a confluence of events

Scouring the web for suitable links for the Salmagundi sidebar last night, I stumbled across this bit of Peeps research. Unlike the Peeps experimentation linked previously, which largely focused on research performed on Peeps, the newly discovered work instead explores the ability of Peeps to actually perform research themselves.

Needless to say, I was thrilled by the site. And, apparently, I’m not the only one inexplicably fascinated by the little marshmallowy suckers. Yet, as a Jew (and, therefore, growing up having never received an Easter basket), I’d never had occasion to actually taste a Peep.

Until, that is, yesterday morning. My parents, in a standard display of insanity, FedExed out from California an assortment of trick-or-treat candy; coincidentally enough, the box included Halloween-friendly Ghost Peeps and Pumpkin Peeps.

After chewing my way through both boxes, I can officially conclude: they’re damned tasty. Perhaps tasty in a “so bad they’re good” kind of way, but damned tasty none the less.

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like living inside a firetruck

Over the past few days, my roommates and I have been busy prepping for our upcoming All Hallows Eve shindig, transforming our humble apartment into the Hell’s Kitchen Museum of Curious Deaths.

Somewhere along the way, Colin suggested we paint one of our two living rooms red, and before enough common sense set in to stop us, we had picked up a few cans of “Lipstick Red” paint and a few rollers and brushes.

The results, I must say, are remarkably better than I expected. Observe Colin putting the finishing touches on the second coat:

103003 red room.jpg

We’re so pleased, in fact, that we’re thinking of turning the second living room blue. Eggshell begone!

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easily pleased

I must embarrassedly admit to a surprisingly strong feeling of accomplishment when a subway pulls up such that one of the doors opens precisely in front of where I’m standing.

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honestly, i really *should* be batman

Continuing my trend of playing superhero, I took a few punches this evening while stepping in to break up a fight on the A train between a drunk construction worker and a homeless panhandler.

For reasons that weren’t entirely clear, the construction worker started swearing at the panhandler somewhere just below 42nd street; by the time we hit 34th street, they were chest to chest, screaming into each other’s faces. As the rest of the passengers pushed back towards the far ends of the car to avoid the confrontation, I slowly inched my way up to the two, just in case.

At some point, the construction worker just started swinging, and after a few shots to the face the homeless guy basically crumpled. As the construction guy reared back for another solid John Wayne, I stepped in from the side, grabbing his collar and opposite sleeve in a solid underhook. With the momentum of his cocking back to throw the punch, I was able to push him backwards several feet, then brace well enough that I could keep him (despite his larger size) a few feet away from the homeless guy. After a bit of flailing at me, the construction worker seemed to calm down enough that I could keep the two separated until we hit the next station, at which point the homeless guy booked it out of the car, and I followed suit. Don’t know what happened to the construction worker, though as several passengers that disembarked with me started relating what had happened to the station manager, I suspect he was pulled at the next stop.

Fortunately, the homeless guy got out with just a bloody lip and a black eye, and I left feeling no worse than at the end of kickboxing practice. As I headed up to the stairs, though, an older woman who had been on the car stopped me. “It was a wonderful thing you did back in that subway,” she said, continuing “I would have jumped in to help you myself, but I didn’t have anything heavy enough in my purse.”

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middle(of nowhere)bury

I’m up in Vermont for two nights, having been flown in as a guest speaker by Middlebury College’s film department. The school has kindly booked me into the Inn on the Green, a quaint bed and breakfast overlooking the town. Outside my window, a light snow is falling on a foliage tableau so picturesque as to be nearly painful.

Wrapped in a comforter, lying across the bed, tapping away at my laptop to finish the day’s work, I catch myself repeatedly looking up, marveling at the beauty of the autumnal scene outside my window, at the enveloping stillness of this little river town, at the stars, bright and clear above, that seem to have aligned over my apparently rather charmed life.

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minor shiner

The problem with falling off the blogging wagon is, the longer you go without posting, the more you start to feel like your comeback post has got to be really, really good. So you slack off for another few days, and the pressure mounts. To end the vicious cycle, I’m jumping back into the fray, despite the fact that all I have to say is:

Yesterday, while kickboxing, I apparently got punched in the eye. I say apparently, as I have no memory of it happening. Yet, upon waking this morning, I discovered a small crescent-shaped bruise at the top of my right cheek, just below the eye-socket. With glasses on, it isn’t particularly noticeable; in fact, if I had another on the left, I’d appear to simply be significantly sleep deprived. Yet, after careful examination, I’m completely certain it’s a black eye. And I must admit, I’m absolutely thrilled.

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wimp

As my digital and analog lives increasingly intertwine, I find myself ever more frequently caught in the classic blogger’s dilemma: when posting about someone, how much should a blogger take into account whether that someone is likely to read the post?

Over the years I’ve been blogging, I’ve tried out any number of ballsy approaches to that problem, from posts that laid it all on the line, consequences be damned, to those that altered just enough detail to maintain plausible deniability should angry confrontations ensue. (And ensue they certainly did.)

By now, however, I’m too overbooked and overstressed to live that dangerously. Instead, I mainly skirt such perilous topics. And, frankly, I feel like a wuss for it. Because, just this morning, I have all sorts of post-worthy things to say about:

  • A really, comically bad date last night.
  • Running into a recent ex on the street.
  • A date this very evening about which I’m nervously thrilled.

Sadly, fair readers, I’m pansying out on them all. If I weather this month’s brutal work-related stresses, I promise to return to my old tricks. Until then, you’ll have to content yourselves with simply letting your feral imaginations run wild.

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el rey de la trompeta

Earlier this evening, after breaking my Yom Kippur fast, I headed off to a brass quintet rehearsal near Lincoln Center. The rehearsal room we normally use was locked, however, and after about fifteen minutes of us all milling around outside, the trombonist suggested we head down to a rehearsal space he knew in Hell’s Kitchen. We managed to find an empty studio there, and played through a good rehearsal. At the end, as the rest of the quintet packed up their instruments, I started screwing around with a salsa riff, trying to remember a piece I had once played.

Midway through one version, a Latino guy popped his head in the door. He and another singer were recording a demo down the hall, he said, and he wanted to know if I’d be willing to sit in with their horn section. Flattered, I agreed, and followed him down to a small recording studio stuffed with twelve or thirteen musicians – a piano, a bass, an alto flute, a trombone, a guitar, two singers, and five or six percussionists – all of them Latino. Sure, I got some skeptical looks as I came in the door. But I held my own while reading down the first chart, and soon I was blending in.

Towards the end of the second chart, however, we hit an extended trumpet solo. And I tried. I really did. Still, at the end of the song, the bandleader looked up at me and said something like: “Oye ese, nex time choo take a solo, try not to play so fucking white, eh?”

Well, to be fair, he didn’t actually say that. But from his look, I was pretty sure that’s what he was thinking. And things continued to go downhill on the third song. Just before we laid it down, the pianist launched into a long instructional monologue about some changes he had apparently recently come up with but hadn’t yet had time to put in the parts. Knowing Italian, I could vaguely understand maybe half of what he was saying; the rest was completely lost. And, believe me, if you’re the only one to miss key instructions like “when we get to bar 374, even though it says to play fortissimo [wailingly loud], we’re all going to suddenly drop down to super quiet”, people will notice. And not necessarily in a good way.

Sure, things smoothed out over the next few songs. As I relaxed and fell back on the years of Latin music I’d played before, I even banged through a couple of pretty decent solos. Still, at the end of the evening, as I packed up my trumpet and shook hands with the rest of the group, it occurred to me that, no matter how much my salsa playing improves, I’m still basically just really, remarkably, painfully White.

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umm… ahh… umm….

Normally, I’m a reasonably articulate guy. Even in the presence of an exceedingly attractive girl – kryptonite for many men – I can be (at least moderately) charming, smart and funny. Yet, every so often, I meet a girl who, for whatever reason, completely confounds me. In her presence, I’m absolutely unable to complete grammatical sentences, much less to convey anything endearing through them.

When I was in ninth grade, I had a huge crush on such a girl: Steph, a tenth grader directing a play in which I was acting. And though I was (inarticulately) smitten through much of high school, I hadn’t seen her since she had graduated, some eight years back. So I was particularly surprised when, one evening just a few months ago, she materialized at the New York City house party of an (apparently mutual) friend.

Sure, previously her mere presence had turned me completely imbecilic. But I had changed and matured immensely over the intervening near-decade. Frankly, I wasn’t even sure if I was still attracted to her.

Or, at least that’s what I was saying to a group of friends as she made her way across the room. Yet, as soon as I turned to greet her, smiling confidently, what actually came out of my mouth was something along the lines of: “Are how you going?”

I write this mainly because, in the next week or two, I’ll be heading out on two dates – one with a charmingly complex bloggeress, the other with an actual Rockette – both of which threaten to similarly send me into semi-retardation. Sure, I’ll be hoping to maintain my conversational best. But this weekend, as a backup plan, I’ll also be polishing my most charming silent body language. Just in case.

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