Hurray!
I'm going to see a Giants game at Pac Bell Park tomorrow night!

Here are some nice panoramas.
I've been following this woman's blog for a few months now, possibly just because I'm ENVIOUS as hell that her company moved her to Paris...
today I'm happy to be in SF.
The sun is out, and the ferries going by the office look cheerful, and oh, I shouldn't be blogging at work, but I can't help myself. (I work in a pier like one of those in the cam shot. very fancy, converted from an old C&H sugar warehouse. ground-breaking development, blah, blah.)

well, well, well, the time flies when you're playing with new toys. hee hee!!!
here are two things I just found to be awfully entertaining (in the two minutes or less category):
"Candy Bar Math"-- I didn't do very well ("Your score: 2. You show an indifference to the intricacies of pre-packaged confection. Repent." I really don't know my candy.)-- and "Porn Star or My Little Pony?" I scored somewhat higher on that, but really, it was much easier.
What's this about? I don't pay enough attention to things as it is, but jeesh, when I'm learning about my taxes from other people's blogs that's pretty bad.

Salon has a great article about Mamie van Doren.
Here's what Mamie had to say about Warren Beatty: "He's got a big salami in there," Van Doren recalls, serious. "I mean, goddamn."
and about Tom Jones: "He must have socks stuffed down there," Van Doren insists, "because his penis is very, very small."
People have been talking about her breasts for her whole life. I think she's more than entitled to talk about other people's body parts.

At the Castro Theater last Monday:
"She Done Him Wrong", starring the most fabulous Mae West and a young Cary Grant, and "The Torch Singer", starring Claudette Colbert. (The only link I could come up with for "The Torch Singer," aside from one-sentence mentions, was from the David Manners website-- I guess everyone has some fans, eh?)

oh, my.

"Welcome to the Launch Pad for Kick Out the Jammies, also known as KOTJ. This is David Bowie's own Internet Radio Station for kids of all ages, inspired by the birth of his daughter Alexandria last August.
“I was putting together tapes to play while Alex took a bath or had breakfast or... and it occurred to me that it would be a nice thing to put together a station’s worth of stuff for kids,” said David.
Featuring hand picked tracks by David himself along with members of his Internet Community, KOTJ includes a variety of children's music including classical music, sing-a-longs, familiar characters and much more."

I just caught a lovely tune called "Hey Food" by Cookie Monster and the Sesame Street Beetles.
Now we're supposed to be listening to "The Swan" from Saint-Saens' "The Carnival of Animals." It seems to have been introduced by Elmo and Big Bird as some "Tschaikovsky," but I didn't actually hear any music before we moved right on to Carole King for 30 seconds-- I think they must be taking the "Teletubbies" short attention span approach to children's programming-- presenting only very short snippets of things. There's lots and lots of Shel Silverstein , one of my favorites.
Eli, are you reading this?

ESTRAGON: Why don't we hang ourselves?
VLADIMIR: With what?
ESTRAGON: You haven't got a bit of rope?
VLADIMIR: No.
ESTRAGON: Then we can't.

--from Waiting for Godot,
by Samuel Beckett


I took myself to see "Texts for Nothing" at ACT this afternoon; Bill Irwin is a complete marvel. I love people who perform texts not written for performance, and most of us don't get to see enough clowning, let alone clowning so magical and intense.
From my program: "Irwin has been described by critics as 'America's clown prince' and 'this generation's most purely physical comic.' He himself claims to be equal parts actor and clown, with an abiding passion for the impulse to make people laugh (which, he is quick to point out- in a sentiment with which Beckett would surely agree- 'is not the same thing as making people happy')."
(more about Beckett.)

"Where would I go, if I could go, who would I be, if I could be, what would I say, if I had a voice, who says this, saying it's me?"
"Texts for Nothing"

Vegas is another planet.
Going there with a bunch of people you work with and taking work dynamics and politics along is even weirder.
I want to go back. I'd love to go alone, get a decent hotel room, and wander around and watch people, then go back to hang out in my room and write about it all.

I'm off to Las Vegas for a few days. Don't ask.

Saturday was very nearly a disaster.
We left almost on time and made it all the way to the Dunnigan rest stop for a little pee-break, but when we tried to hit the road again, the monster truck of power wouldn't start up. We had a moment of shock; fortunately our traveling companions, C. and C. (who were driving a Miata) have AAA, so we called and headed for the shade. A half hour later an impressively ancient and huge tow truck arrived. The driver found that he also couldn't start the truck, and we decided to let him tow us to Davis, which was relatively close by; if the truck could be fixed that day, we could continue on; if not, we wouldn't be too far from the city.
The ride to Davis was a hoot; the driver kept telling us how much he hated that particular tow truck, how nervous it made him. I studied the dashboard: the speedometer and the odometer were on 0, and the oil and fuel gauges said empty. Ken and I pondered the ridiculousness of breaking down in the tow truck that's towing your broken truck, but I tried to just concentrate on the really big bugs that were hitting the windshield.
When we got to the Toyota dealership we were dusty, tired, and we would have been starving if it hadn't been so hot... After interminable waiting, the guy from the dealership came over, got into the truck, and it started right up. and again. and again. Oh, boy.
We got our shit together and went down the road to get food. C and C. were not behind us. We drove back only to find that an SUV had backed into their little red car. (The woman said, "Your car is so small! How am I supposed to see it?" C. countered with, "What if a four year old were standing there? 'Your child is so small, how was I supposed to see it?'") Fortunately, there were only scratches.
Next, the truck wouldn't start again. Three of us got behind and pushed, while Ken popped the clutch and brrrrrrmm, it fired right up.
We felt pretty damn empowered, but at this point I started to wonder if I should give any credibility to the omens that seemed to be all around us. For the entire rest of the trip, the truck started without a hitch.
How do you explain superstitions? If something horrible had happened (if Mt. Shasta had erupted, if we'd all been sucked up into a tornado, z.B.), then one could say we'd been warned by the universe. Since nothing grim or even mildly bad happened, I'd have to say that the universe had better things to do last weekend than torture me.
We made it to our campsite, had dinner, and were asleep by midnight... I ended up with a really bad sunburn on my shoulders. Maybe I just wasn't looking at the right signs all day.