learning silence to better speak

Out and About

Since this blog tends toward the more introspective, I thought it best to reveal that, yes, I do occasionally have a life.

Tuesday was a joint b-day party for Piddimus Maximus and my lovely wife. We met some friends, had some drinks (I was on a strict Shirley Temple regimen (ginger ale and grenadine) due to the antibiotics for this ridiculous sinus infection that seems to be my lot every four months or so), a few laughs. It was delightful. Mr. Maximus and I seem to have this thing where every couple of months we’ll get together and engage in these long, intense bouts of conversation that always end up with the two of us saying, “Man, we have to hang out more!” Then we both promptly vanish and are swallowed by the gaping maw of New York, only to be spit up a few months later, “Oh, man, we have got to get together more often!” This is what passes for friendships in the modern age. Thankfully, some bonds, no matter how infrequent, are strong. I’m glad to have a friend in that one, even if mutual business and the meat grinder of the City sometimes make our primary form of communication the email, the text message, the occasional telepathic missive, or even the blog entry.

Last night was the monthly synonymUS performance (as seen on MySpace!). We took a slight break from our usual Sunday night jams before the show, and I think it sort of showed. We never quite hit our groove with the open mic-ers, and though we are gifted enough to be able to do a passable job on minimal rehearsal (it’s sort of our stock-in-trade) I felt like we could have done a lot better. There were moments that were entirely the opposite of what the poet requested, not because we had better ideas, but simply because we never locked in to what they had asked for in the first place. An East-Indian style piece sort of lay there, simply because we never quite found the tonality (and that, I would say, was as much my fault as anything else). A piece in which the poet asked for Soundgarden ended up funk. I was disappointed, is all.

The after-show, was, as always, a joy. We went to a new (to me) place called Esperanto. It was a little expensive and the service blew, but there was a band, everybody was super pretty, the company was lovely and the food was fantastic. Conversation veered from Alan Moore and V for Vendetta to poetics and the sexual politics of message boards. Oscar probably has some pictures up (he obsessively photographed the evening, down to what he called “…the jackson pollack remains” of a chocolate volcano. Sexy!).

Today is Steph’s birthday and she is taking the day off. Quiet, now! Mama’s watchin’ her stories! I’m gonna get her some cupcakes from the Cupcake Café and give her her birthday gift tonight – the box set of the entire Friday the 13th movie series. I know, I know, what a sap I am. And they say the romance goes out of marriages in a few years…

By the way, the movie Incubus starred William Shatner and had dialog entirely spoken in Esperanto (the language invented in 1887 by L.L. Zamenhof to foster international peace and understanding – hey, good luck with that!). It was released in 1965 to worldwide indifference.

posted by Scott @ 11:34 AM