Tegan and Sara
It has been a great night. I finished work and went to the Tegan and Sara concert. Northern State, a female hip-hop threesome from New York, opened. Northern State was fantastic - so much so that I bought a CD. I am not so sure that the CD was as good as the concert, but we'll give it some time. Check them out live if they are in your area.
I thought that I might be breaking a new band here, but then I read that they have already been on
Grey's Anatomy. I would normally take this to mean that they actually aren't that hip, but I heard GBV's "I am a Scientist" on
Samantha Who?, so I don't know what to make of things anymore.
Tegan and Sara were fun, as always. I think that they are hilarious. The only bad thing is that I didn't think that their songs were as good as the album versions. I think that this may have been due to sound problems (the bass was up waaaay too high). Also, their voices didn't click together until the last three songs. When this happens, it is heavenly, but it rarely did tonight. It was still a good show.
I got out of the show and decided to walk home. It is absolutely gorgeous out tonight - it was in the high 40s with a cover of fog. This made for a fantastic walk home, particularly when I walked across the Charles River. The fog made it so that you could not see the next bridge over; the Citco sign was a blurred glow in the distance.
Now, I sleep for three hours.
The Wire
I finished season 3 of
The Wire, which is all I have. This show must be good because I am sad when characters die and I rapidly get attached to newly introduced characters.
Tonight is Tegan and Sara, tomorrow is a flight to Minnesota for Thanksgiving. Today was a fun day of work - my students seemed to enjoy being in class, even though it is one day before a holiday.
Other adventures that I have been having: watching lots of videos of teaching, thinking about
Alfie Kohn, and not sleeping. I am particularly excited to hear the annual Thanksgiving edition of
The McLaughlin Group. You should all download this one and at least listen to the very end.
The Wire
Monday was a day off, and I watched 7 hours of
The Wire. I like that show. However, the marathon messed with my mind. After I finished, my inner dialogue was much more profane than usual. Then I walked to school, and I kept looking around me for the drug dealers. It temporarily changed the way I think, which I suppose indicates that it is a very well-made show.
I am also reading Alfie Kohn's
Punished by Rewards. I think that I really like Alfie Kohn, even though I am not done with the book. I really enjoyed his scholarly articles that I read in graduate school.
I went to New York City this weekend to see a play. Then the stagehands went on strike. Consequently, I did not see the play, but rather watched other people eat whole crabs instead.
I leave for Oregon tomorrow, where I am giving a colloquium. Before then, I need to fix some things at work.
From
The WWB: something profane,
but amusing
Police
So I've been watching
The Wire. It is a really good show, although I am not yet to the point where I am ready to declare it among the best shows on television. It did, however, keep me up until 5 am one morning by handing me a parade of cliff-hangers.
That next day, I saw a city bus that, rather than indicating the route number and street names on its banner, said "Emergency - call police." It appeared as if no one was on the bus with the driver. So I called the police, and they asked for the bus number. I didn't have it. Lester Freamon would have gotten the bus number.
I need to re-do one of my courses, because I want to make sure that we can set everything up to get to the "punchline" at the end of the course. This means that I am going to spend the rest of the night working through all of the problems for the rest of the semester.
Here is my favorite excerpt from
Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me this week. Peter Sagal asks Paula Poundstone a question, and Paula doesn't miss a beat on the genius response:
Peter: Paula, just a short while after instituting a new policy, the Taiwanese army has decided to end it. Under the new policy, servicemen were required to do what to new recruits?
Paula: Um...ah..I have absolutely no idea. Do you have a hint?
Peter: Think of it as the end of the last episode of the Mary Tyler Moore Show, except with guns.
Paula: Meow at them?
Paula Poundstone is one of the funniest people alive.
