise me. Missouri is an interesting development-- I think he's got a long road, but I like his chances in Maryland and Wisconsin...

I was number 44 at my polling place

Posted on February 05, 2008
I was number 44 at my polling place this morning at about quarter to seven. We expected a line, but there wasn't one-- I don't know if that means anything. My college chum Joe Morelli was on the ballot as a Clinton delegate-- I wanted to vote for him, but went straight line Obama for maximum effect...

LCA had a group of her friends

Posted on February 01, 2008
LCA had a group of her friends over the other night. Because they are high school girls and Unitarians they are also vegetarians, so A. bought some hummus for them. They didn't eat it, probably because there was nothing to put it on, so last night I made pita bread...

In the Northeast, and probably

Posted on February 01, 2008
In the Northeast, and probably in some other parts of the county as well, I imagine it seems as though the principal export of Long Island is college students. I wonder if there are other places where something like that occurs? Do students in Oklahoma think to themselves, "Man, everybody here is from Dallas,"? If you go to school in Arizona, do you wonder why all the women speak with that annoying Northern California accent? Or is the Long Island thing both unique and a national phenomenon?

I'm sorry to see John Edwards drop

Posted on January 30, 2008
I'm sorry to see John Edwards drop out-- I was working up to voting for him, and although I still can, of course, there's not really any point to going with a candidate that really represents such a significant compromise on what I'm really looking for...

I pretty much always read the NYTimes

Posted on January 30, 2008
I pretty much always read the NYTimes obits of any athlete (but especially baseball players) and any lawyer. This guy's caught my eye-- some times I think about what it would have been like to have had someone's career, and sometimes I think about what it would have been like to have had him have as an adversary, but looking at Thomas Barr I thought, "Wow, how'd you like to have worked for him?" Not much, I think...

I've been proclaiming my support

Posted on January 29, 2008
I've been proclaiming my support for Mike Gravel since last Spring, but I just checked the New York ballot, and he's not on it. It is kind of a dilemma for me. I want to support the available candidate who is the furthest left on the spectrum, on the theory that this pulls the party ever so slightly in the direction I want it to move, but that means I am now looking at voting for Dennis Kucinich...

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