Sleepover
After the Chris Moore ramble-a-thon last night, Klund came over to our house. We had a couple of beers and I introduced him to the magic that is
Firefly/
Serenity; then he used our guest room. This morning we fed him coffee and pancakes and sent him on the road home to St. Peter, with all of our
Firefly/
Serenity DVDs in his clutches.
Enjoy them or don't, Kevin, but I expect some sort of blogging about it. Perhaps even a
Haiku Review.
Labels: culture, friends
Christopher Moore
So last night
Klund,
Scooter,
Poo-Tee-Wheet and I had a fine dinner at Jewel of India, and then drove across the river to the U of M's student union and a "reading" and book signing by Christopher Moore, who is touring to promote his latest book,
You Suck. "Reading" is in quotes because Moore doesn't do readings; instead he rambles for about an hour from notecards (post-its, actually), newspaper articles, and anything else he can think of. The podcast isn't up yet on the U's website, but I'll try to remember to post a link when it is. Basically there was a lot of foul language (including proper spelling thereof), some discussion of chest-shaving as it relates to book tours, many put-downs of Hollywood types, the usual sorts of unexpected (not to say "shallow") questions ("What's your favorite simile you've written?"), and a goodly number of laughs.
I didn't buy a book for Mr. Moore to sign, mostly because
Lamb is not currently available in hardback. However, Moore revealed that there will be a new hardbound "gift" edition of
Lamb out sometime this year, and I will definitely pick that up and catch him on his next tour.
Interestingly, in a brief conversation I had with Moore while he was signing Kevin's copy of
Lamb, I learned that he was working at the little restaurant in Harmony, California when he wrote his first book,
Practical Demonkeeping. Since it was copyrighted in 1995, there's a good chance Moore was working there when Kristi and I got married in the Harmony wedding chapel in 1994. I will from now on be claiming that Moore was at our wedding. Try to prove me wrong.
UPDATE: it has come to my attention that
Practical Demonkeeping was copyright 1992, meaning that Chris Moore was well on his way to publishing superstardom by the time Kristi and I got married in Harmony. Rather than indicating that Moore wasn't at our wedding, I prefer to think of this as meaning he was there, but incognito, as befits a rising star of his magnitude.
Labels: books, friends
The Party Of The Year
Last night was Tall Brad and Proud Mary's wedding and reception. The wedding was lovely. (Well, there was the disappearing bridesmaid incident, but I'm pretty sure there was a good explanation for it.) The reception was spectacular -- held at the Minnesota History Center (the same venue that FindLaw used for its holiday soiree). It will long be remembered as either "The Wedding Reception With The Extended Drum Solo" or "The Big Party The Night They Hanged Saddam", depending on your outlook.
I believe the quote of the night (from Erik) was something along the lines of, "Chicken testes taste like onion!", though I'm going to rely on Scooter's better memory to get it right. (I'm sure both he and Poo-Tee-Wheet will be blogging the party, especially since they have the great photos of Christy F's cleavage.)
Another strong contender for quote of the night would by the lovely bride's pronouncement (over the loudspeaker) that she had "finally settled". We all knew that already, Mary.
The third nominee would be the groom's brother's self-introduction (also over the loudspeaker): "I'm Brad's brother and Mary's sister." This may have been the shortest best-man speech in recorded history. Or ever.
By the way, that's two parties this month at the History Center for Kristi and me, and both nights there were Minnesota Wild games downtown as well. Somebody needs to plan these things out better.
UPDATE: Scooter comes up with another version of Erik's quote --
but not on his blog. Although his is probably more accurate overall, I stand by Erik's use of the word "testes".
Labels: friends
Quote of the Day
In an email from
Scooter:
"Yep, you forget, it'll be like pon farr in Amok Time...except with no mating, just fighting, and treats..."
And he calls
me a nerd.
Labels: friends, trek
More Nostalgic Crap
There. I warned you.
At the same party where I received the SR-10 (see previous post), I was also given a stop sign. A real stop sign, on a 4" x 4" white wooden post (as stop signs routinely were mounted in those days). Why? I'll let Paul Linhardt tell the story.
The story was that after several aborted attempts, Josh, Dan and I took off to San Francisco on our first official road trip after getting our licenses. Driving around the streets of San Francisco we noticed a stop sign lying by the side of the road which we threw in the back seat with the sign post sticking out Dan's sun roof. After lengthy discussions about what to do with it, we decided we should make a present of it as a symbol of affection to our good friend Larry Rubinow who was leaving our little group for greener pastures. However, we felt that it might be a little inconvenient for Larry who was moving to some place like Fresno, since we didn't know if his family's car also had a sun roof. So we took it back to the basement of my uncle's place and came up with an elaborate system of hinges and locks so that the sign could be folded up into a convenient carrying container. Incidentally, my uncle later reported to my mother that I had fallen in with a bad crowd and was prone to defacing public property.
I'm not sure that really answers the "Why?" question for most people, though it satisfies me completely. The folding arrangement truly was ingenious; the whole 6-foot-plus package folded down to something little larger than the sign itself (which, to be fair, wasn't exactly small). When last seen by me, the sign was in my brother's garage; I
hope it's still there, though I haven't asked.
If Paul ever reads this post, he might be interested in knowing that I had a brief correspondence several years back with Sherri Gottlieb, owner of the late, lamented L.A. sci-fi store, "A Change of Hobbit." She was doing well, but I can't remember much more. I'll see if I have them archived somewhere.
Labels: friends
Continuation of a Theme
Random adolescent memory sparked by recent email traffic:
In August of 1974, just before my senior year in high school, my family moved from Los Angeles to Fresno. That summer my friends in Los Angeles gave me a going-away party. I'm not sure whose house it was at --
Andy Mishkin's? Anyway, I do remember there was beer there; I think it was the first time I ever tasted it (at 15 years old). And I also remember the incredible gift they bought for me.
A Texas Instruments SR-10.You may look at the SR-10 today and laugh, and I'll understand. But at the time, this was an incredible piece of equipment. Rechargeable NiCads. Square-root functionality. Exponential-notation display. And $150 retail, for a bunch of high-school kids in 1974, was a truly significant chunk of change.
If you didn't know me then, you might wonder
why the gift. Most of us were in a "special" math program together. (Incidentally, Scooter, I mean "special" in a
good way.) SSMCIS: Secondary School Mathematics Curriculum Improvement Study, also known as "Unified Modern Mathematics." It was a six-year experiment to see if math could be better taught in an integrated program, rather than a year of Algebra followed by Geometry followed by Algebra II followed by Trig followed by Calculus.
Going into Emerson (and Webster) Junior High, I suppose our sixth-grade teachers picked us out as those most likely to thrive in a program like SSM. It means we were guinea pigs. But we were willing and enthusiastic guinea pigs. And wow, was that program fun. Those who stayed the full six years never got to compare it to anything else. In Fresno I found myself in a very boring AP Trig class (absolutely nothing there I hadn't already learned, but they refused to put me in calculus even though I'd already
started calculus in SSM), so I know what I'm talking about.
The calculator was, frankly, not much practical use to me. But it was a tremendous symbol of the bond everyone in the program shared.
Labels: friends
Rear View Mirror
A week from tomorrow night is my high school reunion in Los Angeles. My
thirtieth high school reunion. I won't be attending.
At first I was looking forward to it. And yet, as it approached I found that I really wasn't excited. The committee had originally planned it (tentatively) for August, and we were going to work out our cross-country car trip to synch up with it. But then it moved to November. I just changed jobs, Kristi's work schedule makes it difficult to leave town because of Emma, blah blah blah. It was going to be a fair amount of money and logistical difficulties ... for what? I went to my tenth and didn't particularly enjoy it; why bother?
And then the emails started coming in.
Glenn Berkovitz put together an email list of twenty-odd (and I do mean odd) key figures from my past, from fifth grade on, and arranged for a night-before-the-reunion party. People started sharing life stories. And suddenly, damn it, I'm wishing I could go. Even though so many of us are scattered so widely that (like me) most won't be in Los Angeles next weekend, it would be a joy to see Josh and Glenn and Denise and Andy and all the others who
will be at dinner on Friday.
The last few days have been very emotional for me -- seeing names in my inbox from 30 years gone, suddenly remembering extraordinary events long forgotten. Life cheated me out of some key time with these people (my family moved to Fresno before my junior year, and though I went back to L.A. on my own as a senior, I graduated early -- only three semesters of high school spent with them). So really, I was missing them even then. And I'm missing them still.
So, if you're from the class of '76 and passing by, hi. Drop me a line. If you're ever in flyover country, come on by. You're always welcome.
Labels: friends
