the rule of law

Went to Borders at lunch today.

Kenneth Starr was there. He seemed nice.

I cased the joint for Christmas gifts, bought some magazines for myself, and went back to work.

(no subject)

"Java attempted [a cross-platform application library] but Sun didn't grok GUIs well enough to deliver really slick native-feeling applications. Like the space alien in Star Trek watching Earth through a telescope, they knew exactly what human food was supposed to look like but they didn't realize it was supposed to taste like something."

--Joel Spolsky

open mike report

South Bay Folks Open Mike, 2002-12-12

I didn't feel like singing a depressing song, so... I had to play the one non-depressing song I know, "Blue Sky" by Patty Griffin. (That's a lie: I also know "Sailor" by Hem, but I just played that last week, and my song "No Time to Lose", but it sounds too much like "Blue Sky" to play them right next to each other.) To fill up the other half of my two-song set, I played a semi-improvised melodica piece I came up with in the parking lot.

The thing I forget about playing melodica, until I'm halfway into the first line of whatever I'm playing, is how to breathe. I don't inhale enough, and I blow too hard, and so by the end of the line I'm weak-winded and gasping for breath.

I also got to play piano, a rare treat, with Kristina on Nick Drake's "Northern Sky".

All the way down to San Jose I was singing myself hoarse along with Nadine's album "Downtown, Saturday"--thinking maybe I could play "Whenever You Are Around" on the piano, but no, I need to work on that one first. The bright side of all the shouting was, I got a new entry for the "who does my voice sound like to other people?" list: Richard Butler.

A couple of women from LA who called themselves "The LA Girls"--hmm--sang the national anthem, a capella and in harmony. I always cringe when people perform this--first of all, because of my fear of jingoism, a reaction I'm not proud of. But second, it seems impossible to perform it without slipping into cliche. Even when you try to reharmonize it, there are only so many ways you can go, and most of them have been gone before. So unless you can bring really stunning passion or technique to it, it seems like a losing game.

The second song, a guitar number featuring only half of the duo, was both interesting and good. Its chorus--something about "when are you coming home to stay"--both obscurely reminded me of another song I couldn't quite identify (one that repeats the phrase "are you coming home") and made me want to write my own. Which I didn't.

Current music (which won't fit in the "Current Music" box): An unreleased song by Hem which they played at their concert on Monday, fragments of which have been drifting through my head all week. The chorus, I believe, culminates in the words "I know you'll carry me home", but I could be wrong. I'm not sure about the lyrics, but the melody and arrangement are oh so powerful. You know what else is a good unreleased Hem song? "The Beautiful Sea".

just the start of a long disappointment

Lesson 1: Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy.

current music

Carry Me Home

ben and noel

Finished watching the pilot episode of Felicity, with commentary. Two telling facts from the show's creators:

1. They originally cast Scott Foley as Ben, and didn't cast Noel until very late in the schedule. Then they found Scott Speedman, realized quickly that he was a perfect Ben, and recast Scott Foley as Noel.
   
2. On Speedman's first day of shooting, they still weren't sure what his character's name would be. He was written as Billy, but when Ally McBeal and her rekindled flame Billy came along, they changed it.
   

My point: No wonder I've never been able to keep their names straight.

I was a devoted viewer during the show's last two seasons, but had never seen the pilot (or, in fact, any of the first season). The most interesting thing about the pilot, for me, was how much of the show is there right from the beginning. The relationship with the parents, the central love triangle, the sense of college as a time of possibility and choice, the subtle mix of comedy and drama, the endless introspection, the sweaters, the lighting, even the everpresent "Hey"s (the only dialogue in a tense semi-confrontation between Felicity and Julie).

I was sad when Felicity went off the air--I missed her, and Ben and Noel or vice versa. But I dimly realized at the time, and understand all the more clearly now, that it was right for the show to end with graduation. The show was a coherent whole, one long story; for it to reinvent itself after that story ended would have been a risk with very little gain.

Also, Alias sure is fun.