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Surreality
Thursday, March 19, 1998 Wednesday evening after dance class, I went to visit JB, whom I met the other night. Oh, I mentioned him to the woman who runs the Beyond the Edge cafe, when we were having our Cacophony meeting there on Tuesday, and she said positive things about him, which is good. JB shares a townhouse with one other guy. It's on the eastside, in the Bridle Trails neighborhood. (I almost wrote "Bridal Trials"!) The place is one of those planned, gated communities, where you are buzzed in, then have to drive through building after complex after courtyard. The street signs and numbers were made of a strange reflective material, oddly hard to read. I think we must have changed plans about five times Wednesday morning, because JB wasn't sure if he might have to attend a meeting and give a friend a ride, in which case he would have met me at dance class, or if he wouldn't have to go at all, which turned out to be the case. He spent the first part of the evening at home, taking care of errands and paperwork. So we watched "South Park," which I think I was seeing for the second time. (The cable channel it's on isn't available in my neighborhood of TCI-Lameland.) It's a funny show, but I don't know if it would be my favorite in the world, even if I could see it more often. I did enjoy the original animated short, but I don't know if this extended version holds up. It's like a band that perfects its original material by playing in clubs for years, then uses it up on its first album. Then what? I think it's a strange sensation for JB, to be written about. His fiction isn't usually in the first person, and the protagonist isn't himself. He mentioned Monday that he felt as if he had stepped through the screen, actually into the story. As I know him better, I'll try to do a more detailed description of him. I already enjoy his company, and his enthusiasm for me feels great!
My friend Jon Singer sent me a link to a page that I think I might have seen before, but it's deserving of wider notice: The Surrealist Compliment Generator. Today's quote comes from there.
I've been enjoying new CDs at work the past few days. As JB and I were walking up Broadway on Monday night, we stopped at the used CD store and I bought some new (to me) CDs. The classical choice was a double CD, the complete songs of Samuel Barber, sung by Cheryl Studer and Thomas Hampson. Barber has such a wonderful melodic gift. The poets who provided the lyrics over the course of his career were a diverse lot, from James Joyce to translated Irish monastic hermits. I don't know anything about Cheryl Studer, but according to testimony from the opera newsgroup, Hampson is rather a pain personally. But I do like his voice! Among other jazz and big band CDs, I got "Them Changes" by Tom Scott. Scott is a saxophonist. I remember playing a chart that referred to him in my college jazz band: "T.S.T.S" which stood for "Tough Shit, Tom Scott."
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