NYRO's non-holiday concert: Wagner, Haydn, Shostakovich on December 8

I'm really glad The New York Repertory Orchestra doesn't do "holiday" concerts. There's enough of that around. We're playing a great program of Classical, Romantic, and 20th century compositions in two weeks. Here's the whole scoop from our music director:


Dear Friends of the New York Repertory Orchestra,

I want to wish you the best for this Thanksgiving/Holiday season and invite you to our next concert on Saturday, December 8 @ 8pm.

As always, we continue our tradition of bringing you great music, fantastic soloists, and the exciting music-making of the New York Repertory Orchestra - New York's leading all-volunteer, community-based orchestra!

Our program on December 8 offers a rich and varied program with music by Wagner, Haydn, and Shostakovich. Our soloist (making her NYRO debut) is the world-renowned violinist Christina Castelli (see more below). We look forward to seeing you on the 8th!

Here is more information about the concert:

When: Saturday, December 8, 2007 – 8:00 p.m.
Where: Good Shepherd-Faith Church @ 152 West 66th St. (between B'way & Amsterdam)
Admission: FREE

Program

• Wagner: Prelude to Act I of “Parsifal”
• Haydn: Symphony No. 104 in D Major (“London”)
• Shostakovich: Violin Concerto No. 1 – Christina Castelli, violin
  

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Here's more about the music we’ll be playing:

The major work on the program will be the Violin Concerto No. 1 by Dimitri Shostakovich. A monumental piece, Shostakovich himself likened it to “a symphony for solo violin and orchestra,” rather than a traditional virtuoso concerto. With its great breadth of expression and brilliantly realized structure it is an epic work of haunting beauty.

Also on the program will be the Symphony No. 104 (“London”) by Franz Josef Haydn. This wonderful piece (Haydn’s final work in the genre) is a delight from beginning to end. Full of high spirits and classical elegance, the symphony was critically acclaimed at its premiere in 1795 for its ”fullness, richness, and majesty in all its parts. [It will] surpass all his other compositions.” In short, one of the masterworks of the symphonic repertoire.

The concert will begin with the Prelude to Act I from Richard Wagner’s final opera Parsifal. The magical Prelude perfectly sets the tone for this “sacred drama” - a mysterious, spiritual journey with music of the most unearthly sublimity. “The musical beauty,” according to composer Claude Debussy, “is incomparable and bewildering, splendid and strong. Parsifal is one of the loveliest monuments of sound ever raised to the serene glory of music.”


About our soloist:

Violinist Christina Castelli is one of today’s most dynamic young soloists. She has won acclaim throughout North and South America, and Europe. A Laureate of the 2001 International Violin Competition in Brussels and the Grand Prize winner of the 1997 William Primrose International Competition, Ms. Castelli has been a featured soloist with major orchestras worldwide, including those of Cleveland, Atlanta, Seattle, Colorado, Pittsburgh, New Jersey, as well as the Belgian National Orchestra and the National Orchestra of Colombia.

So...have a great Thanksgiving and we look forward to seeing you on the 8th of December.

Best regards,
David Leibowitz, Music Director
New York Repertory Orchestra
www.nyro.org

--------------------------------------------------------------------

And mark your calendars for the rest of our exciting season!

February 9, 2008
Schreker: Overture to “Ekkehard”
Farberman: Concerto for Jazz Drummer – Tim Froncek, drums
Sibelius: Symphony No. 3

March 29, 2008 –
Strauss: Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks
Ellington: Suite from “The River”
Dvorak: Cello Concerto – Eric Jacobsen, cello

May 17, 2008
D’Indy: Suite from “Karadek”
Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor – Anna Polonsky, piano
Dvorak: Symphony No. 9 (“From the New World”)

--------------------------

All Concerts are performed at:
Good Shepherd-Faith Church (152 West 66th Street)
Admission: FREE - 8:00pm

Happy Thanksgiving Eve!

A year ago tonight, "a couple of beers after work" turned into an eight-hour drinking binge and ended with me brining a turkey and making gravy while completely bombed. I'm still surprised the turkey was edible. This year, I have a cold that, while mild, is going to keep me from getting totally wasted. I'm going to see Beowulf at 10 PM tonight, so I have a hard cutoff for the drinking anyway. Tomorrow morning I will make cornbread, then take an assortment of pans and cooking implements to my friend Greg's place, where I am once again in charge of roasting the turkey. I look forward to an afternoon of watching football and trying to stay out of the tiny kitchen while everyone else works. The rest of my weekend plan involves more football and cooking things like homemade granola and jambalaya from a box. (Hey, don't hassle me: after all the cooking that will go on tomorrow, I will be glad to throw some andouille and rice in a pot and let it simmer.) After this weekend, it's a mad dash through December until Christmas, so this may be my last weekend to be lazy for a while. Oh, who am I kidding? I can always find time to be lazy.

Lord of the Rings trilogy live-blog

I promised I'd do this when I got my HDTV, and I waited until there was a cold day with nothing else going on to actually do it. I'm watching all three extended editions of the Lord of the Rings movies today. And I'm going to see if I can live-blog the whole thing.

10:30 AM: I just started Fellowship of the Ring. Enjoy Gollum now, we're not going to see him again for four hours. Also, I thought there was a scene in the beginning where Elrond and Isildur were at Mount Doom about to destroy the Ring, when Isildur turns away from the fire. Maybe that's later.

10:43 AM: Bilbo and Gandalf are having bread, cheese and tea, and I'm having oatmeal. Wow, this is shaping up to be a THRILLING live-blog. We'll see how long I keep this up.

10:51 AM: I just noticed that Gandalf wears one of those braided belts that all the white-hat guys wore at Georgetown back in the day. I'm not sure what that says about my favorite wizard.

11:09 AM: Frodo and Sam are off to Bree. Someone I know is trying to talk me into an adventure vacation. I'm not a hiking, getting dirty kind of guy. For some reason, Frodo and Sam walking off into the wilderness looks appealing. Too bad I know how this ends. They get into a lot of trouble.

11:16 AM: Better fight scene: Gandalf vs. Saruman or Count Dooku vs. Anakin Skywalker (the 2nd time)? I like anything involving lightsabers, but seeing two wizards square off is cool. It's always bothered me that a wizard apparently needs a staff to perform magic. Shouldn't Gandalf have some skills that don't require him to be holding his staff?

11:30 AM: It's the "second breakfast" joke, one of my favorites. I think it's time for coffee here.

11:47 AM: Can someone remind me how Liv Tyler got the part of Arwen? Have we heard anything from her since 2003?

11:55 AM: I watched The Matrix last night. I hadn't seen it in years. It's weird to go from scary, creepy Agent Smith Hugo Weaving to elf lord Elrond Hugo Weaving. Maybe tomorrow I'll watch Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and get really freaked out.

12:00 PM: HERE's the scene where Elrond tries to get Isildur to destroy the ring at the Cracks of Doom. Isildur tells him to piss off. Now I remember why Elrond is such a jerk in these movies.

12:12 PM: "The Ring must be cast into the fire from whence it came. One of you must do this." Don't all volunteer at once, people.

12:14 PM: Legolas: "You have my bow." Gimli: "And my axe. Well, my OTHER axe." Yes, I'm reusing jokes from the first time I saw this movie.

And that's the end of disc 1.

12:22 PM: One thing that has always bothered me about Elijah Wood in these movies is that he has a huge neck. He's not a big guy but he's got the neck of a defensive lineman.

And as they leave Rivendell, it's late October or November, but they don't close the windows or put up curtains. How temperate is that place? It must be like Miami there.

12:24 PM: We get the "Fellowship" theme for the first time. It gives me chills.

12:27 PM: Frodo slips in the snow and the Ring on its chain falls off his giant neck. If the elves can make swords that glow blue in the presence of orcs, you'd think they could give him a sturdier chain for the most powerful ring in the world.

12:35 PM: Why do the doors of Moria open to the Elvish word for "friend?" Shouldn't it be the Dwarvish word for "friend?"

This is turning into the live-blog of unanswered questions.

12:43 PM: I've got a 2 PM appointment to look at a friend's computer problems. I hope I'm done with this movie by then. I've already made it clear I've only got an hour or so to work on the computer. I don't want to be up until 3 AM with this thing.

12:48 PM: Sting is glowing blue -- orcs are nearby. Gandalf's sword should be glowing too, since he and Bilbo acquired them from the same weapons stash in The Hobbit and both are Elvish-made.

Incidental super-geeky note: my home PC's network name is Mithrandir, Gandalf's name in Elvish. My iPod is Glamdring, the name of Gandalf's sword. I've got other peripherals with Elvish LOTR names. No, I do not live in my parents' basement, and I have kissed a girl.

1:02 PM: I know Gandalf isn't really dead, but the aftermath of the battle of Moria is so good that I get a little misty anyway.

1:13 PM: In a male-centric universe, the relationship between Galadriel and Celeborn is the only one that is dominated by the female. Arwen and Eowyn, warrior-elf and shield-maiden they may be, but they end up subservient to their husbands. Galadriel wears the pants in that marriage. Cate Blanchett must be used to that, though. She did play Elizabeth I.

1:28 PM: I love Gimli. He's so shy around Galadriel. The gift scene is one of my favorites that was restored in the extended edition.

1:35 PM: It's great that a filmmaker finally found a use for those two giant statues of kings beside that river in New Zealand. It's almost as good as the U.S. electing four men as president who just happened to look like those faces on Mt. Rushmore.

1:50 PM: That's a lot of dead Uruk-Hai. I'm cutting it close, but I think I'll be done by 2.

1:57 PM: Credits. I just made it. Back in an hour or so for The Two Towers.

3:55 PM: I'm back, and The Two Towers is up. By the way, these movies look incredible on my HDTV, and this is with a progressive-scan 480p normal DVD player. I wonder how they would look with an upconverting one. I'm thinking of getting one of those for the holidays, so maybe I'll try this whole event again in February.

4:04 PM: Here's Gollum!

4:06 PM: What an eccentric performance.

4:16 PM: I think employees would take their jobs more seriously if the boss made them swear obedience and cut their hands with a dirty blade in a special ceremony on the first day. It could be part of orientation.

4:25 PM: I hate to see orcs and Uruk-Hai fighting. Can't we all just get along?

4:34 PM: I never noticed until now, but there's horror movie music when Treebeard makes his first appearance.

4:47 PM: Aragorn and Legolas switch between Elvish and English so much it's like Spanglish. Or Elvglish, I suppose.

4:53 PM: The big debate for this movie: Ent poetry vs. Vogon poetry --which is more yawn-inducing?

5:03 PM: Merry and Pippin are like lazy college guys. All they want to do is have fun, smoke weed, eat, and drink. Sure, they grow up in these movies, but is that really a gain for them? I guess everyone has to graduate and become responsible sometime.

5:16 PM: I like that the scene where Gandalf and company free Theoden from Saruman's power uses much of the original dialog from the book. In particular, Wormtongue's lines are straight from the book. "'Lathspell' I name him. Ill news is an ill guest."

5:20 PM: Theodred's funeral scene is my only complaint about the material added back for any of the extended editions. I thought the original film's sequence worked much better. In that version, Theoden visits Theodred's grave, having missed the funeral entirely due to his enslavement. I thought that was far more tragic.

Also, I could do without Eowyn's song of lament.

5:34 PM: The Smeagol/Gollum debate now reminds me of the "Formidable Opponent" segment on The Colbert Report.

5:41 PM: Faramir has found Frodo and Sam, and that's the end of disc 1. I'm officially halfway through.

5:55 PM: So it's true what they say: shield-maidens can't cook. What is in that stew, gristle? All the more reason for Aragorn to take the throne of Gondor and Arwen as his wife. Then he can have a professional chef of Gondor preparing his meals, instead of Eowyn's feeble efforts.

6:09 PM: Helm's Deep, named for Helm Hammerhand. I just noticed the statue inside the fortress's gates is holding a hammer like Thor's. Nice touch.

6:21 PM: We take a break from the action so Galadriel can bring the audience up to date on why we're watching everyone on this quest.

6:36 PM: The added scenes with Boromir, Faramir, and Denethor help to explain why the writing team changed Faramir's character to make him more loyal to the misguided policies of his father. I'm not a fan of that one, but at least it makes more sense in the long version.

6:52 PM: I'm taking a quick break before the Battle of Helm's Deep to switch over to the end of the Penn State-Michigan State game. Let's see if the armies of Joe Paterno can defeat the orcs of East Lansing.

6:55 PM: The orcs will win this day. Damn. Back to Helm's Deep.

7:05 PM: I love the pacing in this movie. Just when I'm getting into the battle scene, we cut back to the Entmoot.

7:06 PM: If Merry and Pippin are growing taller as a result of drinking Ent water, how do their clothes still fit?

7:19: This always happens when I watch this movie - I'd almost forgotten about Frodo and Sam in Faramir's custody. To tell the truth, Frodo and Sam's story is my least favorite part of the book. I enjoy the battle scenes too much.

7:21 PM: I've said this several times before, so I'll say it again -- I wish Howard Shore had stayed true to the text when the Ents march on Isengard. The book says that they march to the sound of trumpets, but his score has a choir singing with drums underneath. It just doesn't work for me.

7:33 PM: I sure do enjoy it when Theoden and Aragorn ride out together from the Keep. They must be on magical horses, because real horses won't ride over or through obstacles. Although orcs don't exist, so maybe horses would ride through them. I should stop thinking about this and just enjoy the movie.

7:40 PM: Merry and Pippin get high. And when they get the munchies, they're sitting on top of the hoard of Isengard. And they WILL get the munchies. They're hobbits, after all.

7:47 PM: Credits. Time for a break. I'm a little hungry so maybe I should eat dinner now, before starting the next one. I don't think I can watch and eat and live-blog all at the same time.

8:38 PM: Time to start The Return of the King. It's going to take me about 4 1/2 hours to watch it, and I'd like to be done by 2 AM. So I will eat, watch, and try to comment all at once.

8:42 PM: Also, the Penguins gave up two goals while I was watching, and Penn State lost while I had that on. I should stick to the movies.

8:50 PM: I'm glad I have a strong stomach. I can eat and watch Gollum tearing into raw fish.

8:59 PM: In this version, Saruman gets a good death sequence. I know they cut the Scouring of the Shire for length, but I still wish it could have made the big screen. We do get closure on the Saruman storyline, though.

9:04 PM: Before beginning the drinking contest, Gimli says the rules include "no regurgitations." Do they follow IFOCE rules, or did the IFOCE get their rules from this movie?

9:14 PM: All the men are sleeping in some kind of anteroom, but Eowyn is sleeping by herself in the great hall of Edoras. That's got to be freezing at night. Doesn't she live here? Shouldn't she have her own room?

9:27 PM: Can't someone sweep up around Rivendell? There has to be an elf gardener somewhere. And re-forge that sword already! Aragorn was supposed to take it with him from Rivendell, not get it when the trip is nearly over.

9:39 PM: Hey Gandalf -- maybe all that coughing is a sign that you should cut back on your leaf-smoking habit. It must be traveling and rooming with Pippin. That guy is a bad influence on everyone around him.

9:54 PM: I love the lighting of the beacons. It's one of the things that didn't come from the book but it works so well in the film. And it's some of Shore's best music.

10:08 PM: Time out for a phone call.

10:32 PM: We're back. Frodo, Sam, and Gollum are climbing the stairs near Minas Morgul, AKA "The Emerald City." The orcs do remind me of the flying monkeys.

10:43 PM: These are some dirty hobbits. They must smell like mud and feet and ass, after months without baths.

10:54 PM: Theoden has quite a tent set up for an overnight camp. Rugs, tables, torches, and more. I think he has a satellite dish and a big-screen TV in there too. Is this a war camp or a tailgate party?

11:03 PM: I would follow Theoden into Hell itself, and he hasn't even given his best pre-battle speech yet.

11:13 PM: I forgot about the cave of the dead and how the skulls pour out like popcorn from the crumbling castle. I'm not sure what that's about, but I'm surprised our heroes can get out of the cave amid that mess.

11:21 PM: I love fightin' Gandalf.

11:22 PM: I'd love to get a "Grond!" chant going at a rock concert. What band would be appropriate for such a chant?

Time for disc 2. I'm almost done.

11:31 PM: I just remembered the fortune cookie from tonight's dinner. It was no fortune at all. The "fortune" was an ad for a Nostradamus special on The History Channel. I got one last month from a different restaurant and took that place off my list. I can't take this one off, though. It's right across the street.

Hey, my first comment! It's only taken 13 hours!

11:33 PM: It's Shelob time. Peter Jackson indulges his love of horror movies.

11:45 PM: Even if I were a soldier of Gondor, I think I'd crap my pants at what came through the gate after it was shattered by Grond.

11:57 PM: The Witch-King of Angmar shatters Gandalf's staff, but I swear he has it later in the movie. It doesn't matter. Rohan has come at last. This is my favorite moment in the entire trilogy.

12:16 AM: That is the greatest battle scene ever committed to film. I have nothing else to say.

12:21 AM: I'm glad the Houses of Healing scene made it into this edition. And we get a glimpse of the Eowyn-Faramir relationship. Bear in mind, I am a hopeless romantic.

12:32 AM: Oh, Faramir, I could get lost in your eyes forever.

12:40 AM: Even in his orc armor, Sam is still carrying his pots and pans. I guess the other orcs didn't notice they had a chef in their midst. Or they didn't think anything of it.

12:47 AM: That's some mouth you got, Mouth of Sauron.
"I guess that concludes negotiations."

12:57 AM: Pippin: "The eagles are coming!" There's a Don Henley joke in there somewhere, but it's not coming to me.

1:11 AM: Why does Gandalf take the crown of Gondor from Gimli? Did the dwarves make it? And why does this movie have like six false endings? That's always annoyed me.

1:13 AM: And now, a musical selection by the King. "Eh Nooniam." (Or something like that.)

1:21 AM: Aged Bilbo looks like Emperor Palpatine.

1:30 AM: THE END.

With breaks for food, phone calls, and tech support, that took 13 hours. I thought it would take even longer. Even so, that was a great way to spend a free Saturday. I don't know if I learned anything new about the trilogy watching it this way, but I enjoyed the hell out of it. I'd do it again, but not for a while. My ass needs a break.

I think the next marathon may be all the Star Wars movies in order. That may have to wait until after football season.

my day at the ballpark

I spent most of Tuesday at a technology seminar at Yankee Stadium. One of my vendors secured invitations for myself and a colleague, so we went to the Bronx this morning to learn about data de-duplication, get a free meal, and a tour of the stadium.

When I arrived at 10:15 AM, there was no sign of anyone outside the stadium. For those of you who have been to Yankee Stadium before, the subway lets you out in a run-down looking neighborhood, and I felt a little conspicuous walking around a deserted building looking for the employees' entrance. I eventually found it and my friend, and we went up to the club level and the "Great Moments Room" for the seminar. We watched a PowerPoint presentation, learned about the company's technology, and got a bit of a sales pitch. Then they gave us lunch (hot dogs, potato salad, grilled chicken, ribs, corn on the cob, and dessert) and gave out one free gift (apparently a gift certificate for the Yankees' team store).

Finally, around 1:30 PM, they started the tour. Our tour guide Larry (who looked like he was right out of NY Central Casting) took us down to the field and showed us the home dugout. Everyone took photos of themselves sitting where Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada spend their summers, including me. (I may not be a Yankees fan, but when else will I have a chance to get that photo?) Then they showed us the clubhouse (no photos allowed!) where we learned that Thurman Munson's locker is still there, as is Cory Lidle's, but Munson's still has his name on it while Lidle's remains unmarked. Derek Jeter has two lockers, supposedly because he gets so much fan mail. And Alex Rodriguez and a few other free agents still have lockers, even though they won't be back with the team, because as long as they haven't signed elsewhere they're still technically Yankees. After the clubhouse we walked around the warning track to see the monuments in the outfield, and then we were done with the tour and on our way back to work. Hey, it was better than spending the day in the office.

I am all grown up

It has taken me nearly two years, but slowly my apartment has become a place where I feel like it's my own space. Last year I got a new dresser and some new shelves, this year I got my HDTV, and last Friday I got a real sofa to replace the love seat I'd had since I lived in the Village. The new sofa, a queen-size sleeper sofa from Macy's, fills out the living room in ways the old one never could. And it has one significant advantage over the old one: I can stretch out on it and take a nap. On Saturday night I came back from a night out with some friends, put on some music, and promptly passed out on the sofa. I see many afternoons and evenings of TV watching on this sofa.

The old love seat went to the spare room/office, where it at least fits the space it's in. I don't think I can fold it out into a bed with the desk in there, but it's another place to sit that isn't my office chair. I haven't decided how long I'm going to keep it. The old computer desk that had been in that room went out to the street on Thursday night after rehearsal, and by Friday morning it was gone, no doubt rolled away by another Upper East Side resident.

I also treated myself to a new comforter and some new bedsheets. I never thought I'd get excited about home furnishings like this, but it makes me feel good to have a home that looks like an adult lives here. And my friends appreciate it too.

an up and down weekend

I had planned to spend my Friday evening playing Guitar Hero III and Halo 3. But when I got home after shlepping the new guitar through Macy's furniture department and across Manhattan, I only got as far as entering my virtual band's name before my Xbox 360 crashed. It had crashed a few times on Thursday night but I hadn't thought anything was wrong. When I rebooted the console, I got the dread "Red Ring of Death." My game console died before I could play one note or fire one round. I filled out the form on Microsoft's support site, so now I have to wait for Microsoft to ship me a box so I can return the console to them for repair. According to my Xbox-owning friends and some forum posts, I can expect to wait 4-6 weeks to get the console back, and it has a good chance of failing again. By the time I get the whole thing sorted out, I'm sure Guitar Hero IV will be on store shelves. So instead of a night of video gaming, I watched a movie and played around on my desktop PC.

Saturday night was much better. We cooked a recipe I hadn't made in years: smothered shrimp and sausage over cheese grits. I had some help in the kitchen, and everything was delicious.

On Sunday I watched the NYC Marathon from my apartment. I cheered on a few of my friends from street level, then I watched from my fire escape and took some photos. Also, in the morning, before the marathon got underway, I ordered a new sofa from Macy's (which is why I'd been in the furniture department on Friday evening). I'm moving the old love seat into the office so it can be more of a guest bedroom, throwing out the old computer desk and 19-inch monitor to make room, and getting a new queen-size sleeper sofa for the living room. At last I will have a couch large enough for three or more people to sit on it, and long enough for me to stretch out without having to put my knees up on the armrest. I should have the new sofa on Friday, so I have to figure out what to do to make room by then. Anyone want a 19-inch CRT? It's in good shape. It's just enormous.

It's been a week already?

It's November 1, and I resolve to make an effort to finish the year strong and post more often than once a week.

I've been practicing Guitar Hero in anticipation of getting Guitar Hero III this week. My copy of the game (with wireless guitar) is scheduled for delivery tomorrow, and I've already planned my Friday night around hours of virtual shredding. If it doesn't come in for some reason, I will either a) shop for a new couch or b) try to find it at a retail store in Manhattan or c) all of the above. I have also just this afternoon received a copy of Halo III from a friend, so I've got that in my future as well. I'm going to have to make up a schedule for my free time now to accommodate my gaming habit, my TV watching, and viola practice. And let's not forget my social life.

Speaking of the viola, the best thing that's happened lately is that I got a new case. The old one was falling apart on the inside and showed the signs of 16 years of use. Also, I was tired of carrying it horizontally over my shoulder while my friends in the orchestra slung their violins on their backs. During my week off from rehearsal I shopped around online for a new case and ordered two of them, one each from two different stores. The one I really wanted arrived first, and when the viola fit perfectly inside it, I kept it. Going to rehearsal last week was a pleasure. It's so much easier to carry the viola like a backpack, and this case has feet on one end and a handle on the other, called a "subway strap," so it's easy to hold the case standing up on the train. When the other case arrived on Monday, I just shipped it right back to the vendor. It's not quite as much fun as a new gadget, but it'll do for a while.

Last night I got to play around with a Macbook Pro, and now I really want one. We were watching a slide show with a soundtrack from an iTunes playlist, and it was almost creepy the way the music lined up with the photos. One song ended just as the slideshow (a travelogue) got to the climax of the trip. And this was not a playlist that was meant for use with this particular set of photos. I'm not crazy about Safari, but if I can use Firefox on the Mac then I think I can manage. I still have a few months to wait before I will think about replacing my desktop PC, but Apple will get some major consideration from me this time around.

Tuesday night is also all right for opera

Last night we went to see Puccini's Madama Butterfly at the Metropolitan Opera. I hadn't been to the Met in almost two years, though I'd seen the first act of Butterfly on TV in Times Square last fall. The production was much more impressive on stage than it had been on TV. Despite sitting at the extreme rear of the orchestra, under the balconies, we could see the entire stage and hear every note, which wasn't the case outside in Manhattan's busiest intersection. I was particularly interested in this production because they used a Japanese bunraku puppet to play the part of Butterfly's child. Three puppeteers controlled the puppet, one moving the feet and legs and the two others handling the arms and the head. The puppeteers appeared onstage with the puppet, but once they started interacting with the actors, I barely noticed their presence. While I knew and could clearly see that this was not a child, the performance was so amazing that it was hard not to think of the puppet as a real person. The entire production was beautiful and tragic, and I have to admit the room got a little dusty at the end. I didn't know this opera that well before last night, but I think I need to buy a recording of it. It was a fantastic evening.

Cooking for one? Never heard of it

I'm still trying to figure out why I decided to make a huge baked ziti last night for dinner. I wasn't all that hungry but I made enough for six people anyway, and that left me with lots of leftovers. And because of the time it took to assemble and bake, I didn't eat until almost 10 PM. I guess I haven't gotten out of the habit of cooking for a group on Sundays even when the group isn't there. At least I'm all set for dinner tomorrow night before the opera and for lunch later in the week.

To be a Guitar Hero, one must act like a guitar hero

I just have to read Slash's autobiography and I'll learn everything I need to know to succeed at Guitar Hero and life. Apparently success involves inviting your contractor to do lines of coke with you at 8 AM. Steven Adler kept his coke in his refrigerator's butter tray.

I have never been to Toronto

I am not responsible for this. But I applaud this mystery tagger's devotion to one of my favorite composers.

The reviews are in...

...and last night's concert was another NYRO triumph. The dress rehearsal on Thursday night had been a little rough (as they tend to be) so I was a bit worried about the performance. But I looked over my music before the concert and I suspect most everyone else did as well. All of the pieces came off beautifully. The Hindemith in particular stood out as one of the best works I've had the pleasure of playing with NYRO. I didn't like it when we sight-read it the first night but it grew on me during rehearsals. While playing the triplet runs in the last few minutes of the piece I saw little clouds of rosin flying off my bow, which meant I was really enjoying myself (or that I'd used too much rosin). I had a few friends in the audience and they all enjoyed the performance immensely.

After the concert most of the orchestra went to O'Neal's, our usual post-concert watering hole. My friends and I were the first ones to arrive, and we went to the 65th St. side. Usually that side of the restaurant is empty, but last night there was a soprano singing a song from "Candide" to a room full of occupied tables. My father was right: the overture is the best thing about that opera. The four of us waited a few minutes, but when it was clear the show wasn't going to be over soon, we led the rest of the NYRO crowd to the other side of the restaurant on 64th St. As it happens with my friends at these concerts, it was an occasion where new friends met old friends. Everyone got along splendidly, which is always good to see.

So now I'm experiencing a bit of post-concert letdown. I have this week off from rehearsal, so I have to find something else to do with my Thursday night. I can't wait to get back next week and start on December's program. For those who want to mark their calendars now, the next concert is December 8, and will feature the music of Wagner, Shostakovich, and Haydn.

seen on last night's commute home

I got on the 4 train at Fulton St. There was a little girl hanging onto the pole in front of me, and she was swinging around and bumping into me and a few people around me. I moved to the center of the car to get out of her way and went back to reading the TMQ column I'd printed out for the ride home. After another stop I moved further into the car, and now I was standing in front of this little girl (who was sitting down) and her (I assume) sister and grandmother. Grandma was in the middle, and the two girls were on either side of her. The first girl kept bouncing up and down and bumping the lady next to her. Then she started saying "Excuse me!" to the few people standing up in front of her, including me. It seems she wanted to tell me something important about her sister. I had my headphones on and did my best to ignore her. After another few minutes of this, she swatted her sister a couple of times, reaching across Grandma to do so. Grandma didn't seem to care. This girl was also sucking on some hard candy and coughing a lot, so I turned around and faced the other way after another stop. At 42nd St. a kid selling candy stepped into our car. The girls wanted candy, so he stopped in front of them and they spent a few minutes picking out Snickers bars and Skittles and begging Grandma for money to get more candy. Now these girls were clearly hopped up on enough sugar already, and didn't need any more, but Grandma didn't care. To her credit, she told them they could only get two candy bars each from the kid. Girl #1 broke into her bag of Skittles as soon as the transaction was completed. I got off the train at 86th St., glad that I didn't have to find out how much worse those kids would be by the time they got to their stop.

OK, so after I wrote that it's hardly the worst thing I've endured on a subway ride home. And I admit I don't have kids, so I don't know what's involved in keeping them from bothering other people. But Grandma should have known, and done something, but she was practically asleep while these kids were jumping all over the place. I see this kind of behavior all the time on the subway (and the city, for that matter). Parents let their kids run around on the trains or on the sidewalk, and I have to dodge them to keep from knocking them over. I imagine that if I ran into one of these kids by accident, the parents would blame me for not looking where I was going. And who knows what would have happened if I or one of my fellow commuters had tried to tell Grandma to get her charges under control last night.

Mostly, I just hate people. They're the worst.

NYRO's season opening concert: Saturday, October 13

In case you don't read my e-mails (or aren't on my concert e-mail list), here are all the details on my next orchestra concert:




Dear Friends of the New York Repertory Orchestra,

Greetings! I hope you had a wonderful summer and that you are, as I am, looking forward to another great season with the New York Repertory Orchestra!

2007-2008 promises to be another wonderful year as we continue our tradition of bringing you great music, fantastic soloists, and the exciting music-making of the New York Repertory Orchestra - New York's leading all-volunteer, community-based orchestra!

Our first concert of the season will be a delightful program with music by Janáček, Mozart, Beethoven, and Hindemith. Our soloist (back on our stage by popular demand) will be soprano Bernadette Fiorella. We look forward to seeing you the 13th!


Here is more information about the concert:

When: Saturday, October 13, 2007 – 8:00 p.m.
Where: Good Shepherd-Faith Church @ 152 West 66th St. (between B'way & Amsterdam)
Admission: FREE

Program

• Janáček: Suite for Orchestra
• Mozart: Exsultate, Jubilate / Beethoven: Ah! Perfido – Bernadette Fiorella, soprano
• Hindemith: Symphonic Metamorphosis [of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber]
  

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Here's more about the music we’ll be playing:

The major work on the program will be the Symphonic Metamorphosis [of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber] by Paul Hindemith. Taking some obscure melodies of 19th century composer Carl Maria von Weber, Hindemith transforms them into a rousing and colorful tour de force for the orchestra – really a concerto for the entire ensemble. Full of fun and good spirits, the Symphonic Metamorphosis has been an audience favorite since its premiere in 1944.

The concert begins with the charming Suite for Orchestra by Czech composer Leoš Janáček. This delightful (and little-know and rarely-played) collection of Moravian dances and songs was written in 1891, but not performed until after the composers death in 1928. By turns rousing, introspective, vigorous, and mournful, these miniatures look back to Janáček’s connection to his folk-music roots and point forward to the mature voice of one of the great composers of the 20th century.

Also on the program:

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote his ever-popular Exsultate, jubilate in 1773 at the age of 17. This virtuoso piece for soprano and orchestra is a both a great example of the teenage composer’s prodigious talent and a dazzling display for the soloist.

Ludwig van Beethoven’s concert aria Ah! Perfido (a dramatic scene about the proverbial “woman scorned”) runs the gamut of musical expression from gentle pathos to murderous outrage. It’s like a full night at the opera compressed into 15 minutes!

Endowed with a pure and radiant voice, soprano Bernadette Fiorella returns to our stage this season. NYRO audience members of the last several seasons will fondly remember Ms. Fiorella’s luminous performances of Britten’s Les Illuminations, Griffes’ Three Poems of Fiona McCloud, and Mahler’s Symphony No. 4. Ms. Fiorella is active in opera (a member of the New York City Opera since 1991), as a concert soloist, and chamber musician.

So...it should be a wonderful concert and we hope to see you there.

Best regards,
David Leibowitz, Music Director
New York Repertory Orchestra
www.nyro.org <http://www.nyro.org/>

--------------------------------------------------------------------

And here’s what we’ve got planned for the rest of the year!

December 8, 2007
Wagner: Prelude to “Parsifal”
Haydn: Symphony No. 104 (“London”)
Shostakovich: Violin Concerto No. 1 – Christina Castelli, violin

February 9, 2008
Schreker: Overture to “Ekkehard”
Farberman: Concerto for Jazz Drummer – Tim Froncek, drums
Sibelius: Symphony No. 3

March 29, 2008 –
Strauss: Til Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks
Ellington: Suite from “The River”
Dvorak: Cello Concerto – Eric Jacobsen, cello

May 17, 2008
D’Indy: Suite from “Karadek”
Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor – Anna Polonsky, piano
Dvorak: Symphony No. 9 (“From the New World”)

--------------------------

All Concerts are performed at:
Good Shepherd-Faith Church (152 West 66th Street)
Admission: FREE - 8:00pm

quick weekend trip home

I'm averaging a trip home to DC/Baltimore/suburban Maryland every seven weeks or so. This time I went to see one of my cousins from England (as well as the rest of my family). My brother and I spent Friday evening at the Baltimore Book Fair, where we watched a grilling demonstration by the authors of Mastering The Grill (they marinated steaks in Scotch and then grilled them right on wood coals, blowing the ash off the top with a leafblower), listened to a few local bands, and shopped for books. I picked up a dog-eared copy of Dreadnought by Robert Massie, a 900-page volume about the arms race between Britain and Germany at the beginning of the 20th century that led to the construction of the first battleships. I also found DVDs of At Last, the 1948 Show and Do Not Adjust Your Set, the two British TV series that were the precursors to Monty Python's Flying Circus. All of that material should keep me busy for the next few weeks and months.

Saturday and Sunday were for relaxation, visiting with family and hanging out at my dad's house. I watched about half of Lebron James on Saturday Night Live and reminded myself why I don't watch that show anymore. And I overate at every meal, so I think it's time to double my efforts in the gym and finish the cycling season in strong fashion with a few more decent rides.

I'm ready for cold weather now, in case the weather gods are reading this. I'm sick of schvitzing.

The woeful Knicks sexual harassment trial

Bill Simmons provides a guide to all the stories surrounding Anucha Browne Sanders' lawsuit against the Knicks and MSG. I enjoyed his Gold Club trial guide a few years ago, and this one is almost as good. Unfortunately, this case is the best publicity the Knicks have had in years. Like Matt Millen in Detroit, any time I read a story about the Knicks, I wonder what Isiah Thomas has to do to get fired. He's already run the team into the ground so it's not like things can get any worse. When he ultimately gets fired, whether it's this year, next year, or five years from now, I hope the first question for James Dolan at the press conference is "why now? Why not five years ago?"

GOOD/BAD

GOOD: Taking the morning off work
BAD: Taking the morning off work to wait for Time Warner to fix my cable for the 3rd time since I got the HDTV in April

GOOD: Playing Madden 08 while I wait
BAD: Losing 20-7 to Kansas City while playing as the Steelers (though I did beat the 49ers 34-14 last night)

GOOD: Most of my cable channels still work
BAD: Time Warner has to come back next Friday to fix the system for the entire building

GOOD: Eating lunch at home
BAD: eating it quickly because I found out at 12:15 that I had a 1 PM meeting in the office

GOOD: learning new things as the backup to the guy who runs the Unix servers & accounting systems in our office
BAD: getting invited to 3-hour meetings about upgrades to the accounting system (I have one on Monday)

A fool and his money are soon parted...again

One of the things I did this weekend was get myself to the Apple store on 5th Avenue to check out the new iPod Classic in person. I'd seen one at a Best Buy on Thursday, but it didn't have any music on it, so it was impossible to give it a proper tryout. On Sunday afternoon I had the chance to plug in my headphones and test the newest object of my tech affections. I spent about 30 minutes with an 80 GB Classic and another 10 minutes with the 160 GB version. Aside from a few issues with the Cover Flow feature (which Apple fixed in a firmware update this past Friday that had not made it onto the test iPods on the showroom floor), I liked the sound and the menu updates. I hadn't intended to spend the money on the new model yesterday, especially when I saw the serpentine line for the register and remembered that I had other things to do that afternoon. However, there was an Apple store employee standing behind a cart with a plastic box covering an assortment of iPod Classics. He looked like a guy selling watches on the street, but he was actually selling iPods right there. I saw another customer give him his credit card and ID, and the employee ran it through a PocketPC/Newton-like card reader and sold him an iPod. Well, when faced with instant gratification like that, I was powerless. $442 later, I was the proud owner of a new black 160 GB iPod Classic. It was exactly one year ago yesterday when I got my first iPod. My justification for this kind of foolishness is that I'd always planned to upgrade that iPod within a year, assuming that I'd run out of space. When I got home last night I copied my music and photos onto the new one, and I've been using it at work today. I have to be extra-careful with it for the time being, as I don't have a proper hard case for it yet. I'm carrying it around in the black slipcover that came with my 60 GB iPod.

So far, the sound quality is equal to my old iPod, and I like the new cover animations and menu features. It's an iPod, so the differences are minor. I'd like to sort my albums by album name in the cover flow screen instead of by artist, but I think I can fix that in iTunes this evening. There is a minor problem with the photos application. I can see all my photos in the preview mode, but I can only scroll through older photos with the scroll wheel. When I try to scroll through photos I've taken with the Canon SD550 I bought in April 2006, they don't appear. I can see them if I use the slideshow feature, so I know the iPod can display them. And I didn't have a problem with those photos on my old iPod. I read a few forum posts about the problem on Apple's web site, so I'm not the only one who's encountered this issue. I figure there's a firmware update coming that will fix this, but I can live with it for now.

Someone stop me before I buy a Macbook. I'm thisclose to blowing a month's rent on one.

I am not in this video

None of these things has ever happened to me, probably because I'm not a dumbass who tries to jump off a homemade ramp or ride down a flight of stairs. Set to music, these clips of idiots on bikes are cringingly hysterical.

2007 NYC Century ride wrap-up

Despite having played the viola for five hours on Saturday and getting home at a decent hour, I somehow managed only three hours of sleep on Saturday night. When the alarm went off at 5 AM I jumped out of bed, but my initial burst of energy wasn't going to last. I got to the start at Central Park at 5:45 AM and left with a group of riders at 6:15.

As soon as I left the park my chain fell off the chainring, so I had to stop and fix that. That was not a good omen. The Manhattan portion of the ride went through Riverside Park down to 72nd Street, then down Broadway to Columbus Circle and through Times Square. I don't know who had the bright idea that we should go through Times Square, because even at 6:45 AM it was busy and confusing. We crossed the Brooklyn Bridge and took a different route to Prospect Park, through DUMBO and Fort Greene to Grand Army Plaza.

The next leg of the ride, to Canarsie Pier, was more difficult for me than in past years. My lack of sleep was catching up with me, and I seriously considered calling the ride organizer and telling her I was going to cut my day short and only ride 75 or even 50 miles. But as I approached the rest stop I got into a rhythm and forgot that idea. At the Mill Basin bridge, someone took the "Cyclists Walk Bikes" sign literally, and that caused a traffic jam and a 10-minute wait to cross the bridge.

The mileage between Canarsie Pier and Alley Pond Park is always the toughest part of the ride. It's usually the longest gap between rest stops, and there are some long climbs along that part of the route. In particular, the three mile approach to the rest stop at Alley Pond is psychologically the most difficult thing I face every year. I know I'm close to a rest stop, but I've got a long ride through the woods to get there. Also, the road markings on this part of the route were either non-existent or poorly placed. Some of the turns were marked after the turn, or in the middle of the intersection. Other turns were stenciled on the bike path in the same shade as the bike path stripes. And there had been some last-minute changes to the route, so a few turns were marked two or three times, with previous markings in the same color crossed out with spray-paint. I missed a few turns, though I didn't go too far out of my way on any of them. With the heat, my state of mind, and the length of the route, it took me almost three hours to get to Alley Pond.

I took a long break at Alley Pond to eat and rest my aching muscles. There was enough food for everyone, but not enough tables, so there was a long line to get something to eat. On the way back onto the route after the rest stop, I missed a turn and nearly fell off my bike trying to get back onto the path. I didn't hurt anything other than my pride, though I got a nasty red bruise on my leg where it hit the handlebars. After that point, the road markings improved and I don't think I missed any turns the rest of the way. I stopped to get more Gatorade and chatted with a disappointed bodega owner who had hoped for more business that day. I made up some of the time I'd lost on the previous section and I got to Astoria Park around 2:45 PM.

By this time I'd run into a guy I used to work with, and he and I rode the rest of the way together. Because of Farm Aid on Randall's Island, we crossed back into Manhattan before taking the Willis Avenue Bridge into the Bronx. I didn't have any difficulties in the Bronx. The organizers at the rest stop put the fear of God into us that we'd get nothing at the finish if we didn't leave immediately. It was 5:30, so we had about a half-hour to get back to Central Park. My friend said we'd "book it," and he wasn't kidding. We pushed it for most of the last eight miles, and we got back to Central Park at 6:20 PM, just over 12 hours later.

It ended up being a good day after all, but this was the first time I've done this ride where I've thought it was more like work than a fun day on the bike. I need to remember to get more sleep the night before, and ride more long training rides before the Century. Also, I'm starting to complain enough that I think I've earned "grizzled veteran" status for the Century. Eventually I'll have the gray hair and scraggly beard that goes along with that, but for now I'll have to settle for the state of mind.

Me wantee!!!

Apple announced a new lineup of iPods today, and I'm drooling over the new 160 GB iPod Classic. I don't care about a new Nano, or an iPhone without the phone (though it does look really cool). I want to be able to carry most, if not all, of my music collection with me all the time. Never mind that I can't listen to all of it at once, and that there are dozens of albums on my iPod that I haven't listened to in years. It's the principle. Plus, I use my iPod to back up my photos, so I've got that working against me as well. I've already had to take a few albums off my current 60 GB iPod to keep from running out of space. It's a good thing my entire weekend is planned out, or else I might find myself at the Apple store on Fifth Avenue buying one of these new iPods.

notes from a slow week

Oy vey, has it been quiet around here. I've been able to spend quality time with my Xbox 360 this week as well as watch all the sports I could want to see. Orchestra rehearsals resume next Thursday, so I'll have at least one night a week when I'm busy.

There's a new subway entrance at the corner of Broadway and Cortlandt Streets, on the same side of the street as my office building. One of the small ways the average subway commuter can game the system is to get in the right train car so that when you get to your destination, you're close to the station exit. When I lived in the Village I got on the front end of the E train in the morning, so I was close to the World Trade Center station exit and didn't have to walk down the platform. In the evenings, I'd get on the back of the train and get off close to the exit at West 3rd St. But that all changed when I moved to the Upper East Side. The 4/5 trains are so crowded in the mornings, and the station exits on either end no more or less convenient for me, that it didn't matter which car I used. I'd always get stuck in an uncomfortable spot and have to walk to the station exit. Now, with this new entrance on my block, I can get in the front car of the train and be only a few steps from the exit at work. I still have to cross Broadway to get on the train to go home, but I can save a little time on my morning commute. It's the small things in life, my friends.

I took a bit of a gamble last week and bought a subscription to the New York Philharmonic. They had a sale on all concerts so I picked out four that I really liked and got two tickets to each one. The catch is that I don't have any idea who will want to come to these concerts with me, but I have until January to find someone for the first concert. The real test is in June: Mahler's Ninth Symphony on June 7, and Bruckner's Eighth Symphony on June 21. Those are two gargantuan works, so whoever comes along is either in for a treat or should bring a pillow for a nap.

the quest for pizza

I got up at 6:30 AM on Sunday for a marshal training ride for the NYC Century in two weeks. I had to be at Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn by 8 AM, so when I left home at 7:15 I had to race to get there on time. I arrived to find a few other cyclists waiting, and a few minutes later the ride organizer showed up. The route was the entire Brooklyn and Queens portion of the Century, leaving out the Bronx. The end of the ride was Astoria Park in Queens, so from Grand Army Plaza it should have been about 65 miles. Another ride organizer would be waiting for us in Astoria with free pizza.

We left Prospect Park around 9 AM in a light rain that thankfully stopped after 15 minutes or so. There were 14 of us, but almost immediately four riders dropped back leaving 10 for most of the ride. Two of the riders in our group appointed themselves as leaders for the first part of the ride, through Brooklyn to Canarsie Pier. I know that part of the route well, but I didn't mind letting these guys take the lead. We stopped at one point on the greenway out to the pier, and one of the "leaders" had us count off from 1 to 10, for what reason I have no idea. I was number 10. We got to Canarsie Pier without any trouble and took a break to eat and drink before starting off again.

We lost one rider right out of Canarsie. He was a long-distance cyclist and he had a bike loaded with panniers and bags, and he carried several compasses, whistles, lights, a camera, and I don't know what else. We assumed he had gadget trouble. Nine of us kept going, then we lost another rider just past Shea Stadium. We stopped near the Kissena Velodrome and waited for him, then one of the leaders went back to look for him. We waited another 10 minutes, then decided to leave when we started to cool down. Now there were 7 of us. We made a wrong turn near the velodrome and got off the cue sheet, so I got out my map and figured out a way back onto the route that didn't take us too far out of the way. Around 2:30 PM we arrived at Alley Pond Park, and I had to explain to the group that this was not the end of the ride and that the TA organizer would not be waiting at this park with the pizza.

When I ride any distance longer than 40 miles, I always bring my Camelbak filled with sandwiches, energy bars, pretzels, and fruit. I almost always end up bringing food home again. Most of the riders were getting hungry, and I started to worry about people bonking with 15 miles left to go. No one had warned them that there wouldn't be any rest stops on the ride. I gave out my Clif bars and tried to get people mentally energized for the last part of the ride.

A few other riders had caught up with us by now. Seven of us left Alley Pond and went about a mile before we figured out we'd gone the wrong way. We asked a driver for directions, but then we decided that since there were three of us who'd done the Century route many times before, we could find our way from memory and then get back onto the new route. We went a bit out of our way and rode in traffic along Northern Boulevard for a mile or two but we got back onto the route at Joe Michaels' Greenway. After that we were able to stay on the route. Around Flushing Meadows greenway the other part of the group took off, leaving me and two other slower riders behind. I took my time and waited for them for the last few miles of the route, keeping them in view behind me while I pointed out the turns.

We got to Astoria Park around 4:30 PM, about 90 minutes later than we had been expected to arrive. We did get pizza, and I got to share my opinion of the route and the nonexistent road markings with the organizers. I had been more pissed off about the lack of markings, but by the time I got to the park, I wasn't angry, just exhausted. I hung around for a few minutes, then left for home via the Queensborough Bridge.

I got home at 5:45 PM and my odometer showed 85 miles for the day. While I was more tired than I expected to be after that long a ride, I felt good knowing that I should be good to ride 100 miles in two weeks. With the proper organization and real rest stops, I shouldn't have any problems.

good things and bad things about my class

My Linux class was a "hands-on" affair, where we installed the OS on a PC and tinkered with it all week. It's the sort of thing I've been known to do on my own from time to time, so it was fun and interesting.

However, I had to work with another student. Usually that's not a problem, and sometimes it's even one of my co-workers, so we make a good team. But this time it was a guy from another company, so I had no idea what I'd be getting. He was a decent guy and seemed to know his IT business, but he was so busy answering phone calls and checking his Blackberry all week that he didn't pay much attention to the instructor. And he admitted that he was new to Linux, so he was a disaster when it came to the command line or following the labs. I tried to help him along and not get frustrated (and considering my tendencies, I think I did a good job of maintaining an even temperament). When he performed the instructions in the lab manual, I could tell he was just typing the commands, with no regard for what they did. When I did the labs, he'd make sure I followed all the steps, but he didn't care what happened. As soon as we finished the lab he'd go back to his laptop and e-mail or chat over IM with a friend.

Now, I've been known to go to IT training, get out my laptop, and spend 8 hours paying the least amount of attention possible while surfing the Web and goofing off. And I did have my laptop out all week as usual. However, I paid attention, asked questions, and got my work done. Despite the class being about 75% review for me, I think I learned a few things this week. By his own admission, my partner needs to buy a Linux book and spend some quality time installing and configuring a system on his own. I don't think he got anything out of a class that cost his company about $2000. Their loss, I suppose.

My once-a-year training class

I get to go to training (or a conference) once a year, so this week I'm in a four-day Linux class. I've been managing Linux servers at work for about four years with no formal instruction, just the bits and pieces I've picked up along the way. The class has turned out to be more of a review than new material, but that's OK. I need the practice, and it's been useful to see the best way to do things, instead of the haphazard methods I've been following for years.

One thing that the instructor said has been bothering me. He pointed out on the first day that many companies will pay for Linux software from vendors like Red Hat, Novell, etc., and buy support from those companies as well. However, since there's a rich community of Linux administrators on the Internet and many sites with Linux documentation and tips, the instructor said several times that it's a waste of money to pay for support. If you can get help for free, why pay for it?

Well, if something goes wrong with one of my production servers and I can't fix it, I don't want to tell my boss (or his boss) that I'm checking user groups and web forums and waiting for someone in Europe to get back to me with a suggestion. I'd be in a world of trouble. We buy support for all our software, regardless of how trivial or how extensive the user community is. You never know when you'll need help, and you can't rely on Joe Sysadmin in Fresno to know how to fix your systems. That's why we "waste" our money on support. Because you never know.

update on my new friend

Two months ago I got my new cat, Grady, from the ASPCA. At first I thought they were going to get along famously, but my initial optimism was premature. About a week after Grady came home, something happened between the cats and Starlite wound up living under my bed. Later, he moved to the bathroom, where he had access to his own litter box and food, and he spent most of his time hiding behind the toilet. I tried to get him to come out, but any time Grady approached him, he'd scurry behind the toilet again. This state of affairs continued for over a month.

Last Friday, I was home early from jury duty, so I had time to call the ASPCA and see if they had any suggestions as to how I could get the cats to tolerate each other, if not live together happily. The doctor I spoke to gave me some tips and we laid out a basic strategy to get them reacquainted. Step One of the plan was to move Starlite from the bathroom to the office, where he has more room to move around and windows so he has something else to look at. I moved him in there on Friday night, and his behavior has improved since the move. He still runs and hides under a desk when Grady comes in, but when I keep the office door closed (which is most of the time) he's happy to climb onto my desk, roll around, and cry for attention. It's going to be a long process, and in the meantime I have to split my time between the living room and the office in order to keep them separated and still spend time with both cats. But there's hope for the future.

Grady continues to be one of the cutest cats ever. He's completely insane, though. He chases his tail all the time, and leaps from couch to chair to windowsill during his manic phases. I'm not sure he sleeps much. The past few mornings he's woken me up by chasing his tail on my bed. It's impossible to sleep with a cat jumping around next to you.

the two slowest days of my life

I had jury duty on Thursday and Friday in one of New York City's finest jury holding rooms. When I got the summons I thought it was for a different location than the last time I went, in 2001, but when I got to the jury room it was the same place as before. We had to arrive at 8:45 AM on Thursday morning, and it wasn't until close to 9:30 that they showed us the juror orientation video with Ed Bradley and Diane Sawyer giving us a history of the court system, what happens in a courtroom, and so on. The best (or worst) part of the video was at the beginning. They show you a medieval "trial by ordeal" where they throw the defendant into a lake. The judicial theory was that if the accused floated, he or she was innocent. It looked like they filmed that part of the video somewhere in upstate New York, but for all I know they shot it in Central Park. After that, we sat around the jury room until just after noon, when they sent us out for a two-hour lunch. Yesterday I went to New Green Bo on Bayard St. to try the tong po pork (based on Alex Balk's recommendation). It was a platter of fatty pork over bok choy, smothered in some kind of tangy sauce, served with buns. It's not haunting my dreams the way it haunts Balk's, but it was tasty. After lunch I wandered around Chinatown for a while, then went back to the jury room. They let us go around 3:30 on Thursday and told us to come back at 10 AM today.

I got back to the courthouse right at 10 and waited half an hour before they did a roll call. Then it was two more hours of reading and surfing on my laptop (the courthouse has free Internet access now, albeit with some web filters -- for example, I could read blogs and post comments, but I couldn't sign into Blogger to write posts on my own blog) before they gave us another two-hour lunch break. This time I went to Au Bon Pain, then killed an hour at J&R Music. They were having a sale on EMI classical CD reissues, so I picked up some Vivaldi violin concertos, the complete Saint-Saens piano concertos, Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde, and some Beethoven piano trios. I should not be allowed to shop on my lunch break. I got back to the courthouse right at 2 PM, and about 20 minutes later they said we were dismissed with credit for two days of service and we wouldn't have to come back for at least four years. A few people wanted to know why they couldn't have told us we were dismissed before lunch. I didn't care. But I am a little disappointed that we were never called for any trials. I would have liked to see some courtroom action. I did get two days off work with pay, which is always a good thing. And my public service is fulfilled until well into the 2nd Clinton administration.

working from home thanks to the MTA

I missed all the excitement on Wednesday. I woke up around 8 AM, took a shower and put on the TV around 8:30, and that's when I found out I'd slept through severe thunderstorms that flooded all the subway lines in Manhattan. I spent my morning on a conference call and watching NY1 for updates on the subway situation. By lunchtime the reports were not promising, so my boss told me and the rest of the Manhattan staff to stay home and work. I got more work done from home today than I usually get done at the office. I'm not saying I want to work from home all the time, but it was kind of fun. I had the news on for a while, watched part of a movie during lunch, and then listened to music in the afternoon while working with one of the guys in the office to get a server installed.

On Thursday I'll be downtown at 111 Centre St. for jury duty. I haven't been called for jury duty in six or seven years. The last time I went, I took a book and read the entire time. I'll bring a book tomorrow, but I think I'll bring my laptop as well. From what I understand, the courthouse has Internet access, so maybe I'll be able to keep up with my various blogs and news sites. I'm not worried about getting picked for a trial. If it happens, I'll have something else to talk about besides the annoyance of sitting in a jury waiting room all day.

"Superfreak was just a song I wrote..."

This video is long, but worth the investment. I hope these two gentlemen patched up their differences.

DC "Culottes" Party

I went to DC this weekend for another Deadspin baseball game meet-up. The plan was the same as the NY gathering I attended back in June: meet at a local bar in mid-afternoon, get acquainted over beers, then move on to the game (Nationals vs. Cardinals at RFK Stadium), and finish the evening at another bar. The first stop was the Pour House on Capitol Hill. We hung out there from about 3 PM to 6. There was only one other person I’d met in person before, but I got to know everyone else quickly. The bar ran a shuttle service to RFK Stadium, and the bus turned out to be an old yellow school bus. Riding in the back, I felt like I was back in high school, though I’d never been on the bus after having a few beers. By the time we got into the stadium, we’d missed out on the Thomas Jefferson bobble-head giveaway for that night. We all considered rolling some kids for their bobble-heads, but common sense prevailed. (I may look for one on eBay this week, though).

The game was a blowout: 12-1 in favor of the Nationals. We were sitting in the upper deck in dead center field, so we had a good view of the field. But it was HOT. Really hot. Disgustingly hot. It was the kind of heat that just settles in around you. You could see the haze in the stadium lights. There was no breeze up there despite the height, so we just suffered for about three hours. I had a few beers, some food, and lots of water, but it was uncomfortable the entire time. We made the best of it and had fun anyway. I felt bad for my friend Andrea; she flew halfway across the country to see the Cardinals and Albert Pujols. Not only did her team lose badly, for some reason Pujols wasn’t in the lineup. They could have used him.

After the game, we went back to Capitol Hill to The 18^th Amendment, another bar a few blocks from the first one. This bar had a basement that was blissfully air-conditioned. My friend Jon came over from Arlington to hang out with us. There was some debauchery, but I will not discuss that sort of thing in this forum. Around 1 AM we’d had enough, and we took a cab back to his apartment in Arlington, where I crashed on his couch for the night. It was another fun time with the Deadspin gang, and I’m thinking about going to another gathering this fall, possibly in Las Vegas. I haven’t treated myself to a vacation like that in a long time. I think I have an excuse to do it now.

Photos from last night are in the usual place: click on the Flickr gadget on the right.

I can't believe this game wouldn't sell

From The Onion:


Activision Reports Sluggish Sales For Sousaphone Hero


I like the box art. I wonder what my grandfather would have thought of the game.

If we were having a reunion, this would be the soundtrack

My high school class has never had a reunion. We graduated in 1992, fifteen years ago, and we have yet to reassemble as a group of more than six or seven people. I had hopes that we'd have some sort of even five years ago, but no. My now-ex-wife's 10-year reunion had to suffice for me, and in fact I enjoyed the hell out of that particular gathering. I suppose if I wanted something done for my class, I'd have to do it myself at this point, but I'm not that motivated to find a location and try to contact everyone. Especially considering that I don't live at home and it seems even more daunting to try to organize something like a reunion from far away.

However, if my class were to have a reunion, we'd have a playlist. "Yostal," one of my fellow Deadspin commenters, has a column on DeadOn called "Tied to the '90s." A few months ago he posted a playlist for a class of 1997 10-year reunion, so I asked him to do the same for 1992. Earlier this week he was lamenting that he had no ideas for his column, so I reminded him of my suggestion. You can read and hear what he came up with. I have to agree with most of his selections. I think a true DJ playlist would include more songs from 1990 and 1991, as well as the requisite '80s nostalgia tracks, but he's covered 1992 well.

my first sick day in years

I've had a slight cold for a few days. It's nothing severe, mostly just a sore throat and a few other minor symptoms. Since I wasn't feeling that bad, I went out and had a little too much fun this past weekend. On Friday, I went to a Mets game with some people from work and one of our vendors. We had field box seats behind the visitors' dugout, and I got some close-up photos of batters in mid-swing when I wasn't enjoying free food and beer courtesy of our vendor friend. I also got a high-five from Mr. Met, and a photo of myself next to the Mets' 1986 World Series trophy. I feel like a traitor to my hometown Pirates, though. On Saturday night, I went to an all-you-can-drink birthday party at a bar in my neighborhood. I woke up on Sunday morning with my throat feeling worse, but that didn't stop me from taking care of the errands I had to run that day. That evening, when my friends came over to watch TV, I ended up hoarse from talking and coughing. And my eyes were red from me over-wearing my contacts. I'm a bit of a hypochondriac, so I thought for a few minutes that I might have pink eye. I collapsed into bed right after they left.

So on Monday morning I sounded and looked terrible. I didn't actually feel that bad, but I had a feeling I should stay home from work. I'd already taken the morning off to get my cable TV fixed, so I called work and took the rest of the day off. I haven't called in sick in over two years. There goes my streak. Since I wasn't that sick, it was even more miserable than usual to be at home. There's nothing on TV. I watched part of "The Towering Inferno" and went for a walk later in the afternoon. I'm back at work today. My eyes look and feel much better, my voice is coming back, and the cold is nearly gone. But mostly I'm just glad to be back in the office. I'm a social person, and I can't stand being home alone for that long. Having broken my no-sick-day streak, I think I'll be a little quicker to call in sick the next time I have a bad cold. I've come to work on days when I really should have stayed home. No one wants to hear or see me when I'm that sick.

This is beyond ridiculous

The 2007 Tour de France is beginning to make the 1998 debacle look like a smashing success. Alexandre Vinokourov was expelled from the Tour earlier this week for a positive drug test. Michael Rasmussen had been leading the Tour and expected to win, until the news got out that he'd missed two mandatory drug tests earlier in the year. So this afternoon, his team dropped him from the race.

I love cycling and the Tour, but the events this week strain what little credibility this race has left. Whoever ends up on the podium in Paris on Sunday will not have earned their victory. The race organizers should just cancel the rest of the race and spend the next eleven months working on a new way to run their event. Maybe they should increase the length of drug-related suspensions from two to four years. A positive drug test would mean the end of many racers' careers. Otherwise, just let riders take whatever they want, and forget about testing. Let the Tour be about who's got the best medical staff and HGH, and not who can ride the fastest up a HC mountain.

Things that I think are awesome

1500 prison inmates rehearsing their version of "Thriller."

Things I just don't "get"

I like to think I've got a good sense of humor. I'm highbrow and lowbrow: I like sophisticated British comedy, but I also like a good poop joke. A man getting hit in the groin is never not funny. However, sometimes there are popular memes that everyone seems to adore, but I just don't understand. Here, then, are a few of those items. I defy anyone to explain to me how and why these things are funny.

LOLCats

I should probably find this one hysterical. It's funny pictures of cats, with captions that have misspelled words in them. But I'm just confused. Why do the captions have to be misspelled? Why are people appropriating this format for so many other things? I feel left out and unpopular, like high school.

The Dugout

Nearly everyone on Deadspin loves this site. It's baseball players engaging in imaginary IM chats. Everyone gets a funny screen name, and recurring characters have their own unmistakable voices. Maybe it's because I'm not a huge baseball fan, but I hardly ever crack so much as a smile when I'm reading these posts.

Sacha Baron Cohen and "Borat"

Yes, I'm way behind on this one. I avoided seeing the movie in theaters last fall, but I finally saw it on video in March. It had a few laughs, but for most of the movie I just wondered what everyone else thought was so incredibly funny about it. By extension, I don't get Sacha Baron Cohen either. Talladega Nights wasn't that good a movie, but he was by far the least funny character in it. Any time he was on the screen I couldn't wait for him to get off it and move on to something else. I tried watching Da Ali G Show on HBO a few years ago, and I just didn't like it. Forgive me if I pass on the Bruno movie when it comes out.

I know, it's a big world, and to each his own. I've tried to get my friends to watch "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" with no success.

Saturday's beer tasting/cookout

I went to another beer tasting party at a friend's house in Queens this past Saturday. I went to one last September, and this one was the same format, but with different beers and food. This time I stayed until we ran out of beer, which happened around 10 PM, so I got to try 19 different beers. I don't remember most of the beers, though there was a double IPA that was extremely bitter and a sour, fruity beer that stands out in my memory. I took photos of each bottle as we drank it, and after a few shots I figured out that it made more sense to photograph the beer bottle next to my glass of beer. I also got to meet my friends' six-month-old son, who was adorably cute even when he was drooling (which was most of the time, as he's teething). For the food, the hosts went with a French theme, though I don't remember now what that had to do with chicken and beef kabobs, grilled shrimp, corn on the cob, fresh vegetables, and homemade ice cream. The food and liberal doses of water kept me from getting beyond a mild buzz, which was the idea. As with a wine tasting, you don't want to get drunk on beer that you're drinking for the purpose of tasting the nuances of flavor. One of my friends hadn't been to a beer tasting before, and he didn't listen when we told him to take it easy. He e-mailed us on Sunday morning with the message "Worst. Hangover. Ever."

new music purchases

I did some CD shopping on my way home from work Monday night. I meant to just buy the new Velvet Revolver album, Libertad, but as usual I came home with some other albums as well.

The Rolling Stones: Exile on Main Street. I can't believe I didn't own this one already.

Matthew Sweet: Girlfriend. The title track is one of my favorite songs in Guitar Hero II, and the rest of the album is catchy too. Someone told me all the songs are about breakups. That would have been useful information 18 months ago when I was looking for alternatives to Blood On The Tracks.

Ratt: Out Of The Cellar. It was $7. And "Round and Round" is a great song.

The White Stripes: Icky Thump. This album is so good it makes me wish I'd started listening to the White Stripes years ago. I've listened to it twice already, and I'm sure I'll play it again this week sometime. I need to get the rest of their catalog now.

Also, while I was at home last week working on the carpet in my mom's room, my brother and I took turns with the musical selections. I played two of the pieces from one of my concerts this past March, and he played Michael Torke's One. Torke is a modern composer, and I typically don't enjoy new compositions in classical music forms. But the five pieces on One, all named for colors, are amazing. I had to get the album as soon as I heard it. Lucky for me, emusic.com had it in MP3 format. Between listening to this album and the White Stripes, I'm way behind on podcasts.

Who trashed my desk?

It's my first day back at work after a week off, and truth be told, I'd rather be anywhere else but here. When I walked back to my cubicle, I found my desk had been messed up more than usual: the LCD monitor, my speakers, my coffee mugs and French press had been knocked over, and some papers were out of order. I usually blame the cleaning staff when this happens. I've seen the late-night cleaning ladies sit at our little conference table and talk, and according to the guy in my department who works evenings, they will also sit at our desks and use the phones. There was nothing wrong with my desk that couldn't be fixed in thirty seconds, but that's not really the point. This is my workspace. I have it arranged the way I like it. I don't want anyone else sitting here and screwing it up.

I think I need some coffee.

wrapping up a trip home

I did take a walk on Monday afternoon. I walked over to my old middle school, then to Johnstown's world-famous Inclined Plane. Along the way, I took photos of some of my old hangouts and got some good shots of the downtown area.

Monday night's orchestra rehearsal was my first time playing with the Johnstown Symphony Orchestra in about 15 years. As a ringer, I would have been happy to sit anywhere they wanted to put me, and they put me on the 3rd stand on the outside. I've never sat that close to the conductor before (at least in that orchestra), and for the first 20 minutes I fully expected someone to come up, tap me on the shoulder, and tell me my services were not needed. But that didn't happen, and I survived what amounted to a 2 1/2 hour exercise in sight-reading. I think I'd seen two or three out of the 15 or so pieces in the folder before. One of the pieces was a medley of Irving Berlin songs featuring an a capella group with my former middle school music teacher singing soprano. I hadn't seen her in ages either. In fact, there were many people in the orchestra I hadn't seen for years, so it was a bit of a reunion for me.

On Tuesday we ran some errands and that evening, my mother, brother, and I tag-teamed to make dinner: poached flounder, peas, and corn on the cob. OK, my brother did most of the work. I think my contribution amounted to chopping parsley and setting the table. But it was delicious.

Wednesday saw us working on home improvement. Over the past few years my mother has been ripping out the ancient wall-to-wall carpeting in the house and exposing the hardwood floors. Before we arrived she had started pulling up the carpet in her bedroom. The three of us spent about two hours moving furniture, ripping up and cutting carpet, pulling out tacks and nails, and cleaning up the disintegrated fabric underneath. I'm not a big fan of home repair like that, but there was something satisfying in tearing up the carpet and seeing what was beneath it.

That night, the concert went better than I'd thought. We'd gotten a call in the afternoon that the concert had been moved from the outdoor location in the downtown baseball stadium to the indoor site, the War Memorial arena a few blocks away. The local National Guard unit had gone to the trouble of moving the cannons, so we had actual howitzers for Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. And from my seat, I had a clear view of the cannons when they fired during the climax of the piece. I didn't drop my viola (the conductor had warned us about that) but the yellow flash and the sound of the blast did make me jump a little. The smoke drifting back into the arena had an adverse effect on the breathing for the wind and brass players, and made my eyes water. Things like that don't get taken into account when planning concerts. We got our stuff packed up and made it outside in time to see most of the local fireworks display.

So it was a fun trip home. Next year, though, I think I'll stay in New York and invite my family to come here. Nothing beats the fireworks in New York.

my vacation is off to a great start

I'm at home in Johnstown, PA, this week for the 4th of July. My mother, my brother, and I are all playing in the Johnstown Symphony Orchestra's holiday concert on Wednesday evening. I don't think the three of us have ever played in the same concert before.

I spent Sunday visiting some friends in Pittsburgh that I hadn't seen in a few years. On my way home, my mother and I drove across downtown and I remembered how much I love visiting Pittsburgh. I need to get back there more often. Now that I've seen how easy (and cheap) it is to get there on jetBlue, I'll have to fly in again.

It's been almost a decade since I came home for a visit in a month other than December. I'm sitting on my back porch with my laptop, the sun is out in a clear blue sky, and the temperature is in the 60s. I love the city, but I'm enjoying the hell out of this. I may go for a walk after lunch to see how the old neighborhood looks when it isn't covered in snow.

my greatest moment as a commenter

This afternoon Deadspin's "Comment Ombudsman" highlighted my efforts as a commenter on the site. Scroll down the post and you'll see that my alter ego Peter Cavan offered a rewrite of "America" from West Side Story as it applies to the 2007 New York Mets.

After-action report: the Deadspin East Coast Pants Party

It's taken me most of the day to recover from last night's revelry. It was that much fun.

Yesterday afternoon, I met up with a group of fellow Deadspin readers and commenters for drinking, baseball, drinking, and then more drinking. I used to make fun of my friends for meeting people from the Internet in real life. I will admit I was a little apprehensive about about being face-to-face with people who are usually represented by names like "Phony Gwynn," "Big Ten Obsession," and "Moobs." But any concern I had was unnecessary. This was one fantastic, friendly group of people.

We started at Lounge 47 in Long Island City in midafternoon, then took the party out to Shea Stadium, where I think the Mets played a game against the A's. It was the most fun I've ever had at any sporting event. At one point I was in pain from laughing so hard. I remember cheering for the Mets, but the biggest cheer went up when our group's name appeared on the scoreboard. We had some debate as to where to go after the game, and someone suggested The Big Easy, just a few blocks from my apartment. There seemed to be some support for that plan, so I led a small contingent through the subways and streets of the Upper East Side back to the bar. After that, things get a little hazy. The photos tell the complete story. I think I left around 2 AM, but that's just because it's the last timestamp on my photo set.

Like I said, this was a great group of people to hang out with. There are a few more of these gatherings scheduled for later in the summer. Having been to one, I'm seriously thinking of going to others. Maybe next time I'll remember to stop drinking just a little sooner, so I can remember how I got home.

Chris Berman, Muppet

While I was watching Mike Greenberg milk a cow on "Mike & Mike In The Morning" today, I missed this. So far, it's not on YouTube, but I can re-watch an everyday farm animal procedure to my heart's content.

I've never been so depressed.

I've got a new friend

It's been about six months since Mr. Starlite became my only cat, so I decided that it was time to get him a friend. I went to the ASPCA on Saturday and came home with Grady, a two-year-old black and white cat with a playful and happy disposition. Grady was the name the ASPCA gave him, and I'm going to keep it. He looks a bit like he's wearing a tuxedo, and the name reminds me of Delbert Grady, the old caretaker in The Shining who appears to Jack Nicholson as a butler. (I know, Delbert Grady chopped up his whole family, but let's not dwell on that.) Grady spent Saturday and part of Sunday cooped up in my home office, but this afternoon I couldn't let him be alone any longer. I let him out to meet Starlite. They've swatted at each other a few times and chased each other around, but I think they're going to get along. Although he doesn't appear to have anything wrong with him, I need to take Grady to my vet to make sure he's in good health just to be safe. That should happen in the next week or two.

I've put some photos of Grady here.

One night in "Xanadu"

Normally, I wouldn't see something like "Xanadu" on Broadway. But one of my friends sold a group of us on the idea and put together an evening of theater and drinking (not necessarily in that order), and so we had a plan. We met for drinks at Kemia on 9th Avenue, then once we were sufficiently prepared, we headed to the theater.

The show is quite possibly the dumbest thing I've ever seen, and I've sat through a lot of bad theater. But it's not actually bad. It's surprisingly entertaining. The production doesn't take it self seriously, and there are more than a few Broadway and New York in-jokes. It's still a schlocky early 1980s roller disco musical. And I really enjoyed it. I don't think I'd see it again, but if you wanted 90 minutes of mindless Broadway musical entertainment, you could do worse than "Xanadu."

no sleep, no hot water... I'm not happy today

I was up late Sunday night watching (in this order) the Tony awards, the finale of "The Sopranos," and the premiere of "John From Cincinnati," AKA the "what the hell was that?" show. I didn't get to bed until after 2 AM, and didn't fall asleep for at least half an hour. Then this morning I had no hot water for my shower, so I made a half-hearted effort to soap and rinse without freezing myself to death. Instead of the cold water waking me up, I feel worse now than I did this morning.

I had planned to post my own "Sopranos" post-show analysis, but I can't form any original thoughts. All I want to do is go home and crash. I'd better have some hot water tomorrow, or I'll take my towel and my rubber ducky over to my landlord's apartment and use his shower.

Want to be a better Jew?

Get one of these.

It's got blessings I didn't know existed. Need one for muffins? It's got you covered!

back in the city

I spent my weekend visiting my family in Maryland, where I got to hear my brother play a concert with the Columbia Orchestra, and have lunch with some of my friends. It was good to get out of the city for a few days. As much as I love it here, I need a break now and then.

I tried to find Ben & Jerry's "Stephen Colbert's 'Americone Dream'" ice cream flavor at my dad's grocery store, but they had every kind except that one. I haven't found it in New York yet. Where is it?! I need my conservative ice cream fix!

I am a mobile road warrior

I can browse the web and read e-mail from the train to DC using my cellphone and a cable for my laptop. The connection's not as reliable as I'd like (it drops occasionally and slows to a crawl at times) but I can't complain too much. I'm writing this post between Wilmington and Baltimore. This is what happens with a 3G phone and an unlimited data plan. If I was really hardcore I'd connect the laptop and phone with Bluetooth, but the cable charges the phone at the same time. And my corporate laptop doesn't have a Bluetooth adapter in it(!).

I'm getting out of New York for the first time since February. Nobody burn down the city in my absence. I'll be back on Sunday evening.