Logic, Coffee, Practice, Performance
Damn!
The few tables at the (NY) Soho Starbucks that usually are in range of a usable, free (borrowed) wi-fi signal are proving unequal to the task of staying connected.
Oh, well. I'll write this in Notepad and post it later.
A couple of tables away from me, a brilliant and lovely girl, probably not long out of college, was arguing on the phone with her mother. The mother wanted her to move in with her boyfriend and she was arguing against it, saying of all her friends, only one couple was shackin' up. The intensity of the argument was hilarious because it reflected such an unironic reversal of "traditional" generational values -- the annoying and meddlesome mother, so typically clueless that she didn't know cell phones didn't charge long distance fees, insisted the daughter should be livin' in sin, while the daughter, rebelliously, refused.
BTW, I know this girl is brilliant because she's a tutor who uses the Spring/Crosby Starbucks as her office/classroom. (I've left and come back and found she'd apparently been here the entire day.) I regularly hear her teaching logic to a variety of illogical charges. Her explanations are clear, the students' heads filled with varying amounts of mud.
She has a difficult roommate who is trying to kick her out but she's consulted a lawyer or something and found that she can really screw the roommate if she wants, which she's not gonna do unless it's necessary. Still, she wants to torture her torturer by making her think she'll seek legal recourse.
I know all this simply from overhearing her conversations. I feel that I know her but I don't even know her name. (Ah, life . . . )
Yesterday, I hid out in my friend's house yet again. We mostly watched the work of the late comedian, Danny Thomas, who's been largely forgotten (except for his charitable work) since his sitcom's last (re)runs on TVLand/Nick at night.
It's a pity, because much of his work is extraordinary. In fact, one of the things my friend showed me was a an episode of Thomas' mid-seventies sitcom, "The Practice" (not to be confused with the lawyer show of recent vintage), which was a 30-minute monologue featuring Thomas (playing a curmudgeonly doctor) alone in an apartment with a lifelong friend who has just died. Michael J. Fox did a similar episode of "Family Ties" years later, which received a great deal of attention, but nobody ever speaks of this beautiful effort by the then 64 year-old Thomas. ("The Practice" was created by the man who would write and direct "Arthur", Steve Gordon.)
Also, little-noticed is the fact that I'll be doing a reprise of my 2004 Edinburgh show, "Bridge-Burner", this coming Sunday at 4:30 PM. Time Out didn't see fit to list it (I was late with the submission), so we'll see if this blog can induce anyone to some out and see it.
I'm doing it again so that I don't forget it. (Reason enough, don't you think?)
If you'd like to come, the location is Jimmy's No. 43, downstairs at 43 E. 7 St, west of 2nd Av. in the East Village of Olde New York. (By the way, for those of you not hip enough to realize this, I just threw away a significant percentage of potential interest from NY hipsters by using the term "Olde New York". I am, as the title says, a Bridge-Burner.)
Hey -- while I was writing this, a (seemingly) gay guy asked me if he could sit at my table and, since I thought the wi-fi had reconnected, I explained to him that I couldn't move the table so he could sit in the other chair because it would jeopardize my wi-fi access. I said, however, that if he took a chair from elsewhere and placed it on the outside of the table, that would be just fine.
He smiled and thanked me and got a chair, which he moved to the inaccessible side of the table, altering the table's position slightly, potentially ensuring I would find no 'net connection here.
I could ask the tutor to teach this guy logic if knew her name.
Yay! I have an internet connection! (Maybe the guy nudged me into "the spot".)
__________________________________
24 January, 2007 @ 16:44 GMT
http://blogs.chortle.co.uk/andrewjlederer
The few tables at the (NY) Soho Starbucks that usually are in range of a usable, free (borrowed) wi-fi signal are proving unequal to the task of staying connected.
Oh, well. I'll write this in Notepad and post it later.
A couple of tables away from me, a brilliant and lovely girl, probably not long out of college, was arguing on the phone with her mother. The mother wanted her to move in with her boyfriend and she was arguing against it, saying of all her friends, only one couple was shackin' up. The intensity of the argument was hilarious because it reflected such an unironic reversal of "traditional" generational values -- the annoying and meddlesome mother, so typically clueless that she didn't know cell phones didn't charge long distance fees, insisted the daughter should be livin' in sin, while the daughter, rebelliously, refused.
BTW, I know this girl is brilliant because she's a tutor who uses the Spring/Crosby Starbucks as her office/classroom. (I've left and come back and found she'd apparently been here the entire day.) I regularly hear her teaching logic to a variety of illogical charges. Her explanations are clear, the students' heads filled with varying amounts of mud.
She has a difficult roommate who is trying to kick her out but she's consulted a lawyer or something and found that she can really screw the roommate if she wants, which she's not gonna do unless it's necessary. Still, she wants to torture her torturer by making her think she'll seek legal recourse.
I know all this simply from overhearing her conversations. I feel that I know her but I don't even know her name. (Ah, life . . . )
Yesterday, I hid out in my friend's house yet again. We mostly watched the work of the late comedian, Danny Thomas, who's been largely forgotten (except for his charitable work) since his sitcom's last (re)runs on TVLand/Nick at night.
It's a pity, because much of his work is extraordinary. In fact, one of the things my friend showed me was a an episode of Thomas' mid-seventies sitcom, "The Practice" (not to be confused with the lawyer show of recent vintage), which was a 30-minute monologue featuring Thomas (playing a curmudgeonly doctor) alone in an apartment with a lifelong friend who has just died. Michael J. Fox did a similar episode of "Family Ties" years later, which received a great deal of attention, but nobody ever speaks of this beautiful effort by the then 64 year-old Thomas. ("The Practice" was created by the man who would write and direct "Arthur", Steve Gordon.)
Also, little-noticed is the fact that I'll be doing a reprise of my 2004 Edinburgh show, "Bridge-Burner", this coming Sunday at 4:30 PM. Time Out didn't see fit to list it (I was late with the submission), so we'll see if this blog can induce anyone to some out and see it.
I'm doing it again so that I don't forget it. (Reason enough, don't you think?)
If you'd like to come, the location is Jimmy's No. 43, downstairs at 43 E. 7 St, west of 2nd Av. in the East Village of Olde New York. (By the way, for those of you not hip enough to realize this, I just threw away a significant percentage of potential interest from NY hipsters by using the term "Olde New York". I am, as the title says, a Bridge-Burner.)
Hey -- while I was writing this, a (seemingly) gay guy asked me if he could sit at my table and, since I thought the wi-fi had reconnected, I explained to him that I couldn't move the table so he could sit in the other chair because it would jeopardize my wi-fi access. I said, however, that if he took a chair from elsewhere and placed it on the outside of the table, that would be just fine.
He smiled and thanked me and got a chair, which he moved to the inaccessible side of the table, altering the table's position slightly, potentially ensuring I would find no 'net connection here.
I could ask the tutor to teach this guy logic if knew her name.
Yay! I have an internet connection! (Maybe the guy nudged me into "the spot".)
__________________________________
24 January, 2007 @ 16:44 GMT
http://blogs.chortle.co.uk/andrewjlederer
posted by Andrew J. Lederer at 12:38 PM
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