Month: January 2002

Feeling existential and angsty today, for no apparent reason.
Of course, if should be a glorious day, since it’s a day off. Much better than my last place of employment, where our MLK holiday was exactly one half-hour long. Seriously: they told us all to take a 90-minute lunch instead of an hour.
After all, isn’t Dr. King’s greatest legacy a less-rushed return trip from your restaurant of choice?

Someone’s assembled a compilation of the most embarrassing corrections run by the New York Times over the last 20 years. Some excerpts:
A review about “Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard,” by Kiran Desai, misspelled the name of the novel’s hero. It is Sampath, not Sanpath. The same review incorrectly identified the character who falls into a vat of broth; it is a spy from an atheist organization, not a monkey or Sampath in the form of a guava.
An article about decorative cooking incorrectly described a presentation of Muscovy duck by Michel Fitoussi, a New York chef. In preparing it, Mr. Fitoussi uses a duck that has been killed.
A caption misidentified a drag queen shown standing behind Quentin Crisp. The performer was Brandywine, not Lady Bunny.
A theater review about the Roundabout Theater Company’s production of Shakespeare’s “Tempest” misinterpreted a gesture. The actors’ intent was to portray 18th-century gentlemen taking snuff, not cocaine.
In yesterday’s issue, The New York Times did not report on riots in Milan and the subsequent murder of the lay religious reformer Erlembald. These events took place in 1075, the year given in the dateline under the nameplate on Page 1. The Times regrets both incidents.
But personally, I’ll wait for the Guardian’s equivalent book, due out in March. They seem to have more fun with the form:
We spelt Morecambe, the town in Lancashire, wrong on Page 2, G2, yesterday. We often do.
In “A (very) occasional series on praise of the sub-editors craft,” we repeated a seven-line section practically word for word. We did not notice but you did.
A caption in Guardian Weekend, page 102, 13 November, read, “Binch of crappy travel mags.” That should, of course, have been “bunch.” But more to the point it should not have been there at all. It was a dummy [placeholder] which we failed to replace with the real caption. It was not meant to be a comment on perfectly good travel brochures. Apologies.

It’s official (sorta): Miller and Dunning in a runoff, Dallas school bond issue passes easily.

Never let it be said that you want to volunteer and be a good person, but you can’t figure out how or where to help: Network for Good.
Maybe the DFWbloggers should take on some kind of community service project one weekend.

And to think, all this time I thought it was an angry rodent.

The polls close in 15 minutes: check out dallasnews.com for all the latest election news, courtesy yours truly.

Media junkies, prepare for an onslaught of “I told you sos”: Talk Magazine folds. Oh no! Where will I get my updates on Tina Brown‘s day-to-day life, not to mention the Hilton sisters or Lara Flynn Boyle? Thank heavens Vanity Fair is still propping up the corpse of Dominick Dunne long enough for him to bang out another edition of his “Diary” from the Great Party Beyond.

Also, a brief Mazie Project update.

Argh. Sickness has descended upon me — and not the full-blown sickness that would get me out of work: the sinus-dripping, woozy-headed, headachy, general crappiness kind of sick. (I also sound like I’m doing a Tom Waits impression anytime I open my mouth.) I went to bed last night at 8 p.m. and got up at 9:30 this morning. A variety of other things, including word of a couple friends’ suddenly failed relationships, have put me in a fairly sour mood.
Anyway, tomorrow’s election day here in Dallas, and if you stay tuned to dallasnews.com, I’ll be writing the main stories on the mayor’s race and the bond election all night. Assuming I haven’t coughed both lungs up on my keyboard by then.
Four bonus MP3s from up-and-coming NYC band the French Kicks (who sound at times like carbon copies of Jonathan Fire*Eater, a lamented NYC band that self-destructed after one CD not long ago — lots of VU/Stones influence): Young Lawyer (great track, that), The 88, White, So Many Cakes.
Finally, if you like that newfangled rock music and plan to attend the Dismemberment Plan/Death Cab For Cutie global happening at the Ridglea in Fort Worth March 5, tickets are on sale online now at $11.50 a pop. Worth every penny, I assure you. I know several blog-types are going; it might even qualify as a microevent.

What does it say about Dell Computer that #3 on their Amazon Purchase Circles best seller list is a book called Cheap Psychological Tricks: What to Do When Hard Work, Honesty, and Perseverance Fail?