Friday bits
Two days ago I finished reading Birds of America on the way to work. A good thing, yes (I have hit #45!), but in my life it’s still a minor crisis, leaving me with nothing to read during lunch and the ride home. What to do, but visit the Barnes & Noble conveniently located on the lower level of my building? I ended up with On Beauty by Zadie Smith, partially because I really like her writing, partially because many others mentioned it, and partially because the back copy intrigued me:
Just outside of Boston, in the small college town of Wellington, lives a family that is anything but typical. Liberated by education, complicated by race, and hobbled by self-delusion, they are about to stray onto the battleground that divides personal belief from political conviction. ON BEAUTY is Zadie Smith’s brilliant, hilarious send-up of the culture wars that define our age.
And so far, it is good; insightful just far enough under the surface that if you’re not looking for it, you might not catch it.
On Wednesday night I went down to south Manhattan and visited the set that Tom’s working on right now. They’re shooting in a lovely building near City Hall - and apparently, one of the legal-type TV shows (I think he said Law and Order?) actually has a room they continually rent in that building for some of their courtroom scenes. The building itself is big and marbled with an arch-filled lobby, not unlike the Capitol building in Albany, but much smaller.
Last night I went out to Jersey to visit Tom’s family; his grandmother and his sister Jessica are both up visiting. We ate pot roast and vegetables and went with Jess to a random ice cream shop, where I (who rarely eat ice cream) had something sinful called “Holy Cannoli”. But it was scrumptious. I’m not really sorry.
Tonight, I’m planning to go to The Creek and the Cave in Long Island City (Queens) for my friend Carey’s concert with her visiting-from-Detroit brother (cheekily titled “Wallace Bros.”). I’m glad the weather turned nice; it’s been so frigid, but today is warm and bright.
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