strange radiation: the pool of radiance archive: see the avenging virgo
Adventures with an unreliable narrator.
Dec 27 07: the avenging virgo goes to the movies
I have had a couple of movie dates recently. Yes, they were very nice, thank you. One of the films was Enchanted, which is a great date movie, funny and sweet and not particularly taxing and full of great New Yorky stuff; and the other was Sweeney Todd, which is… well, it’s a better date movie than The Young Poisoner’s Handbook, which I saw on a (rather awkward) date many, many years ago. Actually, hell, I enjoyed Sweeney Todd very much. Totally worth your $12, and if you’re a fan of the show then you’ll certainly have things to discuss over dinner afterwards. But be aware that it’s also unflinching in respect to the violence. Tim Burton seems to have been hanging out with David Cronenberg lately. Eesh.
Wait, I’m getting off track. (Because this is what happens when you suddenly decide to bang out a blog post at 1 in the morning instead of going to bed like a sensible person.) I just needed to say something: a little shout-out to the producers of Enchanted, and any other movie types who may be listening.
If your Big Romantic Costume Ball Scene hinges on having two characters dance together to a song introduced as “The Kings and Queens Waltz”?
Please, please, please at least have the cheesy lite rock ballad that follows be in three-quarter time. You know. Make it a waltz.
Thank you.
AV
Sep 9 07: copy-editorial tidbits
From the August 15 issue of the Reno Gazette-Journal, the following headline:
Nigerian families pass on culture
Yeah. The mental pictures are kind of good on that one.
On a better note, word of a decision I hope will prove a harbinger of things to come: Wired News will no longer capitalize the word internet. Nor the words net or web, for that matter. Yay. Capitalizing the word internet is like some writer 100 years ago capitalizing electricity. There’s no point to that capital letter beyond a sign that it’s something strange and new and possibly dangerous. How long it’ll take Major Publication to come to the same conclusion is another question entirely: with a battleship of that size, sudden stops and turns are well beyond them. But it is a sign of hope nonetheless.
Sep 5 07: ny moment #43,165
Okay, so, um, local grocery store? On the way home tonight? Buying ice cream? And there’s this sign over the little refrigerated sushi case? And it says:
SOME SUSHI
CONTAIN
RAW FISH
Um.
Jun 7 07: the avenging virgo writes a letter
Dear Spike TV:
Perhaps I am not your target audience. I’ll admit, I do enjoy the occasional megadose of CSI, and sometimes I even sit on the couch and watch a late-night episode of Star Trek: Voyager while updating the swim team’s website and my own blog and stuff. But I can’t stomach your many “ultimate fighting” shows; that ad where you showed some combatant getting an incisor knocked out in slow motion to the music of — what was that, Sinatra? — I found merely nauseating. Sure, half the fighters look like they could make a good living in the gay-porn industry, but hot though they may be I like my pinups with all their teeth.
Anyway, like I said: I’m probably not your target audience. I nonetheless feel obliged to point something out.
You have a new show: Guys’ Choice. In the phrase Guys’ Choice, there is a punctuation mark. You have left the mark out in all the show’s promotional spots, on its website — indeed, in all materials referring to the program in any form; so I am drawing your attention to the omission with this note. Let me explain: the choice belongs to the guys, in this instance the guys who vote on such world-shaking issues on which band kicks the most ass, or which, um, cybervixen is the most naughty. This posessive case is traditionally indicated with A FUCKING APOSTROPHE.
Please address this oversight at the earliest possible opportunity.
Yours,
AV
May 9 07: quote for the day
Because I love it so: James Nicoll on my native tongue, and the habits thereof.
The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary. [source]
As it happens, this Mr. Nicoll has said a lot of amusing things, and many of them are listed on Wikiquote.
May 1 07: comma chameleon
For a while I thought this job would kill me. Not because it is hard — although it still kicks my ass from time to time — but because it requires me to violate a fundamental law of that which is right and good. And you know how I feel about those.
I speak, of course, of the serial comma. I am a serial-comma kind of guy. And this job requires me to — oh! the horror! — strip out serial commas wherever I find them. Yes! Each time I had to do this, a little black mark was left upon my soul, one with a tail that drooped forlornly. The only thing that eased the pain was I knew that these commas were going to a better place. Because that’s what they told us. Slowly, though, I realized the truth: there was no happy upstate farm where these newly homeless commas would spend the rest of their lives among the flowers and the butterflies. They were not cheerfully barking at semicolons out in a pasture somewhere. Eventually, on my lunch break, I found the dingy closet where the Copy Chief unceremoniously drowns them in a mop-bucket.
The fact that I did not quit right then and there should be read as a testament to (a) how much I otherwise enjoy this job and (b) how much I need the cash. Instead, in the little free time I have available, I have undertaken a new project: The Comma Rescue Society. We take commas that would otherwise be consigned to shelters and eventual euthanization and place them in loving homes.
Won’t you consider giving to the CRS — or sheltering a comma or two in your own household? And if you need a testimonial just ask our first satisfied clients: my parents, Ayn Rand and God.
Apr 20 07: the avenging virgo sends a letter
Dear Past Perfect Tense:
I thought we were friends, but clearly I was wrong. Today’s refresher on the subtleties of your dark art has made my head hurt. I get it now, really I do, but you have taken up far too much of my day. I hate you.
Go sit in the corner with Numbers.
AV
Mar 4 07: ooh
Weekend of glorious hedonism. Am completely knackered. Going to bed very soon.
However, it would be unfair of me not to briefly discuss the Scissor Sisters show last night at the Madison Square Garden Theater, at least in a few easy-to-digest bullet points. Ergo:
- I wore the gayest t-shirt I own, because, well, how could one not?
- We got there in the middle of the first opening band’s set. I never got their name: it was two guys, a keyboard, and a couple of mics. Plus several bottles of beer. The guy at the keyboard didn’t have much to do: he would punch a button every now and then to tell the preprogrammed music to change from Riff A to Riff B, and such. Beyond that he just sort of danced. They were… um…
You know what? Words fail me here. I mean, there are phrases that could be used—incoherent, drunk, inappropriate lycra bodysuit, bad hair, flail—but they don’t come close to describing the overall effect of being present for the set. In a way, it was like the Sisters were presenting a gift to the crowd. Did you forget your drugs? Here, let us alter your brain chemistry before the show really gets moving. - Second opening band: Wigs on Sticks. They were great, and unquestionably superior to the first bunch, but should have trimmed their set by maybe two songs. When they get a website of their own (apparently coming soon) I’ll point ‘em out.
- Third opening band: DJ Sammy Jo, who made me really really miss Black Rock City. He rocked.
- The Sisters were great. Full stop. Just as fun as I always knew they’d be.
- We finally learned the answer to the burning question “What does Ana Matronic do?” It’s not like she does much of the singing on the albums, and she doesn’t play instruments beyond the tambourine or the maracas or the shooka-shooka egg thingy, which don’t count.1 But onstage she handles secondary voice parts that Jake multitracked on the albums. And she is also the—what, hostess? Den mother? Mistress of Ceremonies? Mouthpiece, maybe, providing wry commentary and general foul-mouthed fabulousness. In a short silver lamé dress that made her look, in her words, “like a big ol’ drag queen,” in the best possible way.
- Although the show attracted an unexpectedly diverse crowd, this was definitely an Event for the NYC homorati. Sitting within six seats of us: Fred Schneider of the B-52’s2 and Justin Bond, better known as Miss Kiki DuRayne.
- Jake Shears really can go in and out of that kick-ass falsetto for an entire show. (Although I felt that he often needed to be mic’d better than he was during his higher passages. My one complaint about the concert was that the sound was sometimes muddy.) I hope he has a really good voice coach backing him up. He must. Surely he must.
- Man, was that fun. Oh my god. And Different Bob was, as ever, excellent company.
1 Just ask Jennifer Kimball.
2 [sic]. That apostrophe causes me physical pain every time, but there it is.
Nov 8 06: may I just say
That notate is on that list of words that make a little muscle in my cheek twitch when I hear them? For instance, take the sentence “Please notate the number of tickets requested in the memo line.” (Please.)
The word is note. I will make allowances for notate when describing the act of recording musical notation on staff paper, or maybe when writing up choreography or something, but that’s pretty much it.
Jul 28 06: aaargh
So it appears that my former employer, Major Educational Publisher, neglected to send a fax to Paul’s company when I lost my job back in March. As a result, neither of us were put on his company’s dental coverage. And now it cannot be done until January 1, or until a Major Life Event occurs.
Fuck. Would my head exploding be considered a Major Life Event?
Furthermore, I am still in my postgames funk, and as such am clenching my teeth a lot. Given that I cannot afford any big dental work between now and January 1, this is a bad thing.
The only things that give me any sort of joy right now is (a) my new haircut, which I got from my new barber, because the old one apparently quit; and (b) the disclaimer that appears at the end of every email I receive from Bobbó, who works for Major Financial Firm.
NOTICE: If received in error, please destroy and notify sender. Sender does not intend to waive confidentiality or privilege. Use of this email is prohibited when received in error.
It seems to me that I should notify the hapless sender before I destroy him. I mean, it would seem unsporting to do otherwise, and also a waste of my time to explain things to his smoldering corpse. But whatever.
Mar 26 06: note to self
Gosh, look, it’s two in the morning, again. Okay, new thing to remember: approach the ‘edit this page’ button on any Wikipedia entry with extreme caution. Even if—perhaps especially if—the entry desperately needs editing.
Jan 4 06: factoids du jour
Because I am presently bored out of my mind here at my desk, I was just taking a little Internet break, reading an article about macaroni and cheese in today’s NY Times. It even comes with recipes (creamy and crusty)! And who doesn’t love macaroni and cheese? Aside from those who also hate freedom?
Anyway, along the way I learned the answers to a constellation of questions that have long plagued me:
American cheese is simply cheddar or colby that is ground and emulsified with water, said Bonnie Chlebecek, a test kitchen manager at Land O’Lakes in Arden Hills, Minn.
Plain American cheese, labeled pasteurized process cheese, contains the most natural cheese and is the best for cooking. American cheese derivatives are made from cheese and additives like sodium phosphates (acids that promote melting), nonfat dry milk and carrageenan. In descending order of their relationship to natural cheese, they are cheese food, cheese spread (such as Velveeta) and cheese product. [emphases mine]
Wow. Mysteries of the ages, revealed unto us all. Not even the absence of the serial comma from the final two sentences could dampen my joy at such a discovery. Doubtless, all of you will agree.
Jul 20 05: the death of nine million cuts
Yesterday I bought Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince on my lunch break. I’ve only read the first chapter-and-a-half, but I can say two things about it:
- It looks like fun.
- There’s a typo on page 10.
Normally I wouldn’t sweat this sort of thing. I work in publishing. I am aware that typos happen. But still: If I were the editor and I’d sold nine million copies on the first weekend and there were an uncaught homophone-substitution error in the first chapter of each and every one of them, I’d be fighting off the urge to bonk my head on the desk once or thrice. My sympathetic cringing, it was heartfelt.
That is all.
Mar 21 05: gamelust
I’ve deliberately stayed away from World of Warcraft because, well, I know a brain-sucking obsession waiting to happen when I see one. I mean, I got the Sims a while back for Christmas, and after several consecutive days of going to bed after 3AM I bricked it behind the wall in a lead box sealed with the names of seven angels, for my own protection. WoW would also require a new computer, which is a not inconsiderable expense. But a couple of weeks ago in San Francisco at the Game Developers Conference, Will Wright—the genius game designer who made SimCity and The Sims—showcased what his team is working on now. Its working title is Spore.
Oooh. SimSpecies. Okay, for this I would upgrade my machine.
ADDENDUM: It really bugs me that Developers is unapostrophized. There, I said it.
Jan 10 05: notice
Have I ever mentioned how insane it makes me to watch people double-click on hyperlinks? Now I have, I guess.
Once is all you need, my friends. The internet can hear you just fine.
Sep 20 04: rant
Okay, I’ve had it. I can’t take it anymore.
Perhaps it’s not my company’s fault—perhaps the blame lies with the building managers—but still. I work for a Seriously Major Educational Publisher, and yet the schmancy brushed-brass sign on the door to the gents’ says:
MENS
Its effect upon morale is subtle, yet corrosive.
Aug 20 04: virgo’s dilemma
I finished my last project for the day twenty minutes ago. So did nearly everybody else at the office. Nonetheless, here we are, bored out of our minds and trying hard to look productive, as we wait for our minimum weekly requirement of hours to be met.
Aaargh.
Meanwhile, there is a box on my desk that arrived this afternoon. It’s from my mother. Inside it is a birthday present. It is torturing me. See, she called me yesterday to find out where she should send it. (I’m very proud of her for doing so, because it means she’s remembered that we have a teeny tiny NYC apartment-style mailbox and sending us packages at home is an exercise in frustration.) And I have this vague memory of her saying that I should ‘open it as soon as it gets there.’ I think.
But what if I’m wrong? What if she didn’t say it? The Avenging Virgo does not like breaking the rules of How Things Should Be Done. And one of said rules is that Birthday Presents Are for Birthdays. You know, like Christmas Presents Are for Christmas. If she told me to open it early, then it’s okay; I had to. But if she didn’t tell me to do it, and I do it anyway, well…that’s cheating. Bad. Simply Not Done. And my birthday isn’t actually until next week.
But what if it’s cookies? It might be cookies. It might be a batch of the family specialty: Mrs. Peppard’s Cookies. Oh what if it is? What if, inside this innocent-looking box, there is a supernova of chocolate deliciousness? All for me? Desperate to be eaten ere they go stale or get broken into crumbs?
(Well, if they get stale or broken into crumbs, you put them on ice cream. In my experience. But they never hang around long enough to get stale.)
Oh, the torture. Outside the window the window-washers go up and down on their platform, and far below them the taxis head north towards the Park. But here on this side of the glass it’s just me and a white cardboard box, and a decision as yet unmade.
POSTSCRIPT: My sister just called, not five minutes later. I told her about the box. She said, and I quote: “What if it’s cookies? What if it’s Mrs. Peppard’s Cookies? I bet it is. You have to open it.” So I did.
Oh yes.
May 17 04: the avenging virgo returns
We just got back from Kroger’s. We had to buy ground beef and chips and suchlike—we’re grilling some burgers for dinner. While selecting our hamburger buns I looked up at the signs posted at regular intervals above the bread racks. They read:
“FRESHNESS”
MATTERS!
Why, why, why do people insist on scattering random quotation marks across their signage? For the love of god, WHY?
Sorry.
Nov 2 03: Hello, Dalí
So Paul and I had an extra rehearsal this evening with the JCU. We’re bearing down on our performance of Bernstein’s Kaddish Symphony a week from tomorrow. It’s a monster of a piece, technically quite demanding. Bernstein wrote it in the 60s, apparently wrestling with a burning desire to be accepted by “serious” musical types, which at the time meant that he had to compose twelve-tone stuff. You can hear his enthusiasm for twelve-tone composition wax and wane throughout the piece—sometimes we’re hip-deep in chaotic atonality and other times we’re whanging out these crazy syncopated jazzy things that suggest West Side Story and the Chichester Psalms. Oh, and it’s in Hebrew and Aramaic, and it has a really overblown poetic narrator shouting at God (or rather G-d) in English, and it goes at about mach seven. It took us (the chorus) ages to even start to appreciate the thing, so I can’t imagine what it’s like to sit in an audience and hear it for the first time. I think you’d need to be an afficionado of either Bernstein or of late-20th-century musicology to really get much out of it. If you’re neither of these things you’d do better to start with the Chichester Psalms.
At the end of the Kaddish this evening we did some work on the music we’ll be doing in December. It’s at Lincoln Center again, this time as the backup chorus to übersoprano Deborah Voigt. Where the Kaddish is high-concept and difficult, this stuff is…well, the word ‘camp’ springs to mind. Big sweeping Hollywoody show-choir arrangements of all your holiday favorites. Many of them fused into an extended medley that uses “Carol of the Bells” as its thematic backbone. It has the obligatory “ding! dong! ding! dong!” passages plus these fabulous sweeping glissandi, up and down ooooOOOOOOoooooOOOOOOoooo…whoa. It is proving rather difficult to take the rehearsals seriously, which is bad because this is, you know, Deborah Voigt already and we can’t really allow ourselves to screw it up.
Of course, it would be easier if this little gem weren’t buried in our score:
from We Need a Little ChristmasFor we need a little Christmas
Right this very minute,
Candles in the window,
Carol’s at the spinnet…
…Carol?
We in the tenor section find this rather amusing. While Mrs. Brady was raised as a contender, we agreed that really it could only be talking about Miss Channing. Every time it goes by the tenor section kind of goes to pieces, visions of big blond wigs and sequined dresses dancing in our heads. And who knew she could play? (Furthermore, they misspelled ‘spinet,’ but not everybody finds that sort of thing as noteworthy as I do.)
Anyway, that’s the news from New York. If I didn’t have rehearsals and things to break the craziness down into manageable bites I’d be completely freaked out by how quickly the year is passing. Wherever you are, I hope you’re doing fine.
Sep 24 02: see what’s become of me
Oh, and meanwhile, I’m obsessing over chronological order and how strictly to adhere to it in this forum. I realize the following can be looked upon as insane or inane or most likely both, but hey, it’s my damn blog. At any rate, here’s the conundrum: Do I put the entries within each day in reverse chron order, so the journal will flesh out like this?
Friday (3, 2, 1) — Thursday (2, 1) — Wednesday (4, 3, 2, 1)
Or in chron order, so that the journal will flesh out like this?
Friday (1, 2, 3) — Thursday (1, 2) — Wednesday (1, 2, 3, 4)
The former allows one to read from top to bottom of the page until one sees something one recognizes, at which point one can stop. The latter makes a day’s entries more logically structured within the day. You don’t get to the evening’s answer before the morning’s question, if you follow me.
A more formal introduction will be made at some point soon, but consider yourself acquainted with my deranged alter-ego the Avenging Virgo. I have changed the settings about seventeen times in the last twelve minutes. Let me know if any of you (assuming somebody ever reads this) have an opinion you wish to share.
(Finally, let us reflect on how unlikely I thought it would be for me to make more than one entry a day. That entry is either above or below this one, if you need to catch up.)