The Strongest Coffee in The World

You would think that I’d know how to make coffee. In the past 13 or so years, I’ve made coffee nearly every day, using the same grinder and automatic drip coffeemaker. Today I managed to make it wrong. I forgot to put the lid on the pot, which meant the boiling hot water steeped in …

If you always do what interests you, at least one person is pleased.

My result for Are You a Jackie or a Marilyn? Or Someone Else? Mad Men-era Female Icon Quiz… You Are a Katherine!   Katherines are energetic, lively, and optimistic. They want to contribute to the world.   How to Get Along with Me Give me companionship, affection, and freedom. Engage with me in stimulating conversation …

Goose-pimply all over

There’s a new post of mine over at the PSO blogs: “Stories told in notes.” Among the pieces we heard in Friday’s concert was Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2, which made me think of Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto, which made me think of The Seven-Year Itch. It thrills me. It chills me. It makes me feel …

You’ve got to love the actual sweat more than the lights and the glamour

aOMBTwYOal4 Scott asked us all whom we would like to narrate the story of our lives, and why. I thought through a couple of different options. There’s Orson Welles, who had just about the best ever narration style possible. There’s Stockard Channing, who would bring a lot of flair to the story and could also …

Is no problem. You are funny thing.

David Foster Wallace keeps coming up in my life recently. Not in person of course, just references to him. Here’s a video of him reading excerpts from two essays, "Getting Away from Already Being Pretty Much Away from It All" and "A Supposedly Fun This I’ll Never Do Again." It’s a long video (27 minutes), …

Moved to the top of my Netflix queue: “The Cat’s Meow.”

I moved it up from #140 when I read the Eddie Izzard interview in today’s NYT. "His strongest screen role so far has been as Charlie Chaplin in Peter Bogdanovich’s underrated 2001 film, “The Cat’s Meow,” about a 1920s murder on William Randolph Hearst’s yacht. His Chaplin is a driven, complex character, self-absorbed yet madly …