gogo

I just wanted to see that line again.

Also, my dad once tried to tell me this story he'd heard on the radio about some guy who claimed he'd had an affair with Clay Aiken. But he kept insisting that the story was about Claude Akins, so I couldn't figure out what the hell he was talking about. Then later, he told my sister the same story, but he said that it was Troy Aikman.

Overheard from the next cubicle over this morning: "Hey, did you hear Clay Aiken announced that he's a gay dad?" "Oh, did he adopt?"

Dude. He's only the American Idol. And, his new single dropped yesterday! I know at least one VCer who will be attending this event who will go nuts if he appears. And no, it's not me.

I haven't picked this up yet, but it looks pretty cool, with a bunch of writers that I really enjoy:

I'm actually looking forward to ZZ Top! More than a few of the other acts, anyway.

It's ZZ Top, isn't it? That's what you're jealous of.

I've been thinking a lot about that fair, too. I was in Anaheim this weekend, and my hotel room overlooked Disney's California Adventure (a new-ish park, just next to Disneyland). Part of the representation of San Francisco in that park is a replica of the Palace of Fine Arts, from the Pan-Pacific Expo. So there's the Disney version of a permanently temporary part of San Francisco, made temporarily permanent in Anaheim. Being in Disneyland after having read this book is a changed experience, too. One of the storefronts in the Main Street area, just where you enter the park, has "Elias D

Just finished this one. The author wrote that "you can't bomb Afghanistan back to the stone age, it's too late for that" e-mail that circulated widely after September 11. He was raised in Afghanistan in the 1950s and 60s by his Afghan father and white American mother, then moved back to the U.S. with his mother for high school, and never again lived there. An exploration of what it means to understand Islam without practicing it, and what Americans understand and don't understand about Afghanistan's history and culture, specifically how they relate to the rise of the Taliban. If you're in

My parents always host a halloween party, and my dad did some pretty fun pranks when we were kids. He once set up an "Automatic Trick-or-Treat Machine", which he made out of a thin sheet of aluminum, rolled into a cylinder a little bigger than a wastebasket, and mounted on the wall just about kids-eye height. It had a false nozzle on the front, with a sign that said "press here to dispense candy". What pressing the button actually did was buckle the aluminum just enough to release the hinge on the false bottom, dropping a pile of old beer and soda cans, which made a huge clatter and caused

I'm also questioning our will to do something like that. Maybe it could be done physically, but would anyone put themselves into Burnham's position, would any city take that kind of pride in the effort, would the political and social groups involved be able to pull together in that way? Which is not to say it was easy then, obviously Burnham had to pull some very intricate maneuvers to get it done, I'm just wondering if maybe they were on the descending edge of the era when those things were possible.

I'm late replying to this, but I did want to say a few things. First, yes, the whole concept of the fair was something that had to be pure hell for Olmsted. The idea of trying to create this landscape, virtually instantaneously, must have been a huge leap for him. Just thinking about the way he worked is so fascinating to me, the thought that you'd plan something with no expectations of it truly looking the way it's supposed to look for decades is insane, but beautiful. The concept of the fair as something ephemeral is something else. I don't know that this was a new standard for this f

Jesse's site is amazing. He's done some incredible things for us all, and he's been more than generous with his time and efforts. I'm currently burner-less, but at some point I'm hoping to be able to help him share some of his work again. Until then, I'll be making a donation to help keep the site going.

That's pretty cool. I'll need to get over there during my next trip to your neck of the woods (June 2009! mark your calendar!). I've enjoyed the couple of times I've been to the National Archives in DC. Very neat to be in a room with some of those old, original (or in some cases, kind of original) documents. A little disturbing to see the number of people who don't follow the "no flash photography" rule, though.

My sister is a lawyer, and always wanted to do something with Constitutional law. She became a labor lawyer, so she doesn't really deal with it much, but she once got to defend a local group of longshoremen who were participating in actions in support of the Liverpool Dockers. I believe she actually won that on the basis of a First Amendment argument.

Yeah, I kind of knew that was coming. Let's leave that in the election thread, and try to focus on the positive aspects of the Constitution in here. Any chance of that?

Celebrate by reading the Constitution!

I think I would have gone with the "morning after" scene, when Angel devastates her. Oh man.

Vote for your favorite TV moments: http://abc.go.com/primetime/emmys/index?pn...tthemoments#t=0 It looks like they've already done one round, and some of what I would have picked didn't make it through. The Beatles on Ed Sullivan, and Chuckles Bites the Dust on the Mary Tyler Moore show didn't make it through to Round 2 in the Musical/Comedy category? Lame. Also, the Buffy moment in the Drama category isn't even anywhere near my favorite Buffy moment. There's some good stuff in there, but I think votes like this tend to skew to a younger audience more often than not. I'll be inter

Donna, yes! The Poisonwood Bible is fantastic.

I'm going to delete a few posts in this thread. Raise the level, please.

Pretty babies with pretty names!

This is just a bump to remind anyone who's planning on catching up on some reading over the weekend (or anyone who's read this before and just wants to jump in), it's no holds barred as of Monday, no "spoiler" restrictions, etc. I'd like to talk about people's favorite "characters" in the book. Obviously there's a lot of love for Olmsted here, but I also really got a kick out of Sol Bloom. Anybody else?

I can't watch these at work, but oh, I'm looking forward to getting home and checking these out tonight.

Hey, thanks Andy! Can't check these out here at work, but I'll definitely enjoy them this weekend. I'm a big fan of the AD, and of Manchester. Wish I could have been there.