The View Just Blocks from the White House: Wandering the Mall

I spent a big chunk of today just wandering The Mall.

Got really close to the President's parade reviewing stand. A guy dressed as the grim reaper and holding a sign with the words Bush, Cheney, Death, (among others), was getting photographed as much as those cardboard cutouts of PEBO.

Stopped at the MSNBC setup and got on TV (although I don't think anyone who knows me actually saw me.)

Caught the stunning Kenyan Boys Choir performing for CNN's remote setup. With the Capitol in the background, these guys came all the way from Africa to bring their cool vocal blends and a song about Obama, and broke into some great dance moves to accompany it. You could tell they were excited to be here - their effortless smiles and infectious energy raised the temperature twenty degrees. One singer's shoe flew off his foot and sailed over my head and barely missed a couple of others, which prompted some to wonder out loud "was that a reference to Bush?"


Browsed the t-shirts, sweatshirts, and inaugural memorablia at the "Official Inauguration Store," where I bought inauguration mementos to hand out later.

Stopped at a Jumbotron to watch, once again, The Gay Men's Chorus of Washington back up Josh Groban and Heather Headley at yesterday's Lincoln Memorial concert. Picked out more friends singing up there. (Here's hoping HBO identifies all the choruses that performed when they re-cablecast the event and make it available on DVD.)

Was generally rather amazed at how easy it was for a pedestrian to wander around the Washington Monument grounds, the Ellipse, Pennsylvania Avenue near the reviewing stand, and right up to the seating area at the Capitol. And all in spite of the massive security.

Walked home. Not sure of my strategery for tomorrow. But at this moment, I'm planning on Being There.

The View Just Blocks from the White House: If You Haven't Yet, You Probably Won't

Seth Godin asked the other day "when newspapers are gone, what will you miss?"

I'll won't miss the out-of-touchness of the "old" media.

Case in point: yesterday, The New York Times ran a slew of articles on Washington, D.C. in honor, one could say, of the upcoming Inauguration/Revolution, which carried news that was weeks if not months old and tips that were covered on Web sites starting in November 2008.

If you waited until yesterday to investigate the possibilities of being in D.C. this weekend and counted on the Times to guide you, you'd still be sitting at home, wherever you are.

In "Take Patience and Good Shoes" we're told "The 240,000 tickets for the hourlong swearing-in ceremony are long gone" and "Pretty much all of Washington’s 29,000 hotel rooms are booked, not to mention hotels in suburban Maryland and Virginia and even parts of West Virginia."

Thanks for the update, but we knew that weeks ago.

The profile of D.C.'s 9:30 Club - "The District Will Rock: Line Up Early" - was not early enough. A quick trip to the club's Web site yesterday showed that "one of the best nightclubs in the world" (according to the Times) has not a ticket left for everything but one event. And they don't even talk about that event - Saturday night's gigantic gay dance party known as "Blowoff."

So, you'll have to come back some other time to "this place where Bob Dylan, a favorite of the incoming president, has been known to play unannounced shows, where Bob Mould of Hüsker Dü fame occasionally spins records, the kind of joint that will warm up the night before the inauguration with a double bill of, get this, the Beastie Boys and Sheryl Crow."

And finally, The Times sneaks its snooty provinciality into "Plenty of Options for Washington’s Hungry Visitors" noting first that "There are many reasons to make a special trip to the nation’s capital...But, truth be told, restaurants are not exactly on top of the why-to-visit list."

The article then lists a few places to eat. It doesn't mention whether or not reservations are still available, or even whether or not the restaurants will operating at full capacity. Employees all over town who have to work are juggling schedules and some are setting up cots in establishments as the public transportation system will be taxed and roadblocks start on Saturday.

Granted, it's tough to go from the "print" mindset, where you have one chance to get things right, you have limited space and time to make your points, and you treat a publication as an event, to the online world, where change is by-the-moment and anyone can post information as soon as they get it.

But we've been getting our Inaugural info, ever since that night in November when Obama was announced as the next president, from the sites The Times lists at the end of "Take Patience and Good Shoes."

Sorry NYTimes, but you're Days Late as you and the established fourth estate find yourself Dollars Short.

Obamarama - The View Just Blocks from the White House

In my neighborhood just blocks from the White House, the mood is much as it always is. The crowds haven't converged on Dupont Circle (yet), and almost everyone rushes about - because it's freakin' cold outside. Online, however, there's all kinds of stuff going on:

How lame are Inaugural Balls? Roxanne Roberts eviscerates them in her entertaining Washington Post article on tips for surviving the parties. It makes hunting wolverines in Alaska sound like more fun.

This map shows you'll need a ticket to merely stand at a location (the grey areas) where Obama will be the size of an atom. I stood in the grey area for Clinton's second inaugural and was too far away to see anything. Living in DC gives one ample opportunities to achieve Presidential Proximity other than a cold day in January. Places where I've been only feet away from (or in the same room with) a past President: Georgetown Park Mall on Christmas Eve (Clinton), Foundry United Methodist Church (Clinton again), the White House tennis court (Bush senior), the Kennedy Center Honors (Bush-who-is-leaving-and-not-a-moment-too-soon).

What would you do if you were given a ticket to the Inaugural Parade? asks the Freakonomics blog. I'd give it to a student who's traveled hours on end from far away, and then I'd watch the event on television. The parade is just not that exciting.

The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson's invocation at the Sunday night Lincoln Memorial event should not be interpreted as "a direct reaction to the Warren criticism," says an Obama source. Americablog responds "Making sure that we all know that this move should in no way be interpreted to suggest that Obama feels our pain is just incredibly dumb."

Where's the free National Symphony concert for those of us who are hopelessly out-of-touch with popular music?

Your Inauguration forecast: Cold.

If you have to be attend (but are ticketless), the key to survival is: seek out the furthest Jumbotron.

Even the President-Elect says You Don't Have to Be There:

Barack Around the Clock

Interesting things I've found through blogs and other places, some about the Inauguration, and some not.

Crash the Inauguration is an interesting idea, but follow their outfit suggestions for watching the parade while standing on Pennsylvania Avenue and you will freeze to death.

The President-Elect ate at Ben's Chili Bowl yesterday with D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty. Am I the only person around who thinks the Chili Bowl is overrated? That Fuddrucker's is just as good, for what it is? I'd rather chow down on L'Auriol Plaza's chips and fire-roasted tomato salsa.

Don't Ask Don't Tell could be repealed, reports AmericaBlog.

Nine Broadway shows close in one night, and Hugh "Gaping Void" MacLeod tells us why, in eleven words (and none of them are economy).

If you're sick of the pettiness, bullying*, and stupidity of most television contests, check out the infectious energy, humble sportsmanship, and incredible athleticism of America's Best Dance Crew, which starts its third season Wednesday night at 10pm on MTV.

The Top 50 movie special effects shots are found at Den of Geek! I agree wholeheartedly with numbers 42, 36, 33, 32, 26, 20, and 10. What's missing? All of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and "The transport shuttle crashes, stranding the survivors on the planet" scene from Aliens (while it's obviously back projected, the scale of the shuttle as it careens toward Our Heroes is frightening. Unfortunately, I could not find it online.)

Brazen Careerist deconstructs Tim Ferriss while showing the positive alternatives to his "self-centered, conniving, ethically challenged, cheating," and "fraud[ulent]" ways.

Nowadays, anyone can ski on YouTube (even me, for the first time in 25 years.)
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*On a recent episode of Top Chef, Colicchio said to the losing team something along the lines of "if it was up to me, I'd send you all home." Someone from the team should have said "it's not in your power to send us all home, and that kind of bullying statement is way out of line."

Music Helps Kick Off the New Year in a Positive Way

Over at the blogs I read, there are some great posts which aim to help us get on track for a successful 2009. More on them after I set the scene...

It's 8:42 a.m. New Year's Morning, and the network news shows are broadcasting the same old stories about the Ball Dropping In Times Square, Fireworks Across The Globe, and Resolutions.

But Seth Godin's got one of his short, masterful pieces up, urging us to Take The Lead this year, while everyone else will be falling in line...

Spreading good cheer of a different sort is Gretchen Rubin at The Happiness Project, who charts the Four Tips for Writing Your Personal Commandments. Gretchen also compiles a short list of readers' commandments - the one that hits home for me is "Music Helps."

Oh boy, does it help.

There are works that can float me into summer while I freeze in January.

Others convince me that, in spite of the chaos, intelligence, fairness, and decency are possible.

Some combine forces to remind me that majesty and mystery exist beyond the confines of a 40 hour work week.

A few are impossibly gorgeous, no matter how they're presented.

And then there's one of my favorite movie scores, although I'm not a fan of the film itself. But I'll watch it just to hear the music, which starts with an effective fanfare for the new year's wide open spaces:

P.S. This part is great too...

The Nativity, Brought to You by MGM

I wouldn't want to watch the entire 4 hours of Ben-Hur online, although it's available. As the season demands, here is the opening, with the Star of Bethlehem, Three Wise Men, the Manger, Mary and Joseph, a donkey, Roman centurions, and the incredible Miklos Roza score:

and part 2 is here.

Since Obama Chose Rick Warren...

Caroline Kennedy came out.

The New York Times called civil unions for gays separate but not equal.

Keith Olbermann reported and discussed Warren's bigoted ideas.

Over 2,000 news articles popped up daily (today, for instance) on Google News when you typed in the words "inauguration" and "warren."

And it's a safe bet that the gay marriage issue will be featured in commentary during television coverage of the inauguration on January 20th, particularly right before and after Warren's invocation.

I spent two days last week being very disappointed, like so many others, with Obama's choice. Then on Friday morning, I woke up and thought about all the coverage the community nationwide is getting. It's like Obama handed gay advocates an early Xmas present of widespread media coverage, and the corresponding opportunity to teach and persuade.

When, in the history of the U.S., has a gay issue been so prominently featured in the buildup to a presidential inauguration?

...and this just in... Rick Warren pulls anti-gay language from his Web site.

Scenes from a Baby Boomer Christmas

Before Rudolph, Charlie Brown and The Grinch, there was...

Madness...madness!

In my job I'm exposed to a great deal of media that daily chronicles the dire straights across the country. Mix that with a number of seasonal, family, and age-related challenges and unfortunate yet expected occurrences in my own life, and I'm left in the evenings with a brain that tries to sift through an alphabet soup of alarming thoughts, which are hard to bring together in an intelligent format.

Tonight I flashed on the final few minutes of David Lean's "Bridge on the River Kwai" in which Alec Guinness plays a British officer and WWII POW (Col. Nicholson) who commands the men under him to assist the enemy in building a bridge. But instead of delaying its construction, he succumbs to his immense ego (rationalized to himself as Enlightened Superiority) and delivers a formidable bridge into Japanese hands. Here, the team sent to blow up the bridge battles Nicholson, who realizes, (SPOILER ALERT!) almost too late, the extent of his folly:

The Unexpected Is Always Upon Us

I had to do some Christmas shopping today so I took the Metro to Pentagon City. That was my first mistake, because the train was insanely crowded for a Saturday. Then the mall was packed, so I quickly passed through it and headed out to Hudson Trail Outfitters, where I could not find any gloves. Then, on the way to buy a Christmas card, I crossed the parking lot and was almost flattened by a car backing up - the driver wasn't looking where he was going, and when he saw me he yelled at me for getting in his way.

At that point I gave up and came home, not willing to take on any more madness. On the way home, three young ladies in traditional Santa Lucia costumes boarded the train and sang Swedish carols, which would have been nice if the Metro's tunnel roar hadn't drowned them out.

It was all quite like Luciano Berio's take on the Mahler 2nd, 3rd movement I wrote about a couple of days ago. In the third movement of his Sinfonia, Berio takes the Mahler scherzo and runs it through a blender, feeding in other pieces and quotes from Samuel Beckett, among others. According to Wikipedia, "Berio himself describes the movement as a "Voyage to Cythera", in which a ship filled with gifts is headed towards the island dedicated to the goddess of love." Well, there were no gifts in my afternoon and precious little love! Here's the first part of the Berio:


...and here's the second part.

16 Things I Hate About the Holidays

Everybody hates fruitcake, New Year's Eve, and Secret Santa gift swaps. They're easy to despise, and few will argue for them. But don't we each keep our own list of festive things that seriously test our goodwill? As today in D.C. is wet, cold, (now dark), and miserable, here are mine:

• "O Holy Night."
• Melismatic pop singers lugubriously mangling "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," "The Christmas Song," and "White Christmas."
• Those gigantic red bows on gift cars in commercials.
• "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer."
• The Perfect Gift.
• Rankin-Bass holiday specials (except for Rudolph. And the Rankin-Bass logo tag.)
• Virginia.
• Holiday movies in which a mysterious package appears under the tree Christmas morning which signals either that Santa exists or What Happened To The Hero The Night Before Wasn't Just A Dream.
• Office building holiday dessert receptions in the lobby.
• Midnight mass.
• Darkness, cold, and those illnesses that spring forth this time of year.
• Those who try to make other holidays into the alternative Christmas (let those holidays be what they are!)
• Office decorations.
• Whimsy.
• Traveling.
• 24 Hours of "A Christmas Story."

A Whole Lotta Resurrecting Going On

It seems unprecedented, how every day seems to bring yet another bout of bad bad news. And it's not just a spate of unfortunate current events - the very foundations of our society are quaking, and so many people in various towers of power who once said "trust me, this is working" are now saying "you know, we need buckets and buckets of help." Heck, even Tom Peters is depressed.

So it's interesting how much I've been reading about Gustav Mahler's 2nd Symphony ("Resurrection") and Gilbert Kaplan, a businessman who, without formal classical music training in his early life, became a remarkable orchestral switch-hitter, focusing exclusively on this massive work, learning how to conduct its forces...because he wanted to. And he did it again last night, with the New York Philharmonic, 100 years after Mahler himself conducted the same symphony with the same group.

I found references in The New York Times and The Economist, as well as a number of other unusual places that I should have written down. A coincidence of my own making perhaps.

Mahler's 2nd is a huge work that famously builds to a massive, transcendent climax, beginning, in my opinion, with the chorus singing "What has been created must pass away, what has passed away will rise again."

What's been taking my mind away from it all is the knowledge (hope) that one of the major driving forces of society is currently being resurrected. That, and the 3rd movement of the Mahler, in which the huge orchestra dances lightly, a bit sardonic and not entirely carefree. Here's Simon Rattle embodying the rhythm in the score while he barely conducts :

Here's part 2 of the 3rd movement.

Less Media More Social Part 1

I shared my building's elevator tonight with a resident who I've seen quite a few times but never spoken with. And for a couple of decent reasons, I've wanted to. Trouble is, in my neighborhood, you can see someone for years and not speak. Washington's a busy place, and everyone seems to go about with this aura of "don't bother me" emanating from them. Plus there's the memory of those times I did strike up a conversation, and was met with a cold stare, or a monosyllabic answer. Granted, there's also been times when a friendly moment resulted...but we all seem to bring up the negative memories first.

Which is why I really liked Chris Brogan's extremely short yet precise video on the subject:

Asleep at the Wheel - Time to Drive Again, But Maybe We Need a Smart(er) Car

By now it's generally understood that the gay community was asleep during the recent Proposition 8 debacle. However, we've woken up somewhat, enough to swerve and miss plowing into a tree and totally wrecking everything. Just take a look at some of the media that's been created lately.

There's Proposition 8: The Musical, which is the most talked-about thing online right now. I admit I only watched half of it - I think it speaks more to the already converted, while those who still believe homosexuality is morally repugnant will find in it further justification for their [_____________] (insert euphemism for bigotry.)

I prefer this piece, which asks everyone to sign a petition protecting marriage. It's sneaky, it's smart, it's somewhat argument proof:


There's a feeling here in D.C. that HRC wasn't doing its job in letting the California vote go the way it did. That's probably true, but I believe it's because they're a large organization, and large organizations are almost always more concerned with keeping themselves going, consequently making decisions that try to appease many instead of creating real change.

The real stuff that's going on now isn't the result of one advocacy organization. Even the recent nationwide demonstrations were grassroots affairs, linked under the online banner of Join the Impact, an organization that looks to have risen in the days after the election. They say they're a nonprofit, but they're a .com and not a .org, and probably haven't had time to apply for 501(c)(3) status. If I'm wrong, then somebody tell me...

Join the Impact's next steps include Day Without a Gay, a national food drive that will target faith-based emergency food providers as the recipients of goodwill, and Light Up the Night for Equality.

Finally, we need a radically redesigned communications strategy. We need to stop debating in forums where we can't win. In today's NY Times op-ed "Showdown in the Big Tent," Caitlin Flanagan and Benjamin Schwarz write "Although it has come as a shocking realization to many in this community, a host of sociological studies confirm that many blacks feel a significant aversion to homosexuality itself, finding it morally and sexually repugnant." It's time to bring in some big gun "new marketing" gurus to massively reframe the dialogue, take over the debates and focus exclusively on civil rights. But not before somebody does some research on why so many people find homosexuality morally and sexually repugnant, so we can target the cause of hatred and not the symptoms.

In the meantime, how about a national "Day With A Gay?"
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OK, this post is entirely too long now...but I had to find a place for the following video I found on YouTube. Where to start? The background music is wonderful...

Don't People Have Better Things to Do?

Oh come on....

Scenes from a Depression Past

With all the tragic economic news alongside the "New" New Deal rumblings from the off-and-running office of the President Elect, I've been searching out escapist fare online. From the Great Depression of the 1930's, I found these visually fascinating and surreal productions from the great Busby Berkeley. Looking at them now, I find the contrast between the dated, not-quite-classic 30's musical language and the hard-edged, at times minimalist sets, patterns and choreography really resonant and fun. My faves:

"The Words are in My Heart" and its 56 floating, skating pianos.

"All Is Fair In Love And War" may go on too long, but I like the combination of the chromatic martial melody and dozens of giant white rocking chairs; the flags are fun and spectacular too.

His masterpiece, "Lullabye of Broadway," is a sinister take on broadway pizazz, and features many of his thirties motifs: disembodied singing heads, tiny urban vignettes,, impossible transitions, endless variations on a popular song, and massed geometric dance patterns. That it ultimately takes a tragic turn and becomes a cautionary tale for party girls everywhere makes it all the more nifty.

Watch Part 2 here.

In the forties Berkeley worked in color, and his hard edges bleed in the three-strip technicolor film process. His last great signature pieces, "The Lady in the Tutti-Frutti Hat" (reminds me of hallucinations I experienced when I had surgery at 8 years of age), and "The Polka Dot Polka" get stranger and stranger as they go along. It probably drove him crazy when he couldn't get everyone and everything as precise as he had in the previous decade, and the studio most likely gave him less time and money to work with. Consequently, the human waves aren't quite in sync. However, the "Polka" ends with creepy disembodied heads floating in a disturbing technicolor space, but not before a series of images that almost rival Kubrick's Star Gate sequence in 2001 for their sheer abstract quality.

Strange...and tons of fun.

Show Me Less, Give Me More

"...smaller-scale visual narratives have been flourishing on the Internet, delivering topical satire, political commentary and slices of real-life absurdity with a nimbleness and speed that makes both conventional film and traditional television seem unwieldy. Movies, meanwhile, are once again responding by growing louder, brighter and more sensational. Imax and variously improved 3-D formats are becoming more popular with the movie studios, even as the widespread use of digital effects gives their products less and less resemblance to traditional cinema."
A. O. Scott, "The Screening of America," NY Times Magazine, 11/21/08

Hollywood's natural inclination to show us an otherworldly environment is to throw a ton of money at computer graphics and show us every digitized pixel in the Center of the Earth. Obscene amounts of money, especially in today's economic environment. But it doesn't have to be that way. Check out these fantastic scenarios, from the days before CGI. I find these flicks far more fascinating than anything on Isla Nublar.

Orphée - film run backwards, hands plunging into mercury - that's all it takes to get you from this world to an afterlife.

Cube - essentially filmed on one set, which gave the director more money for special effects, including a couple of process shots. But the movie would be just as disturbing without all the slicing and dicing. Available complete on Google Video.

Primer - a nifty time-travel film, made for $7,000. Granted, it gets incoherent near the end. But it was made for $7,000. Also available on Google Video.

Fahrenheit 451 - couples Bernard Herrmann's music with the ramrod-straight firemen on an open red fire truck to portray a society in which books are illegal.

Jason and the Argonauts - Herrmann again, bleating low rumbling brass notes to accompany the sight of an impossibly huge statue. And then that statue turns its head...

La Belle et La Bete - the real movie magic happens at 2:25 in this clip.

Revolutions All Around

Seth Godin on what the Government should do with the Big Three Automakers.

Stonewall 2.0 as, allegedly, Christians are "chased out of the Castro District." (The possibility of violence disturbs me, but I do like the whistles en masse.)

Traditional cinema in danger of succumbing to the online world, detailed in A. O. Scott's blandly balanced article in the Sunday New York Times.

Godin again, on the failure of the New York Times (and, subtextually, of all large, monolithic, flexible-as-stone corporations) to fully score in its own game.

Fun with Footwear

The sock puppet version of There Will Be Blood:

The Nature of My Mid-Life Crisis

Type 2, with a side order of Type 1.

Based on the categories listed in What Do You Mean There Are Four, or Five, or Six Types of Midlife Crisis? at LifeTwo.com.