Slops (Sandy)

Dear Sandy,
° Did you receive in yesterday’s post the competing menus for this next legislative buffet?
° Let us see what delectable slops are on offer.

Protect Traditional Marriage (Republican)
Protect Sanctity of Marriage (Democrat)

((Linguistically the Republican is more correct. The Democrat is injecting denominational religious views into the Civil Law.))

Stop Illegal Immigration (Republican)
Stop Illegal Immigration to Protect American Jobs (Democrat)

((If the border States can’t and won’t stop illegal immigration, I really don’t know that the interior States can and will. The Democrat is both more truthful and more potentially racist.))

Voluntary School Prayer (Republican)
Ratchet Up the Drug Wars (Democrat)

((Republican disingenuously supports the status quo, Democrat signals addiction to Magickal Thinking.))

Anti-Abortion (Democrat)
Pro-Guns (Democrat)

((Republican silent as can be. Since your contributions to the State Democratic Party are supporting these two stances that you most abominate, you’re not only silent, you’re beating yourself on the head with the soup ladle you paid for yourself.))

Eliminate Sales Tax on Food (Republican)
Freeze Property Tax for Seniors (Republican)
No State Income Tax (Republican)
Lower Drug Costs (Republican)
Enhance Seniors’ Access to Healthcare (Republican)

((The frosting on the cake. The Democrat offers no frosting, hence no taste comparison is possible.))

§

° Who will win?
° Well, the Republican looks like Uncle Fester, and couldn’t win if unopposed.
° The Democrat looks fit and tough and Bushlike, and would win against sissy Thomas Jefferson.
° And anyhow, by your yellowdog contribution, you’ve already voted.

° Tastes a little off to me, Giac.

Hard Driving (Sandy)

Dear Sandy,
° You recollect Megalomane’s woes a month or so ago? Well he was just like a concussion patient. At first, after the recoverydisk intervention, he was normal as could be. But then his mind developed kinks.
° Takes forever to boot up, occasionally vomits recent memories.
° And now I know whycome.
° “Does your processor make woodpecker sounds?”
° “Yes, exactly.”
° “Did you buy Megalomane about a year ago?”
° “Yes, exactly.”
° “Does he have a Maxtor harddrive over 80G?”
° “Yes, exactly.”
° “Well, those harddrives have been going bad like crazy. I’ve replaced 30 or 40 myself, at a single office.”
° So that’s it. [And yes, two days later, that WAS it: “Failure of harddrive is imminent. Backup data files now or exit.”]

§

° Who gave me this justintime advice? Not our local technogeek, that’s for sure. He’d never heard of the woodpecker sound, thought I was making it all up.
° The advice came from a waitor at Trattoria Coloreproibito. Well, not my waitor. Not even one at the neighbouring tables. It was the guy who was refilling the lemon slice well.
° And why he should be moonlighting when our local ignoramus . . . .

° Illserved but served, Giac.

Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (Foto--Piers)

Foto: Sala Quayle--Shermanton's Dream or . . . .

Dear Piers,
° Do you require our little Gipsy Cousin’s occult skills to interpret this design? No, a 93yearold woman in a nursing home can deconstruct it, ‘cause she did just this very morning.
° It’s a man’s shirt collar (the prissy kind that the Beatles used to wear, them and Orrin Hatch), a neck, another collar blown upwards by the wind, and--
° --and what looks to be a pheasant’s tailfeather where the brain ought to be.
° You are too young to remember the Golden Age of the Republic, before Vice Presidents were either giant balding bags of ineffectual buttwind or amateur military martinets.
° La bellezza maschile di Dan Quayle.
° Whom Doonesbury, wickedly, always represented--to save ink--as a talking Feather.
° Auguri, Shermanton!

° Purringly, Giac.

P. S. E per lo più il soffitto si alzerà e scenderà per “accordare” la sala. Domus Aurea di Nerone, Pit and Pendulum di Poe.

Yankee Trash Talk (Foto--Piers)

Foto: Domus Aurea--Theseum

Dear Piers,
° Overton’s Skirmisher Hall has had its gala opening--though Keith and Nicole weren’t there, so how gay could it’ve been?--and the reviews are in. Vuol dire, the feelings are hurt.
° Leonard Slatkin said, most unfeelingly, “it’s a welcoming space, and the acoustics are good.” Of course he will’ve been thinking of the ineptitudes of Lincoln Center that cost so much effort to paper over. But locally, I’m afraid folks expected him to say that he was going to break his contract with the Ephaistionton Filharmonic and petition the Overton Symphony to permit him to revel in the todiefor acoustics of their new hall. He will’ve meant well.
° The WSJ was kinder, because grounded in economic reality. “The designers gambled a lesser number of sellable seats against a vibrant acoustic. . . . This is a hall where every sound is not only heard but felt.” The antithesis of the sterile ipod experience, a genuine reason to buy a ticket.
° The Commercial Appeal suspects the WSJ knows what it’s talking about. “Frank Gehry’s new postmodern concert hall in Los Angeles is said to be the second coming of the classical experience, a hall that is as much a part of the event as the music. . . . But perhaps the Skirmisher’s is truly the revolutionary ideal: perhaps what the next generation of music lovers will want is not a hip place to go, but a time capsule to the era when music was one of the greatest luxuries.”
° The Journal-Constitution was just asking for it (and if I live and nothing happens, I’ll give it them in the next post). “The Skirmisher is a masterpiece of friendly civic design. Its predigested, retro styles complement . . . the honkytonks . . . .” Well that was so greenwithenvy it didn’t even hurt folks’ feelings.
° But then came the galumphing Yankee. “There is quality to admire here, but it is still a hall about other people’s halls. It has no point of view.” This because the designers visited certain renowned European halls (and an American one somewhat north by northeast of Appleton Magna) with a view toward learning what worked in the past, when Mahler and Debussy and Vaughan Williams were masters, and a hope that the same acoustic principles would work in the present, when John Cage and some other John are masters, and the future, when, no doubt, a new MozartcumBach will arise to reengineer the human ear, I am so very sure.

Tootleloo, Giac.

P. S. As for me, the first time I saw it, still in scaffolding, I said to myself, “It looks like it’s always been there, and they‘ve just finished restoring it.”

Anglican Communion Saved! (Piers)

Dear Piers,

° Such good news in the Pastoral Letter this morning: the Archbishop of Canterbury will be paying his New Year's visit to Sant' Ephaistiano after all, the Unity of the Anglican Communion is saved!

° The Little Pope (for Canterbury is no Rome, it's not even Newark) dictates only that "Christian poofters must change their practises." Then he cites that famous prophecy from Isaias:

The serpent shall dwell in the nest of the Basilisk,

The little lion shall lie down with the lamb,

The first shall be last,

And the tops shall be bottoms.

° Well, it's in the Bible.

° Betwixt and between, Giac.