A Long Entry About Nothing
Due to the vagaries of the New York City subway system, (1) I arrived at work 8 minutes earlier than usual, and (2) for the first time in many weeks, I got a seat. I arrived at work to discover (1) our elevator news and information screens have apparently (according to a banner ad that appeared) been acquired by Gannett, makers of USA Today, which makes sense, since where else can you find descriptive elevator headlines like "Number of People Die In Tragic Accident" than in USA Today, and (2) there is apparently a "broken stair" in the stairwell. Whenever I'm early / bored / hungry in the morning, I make a stop at the "Attorney Lounge" before heading to my office (although it really shouldn't be called a "Lounge" so much as perhaps a "Break Room" or a "Semi-Daily Free Food and Beverage Facility." "Lounge" implies that a certain genre of entertainer would feel at home there. That would not hold true in the Attorney Lounge. Wayne Newton singing the best of Barry Manilow(or vice versa) would be decidedly out of place there. In any event, I make a stop there for a muffin (or a bagel) in the morning sometimes, if I'm early enough to feel like there might still be some left. And then I take the stairs the two floors up to my office. But today there was a sign in the stairwell, "Broken Stair. Use the elevator." But it was unclear whether, by the time I reached the sign, if I'd somehow passed the broken stair already, or it was upcoming. And there was no evidence of a broken stair. So, all the while feeling like there was real potential for me to feel awfully silly ("You fell through the floor? But you saw the sign, right? Are you a moron?"), I carefully continued my stair journey -- with a hot cup of tea in my hand, mind you -- trying to take extra caution in case of the mysterious broken stair. Demonstrating (once again) that my life is not a sitcom, I did not encounter any obviously broken stair, and arrived safely at my office without incident.
In other news: this morning on the subway I completed the Paul Collins trilogy. Avid readers may recall that a couple of weeks ago I mentioned I'd read Collins' "Not Even Wrong" a wonderfully-written book about the author's son diagnosed with autism, and a history of autism of sorts throughout the ages, but, even more significantly, just a really well-written, engaging, compelling book. So I bought Collins' other two books, "Banvard's Folly," about 13 men who tried to change the world and failed (ex: a guy who invented Concord Grapes; a Shakespeare forger who was a solid playwright in his own right; a guy who thought blue light could cure lots of bad diseases), and "Sixpence House," about the author's trip to a small town in England that is home to lots of antique booksellers, and basically a story about old books. They're both quite worth reading. Excellent stuff. I enjoyed the most recent one, "Not Even Wrong" probably the most of the three, but they're all quite good.
I have an urge, whenever I really enjoy something, be it book, music, or film, to see/hear/read the entire corpus of work by the creator. I feel like I may be missing a gem if I don't. Hence a somewhat bizarre set of CDs/mp3s, indicating a slight fetish for the albums that good songwriters release in their declining years.
Next up on the reading list: Fierce Pajamas, a collection of humor pieces from The New Yorker. I'll let you know.
Due to the vagaries of the New York City subway system, (1) I arrived at work 8 minutes earlier than usual, and (2) for the first time in many weeks, I got a seat. I arrived at work to discover (1) our elevator news and information screens have apparently (according to a banner ad that appeared) been acquired by Gannett, makers of USA Today, which makes sense, since where else can you find descriptive elevator headlines like "Number of People Die In Tragic Accident" than in USA Today, and (2) there is apparently a "broken stair" in the stairwell. Whenever I'm early / bored / hungry in the morning, I make a stop at the "Attorney Lounge" before heading to my office (although it really shouldn't be called a "Lounge" so much as perhaps a "Break Room" or a "Semi-Daily Free Food and Beverage Facility." "Lounge" implies that a certain genre of entertainer would feel at home there. That would not hold true in the Attorney Lounge. Wayne Newton singing the best of Barry Manilow(or vice versa) would be decidedly out of place there. In any event, I make a stop there for a muffin (or a bagel) in the morning sometimes, if I'm early enough to feel like there might still be some left. And then I take the stairs the two floors up to my office. But today there was a sign in the stairwell, "Broken Stair. Use the elevator." But it was unclear whether, by the time I reached the sign, if I'd somehow passed the broken stair already, or it was upcoming. And there was no evidence of a broken stair. So, all the while feeling like there was real potential for me to feel awfully silly ("You fell through the floor? But you saw the sign, right? Are you a moron?"), I carefully continued my stair journey -- with a hot cup of tea in my hand, mind you -- trying to take extra caution in case of the mysterious broken stair. Demonstrating (once again) that my life is not a sitcom, I did not encounter any obviously broken stair, and arrived safely at my office without incident.
In other news: this morning on the subway I completed the Paul Collins trilogy. Avid readers may recall that a couple of weeks ago I mentioned I'd read Collins' "Not Even Wrong" a wonderfully-written book about the author's son diagnosed with autism, and a history of autism of sorts throughout the ages, but, even more significantly, just a really well-written, engaging, compelling book. So I bought Collins' other two books, "Banvard's Folly," about 13 men who tried to change the world and failed (ex: a guy who invented Concord Grapes; a Shakespeare forger who was a solid playwright in his own right; a guy who thought blue light could cure lots of bad diseases), and "Sixpence House," about the author's trip to a small town in England that is home to lots of antique booksellers, and basically a story about old books. They're both quite worth reading. Excellent stuff. I enjoyed the most recent one, "Not Even Wrong" probably the most of the three, but they're all quite good.
I have an urge, whenever I really enjoy something, be it book, music, or film, to see/hear/read the entire corpus of work by the creator. I feel like I may be missing a gem if I don't. Hence a somewhat bizarre set of CDs/mp3s, indicating a slight fetish for the albums that good songwriters release in their declining years.
Next up on the reading list: Fierce Pajamas, a collection of humor pieces from The New Yorker. I'll let you know.
posted by Anonymous @ 9:17 AM
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