A Frolic of My Own

Jazz, Books, Food, and the Writing Life

Blogging from New Orleans, La

30 April 2003

Isn’t the New York Times use of drop capitals on their web page the height of pretension? Inevitably the image loads after the texts, so articles start like this:

“ASHINGTON, April 30 ? President Bush will speak …

“ll wars are popular for the first 30 days,” wrote the historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr….”

“hris Borgen, a former New York City police detective who was a news reporter on WCBS-TV in New York …”

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I’ve been having problems with my internet connection for the last few days. It appears to be working now, but we’ll see how long that lasts.

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29 April 2003

Last night I could feel the insomnia approaching. Before this year, I’ve never suffered from sleeplessness, but this year I spend one night every week or two staring at the alarm clock until four or five in the morning. I’ve learned to recognize the signs. By eight o’clock I’m edgy and don’t want to sit still. I obsess about tasks I have to complete and problems that might arise.

On the advise of my wife, I decided to fight it off with exercise last night. Around nine I went to gym and hit the tread mill at top speed, and then the rowing machine, and the then climbers. All of this accompanied by Elvis Costello’s My Aim Is True, which I think we can all agree is the greatest rock album ever. In the end, it actually worked. I slept through the night.

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27 April 2003

It’s a perfect day in Charlottesville, and I’ve been out running all around town instead of blogging. Also, the little time I can spare from dissertating and searching for a job has been focused more on tyring to get a handle on HTML. I’ve got big plans for this site. That’s right, just you wait. Pretty damn soon I’ll work out what exactly CSS does, and then Frolic will be nothing but razzle dazzle. And when that happens, you can tell your friends, “Yeah, I used to read Frolic back when it was nothing more than a few words on a crappy default Blogger template.”

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26 April 2003

Housekeeping note: The banner ads are gone.

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Not much traffic on your Blog? Friends won’t return your e-mail? All your snail mail has “O% APR” printed on the envelope? Call a payphone, and find a friend anywhere in the world. This site offers a directory for numbers across the globe. Hurry before the payphones are all removed.

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25 April 2003

Housekeeping note: I’ve added a few links and moved the advertisements for the tools to the bottom of the page.

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Fassbinder has nothing on Ulrich Haarburste. Proving that the web can still uncover dark corners of the world, Ulrich has posted a triptych of fantasy encounters with Roy Orbison that all end with the late rocker wraped in “cling-film.”

Roy Orbison in his impenatrable dark shades. A talking Volkswagen Jetta that eats worms. A rock star conference in Essen. And kilometers and kilometers of “miraculous” cling-film.

It would be almost charming in its celebration of Roy and saran wrap, if it wasn’t so deeply disturbing.

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24 April 2003

Another night of not sleeping. Too much coffee. Too many thoughts.

Over the course of six years in graduate school, the subject I spend most of the day thinking about has grown increasingly more restricted. Literature. Spanish literature. Renaissance and Baroque Spanish literature. Baroque Spanish literature. Baroque Spanish theater. Baroque Spanish allegorical theater.

Now that I’m almost at the end of the dissertation, I can’t stop thinking about all the other essays and stories I want to write. All the books I want to read. All the things I want to think about that have nothing to do with Baroque Spanish allegorical theater.

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Housekeeping note: I’ve managed to add a BlogRoll. I’ll try to have links by the weekend.

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23 April 2003

Holy shit!!!

Internet ads just went from annoying to downright scary. This was attached to a message sent from the free Yahoo mail service.

“Is the UN a precursor of the One World government prophesized in the Bible?”

“Could the Antichrist be alive now? If so, how can he be identified so he does not deceive us?”

“Are ATM’s and other revolutions in global banking foretelling of the Mark of the Beast?”

I don’t know, because a subscription to the Left Behind Prophecy Club costs $29.95. You know the world is about to end, but you refuse to spread the word without a cash payment. Don’t you think you might be one of the souls left behind with the rest of us heathens?

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Yesterday, the NYT ran a front page article on the war against Spam. The co-founder of the spaming firm they interviewed was “a former producer with Geraldo Rivera.” Is there some kind of vast conspiracy of sleaze in this country?

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22 April 2003

You know the kind of fatigue that makes your whole body ache, and no quantity of Advil will make you feel any better? Yeah, that’s how I felt pretty much all day. I took a little nap, though, and I’m felling much better.

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I’m in a mad dash to finish this damn dissertation. Last night, I couldn’t sleep, so I snuck into my office and pounded out a few paragraphs. This morning, after a five hours of sleep I got up at 6:30 to start writing again. If I can finish the introduction by the end of the week, then I should be done with a full draft before we move to Washington on the 10th. I’ll keep you posted (Ed.—And who the hell is this “you” exactly?)

Apple has announced a special press event this Friday, which they promise will be “music to your ears.” Oh that Steve Jobs, he’s so clever. Looks like the Apple download service will be launching. Perhaps we’ll also see some updates to iTunes.

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21 April 2003

Just wanted to point out that Frolic now offers comments. If anyone is actually reading this, now they can offer their own opinions.

(Yeah, I know that the formatting is messed up. Haven’t figured that out yet.)

Posted by Todd at 12:34 pm | No Comments

20 April 2003

Happy Easter

In the spirit of the season, Rhino Records has restaged Great Moments in Rock and Roll History using marsmellow Peeps.

My plans for the holiday? Mow the yard, send out e-mails related to the job search, and write a few cover letters. Andy and Cynthia have invited me over for dinner (Andrea can’t take time out from studying), and I’m looking forward to hearing about the house they just bought in Shreveport. Advance word is that the front door is red. A good or bad thing? I’ll know more tonight.

Yesterday was devoted to moving. More trash was collected. More furniture given away. More books packed in boxes.

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