It’s been a wet, wet, nasty weekend here, and for all the joking Friday night about winter officially beginning at 7:35 p.m. (when the Sox lost), the temperatures have actually dropped significantly, making it feel like summer is now officially over and winter is actually on its way.
Yuck. Continue reading
How times change. Three games, three losses and that’s it. Game over. Season over. It went by so fast that it almost seems like it didn’t happen. And amazingly, as soon as Game Three was over, folks I saw on Boylston St. were walking around — is it possible? — looking relieved.
Alright, we’ve had our fun. The euphoria, the high, the celebratory tone lasted just about the entire year. And now we can all move on and get back to our lives. Don’t get me wrong, I am truly bummed that the Sox lost. But we had it good for a long while, and maybe that’s why it doesn’t hurt that much. Papi and Manny brought the dramatic hits and home runs, Millar made us scream and laugh, JV inspired confidence, Damon kept us all relaxed, everyone else pitched in, and we all enjoyed the ride.
It certainly was fun while it lasted. But now it’s time for me to get some sleep and enjoy a long winter (sigh, a very long winter). At least I have my memories — and my 12-disc DVD box set of last year’s post-season to keep me busy until Spring Training starts.
I’ll see you in February, Papi … For now, let’s go Angels!!
Lost fan PSA: ABC is re-airing Wednesday’s trippy, bizarre, awesome episode tomorrow (Saturday) at 8 p.m. Set your TiVo.
(it’s news so good that even Locke is smiling.)
And after you watch, head on over to the official web site of The Hanso Foundation. Be sure to go to the Active Projects section and click on the “hidden” link below the list — it only appears when you move your mouse over it.
Good stuff, and essential reading after this week’s episode.
Among the joys and pleasures of my Rosh Hashannah weekend in New York — aside from our dinner with my 100-year-old great uncle — was the discovery that although October is barely a week old, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. (sing it with me: evvvv’rywhere you go.)
At the Super Stop & Shop near my parents’ place, right as you walk in the door, there’s a giant, 8-foot-tall inflatable snow globe. “Snow” was blowing all around inside of it and the thing was just ginormous. It’s $149 and soooo worth it. Suffice it to say, it’d look perfect in my apartment.
Considering I’ve already received a few advance copies of upcoming Christmas CDs — Brian Setzer’s (skip it) and Diana Krall’s (awesome) — and I know one is on its way overnight to me — Brian Wilson’s (can’t wait) — for delivery tomorrow morning, and all this is on top of the fact that I’m currently working on the December and holiday issues of two different magazines already, it seems I’ve bypassed Halloween and Thanksgiving and am in a Christmas state of mind. Of course, considering this is the most wonderful time of the year, I’m not complaining.
And I suppose this can only mean one thing: it’s almost time to start compiling my seventh (or is it my eighth?) annual “A Very Marty Christmas” CD. (I guess it’s worth reminding those readers who don’t know any better that I am Jewish. What’s your point?) Last year I had enough songs left over to make a double album, and this year’s CD already has the potential to be a good one. Stay tuned for further details. I may need some help whittling down my still-large collection of songs to a group of around 20 tracks. You’d be surprised how many of them still haven’t made it onto one of my holiday mixes. (And hey, if you’ve got suggestions for songs that just have to be on my mix this year, please email me or post them in the Comments field below.
Anyway, you can bet there will be much more holiday merriment in the coming months so I don’t want to overdo it now. But in the meantime, you’d better watch out and you’d better not cry. In fact, you’d better not pout either. One day real soon, I’ll tell you why …
Seen floating over my synagogue this weekend …
Alright, not really. This is yet another example of “Fun with Photoshop,” courtesy of the blog One Smoot Short of a Bridge, and I was feeling dorky enough to share it with y’all.
October 3, 2005 is a pretty important day in my life.
For starters, it’s the beginning of Rosh Hashannah (it starts tonight at sundown).
It’s also the one-year anniversary of the day I threw myself out of a plane from 10,000 feet above the ground. Continue reading
Alright, enough of this plugging of other people’s work.
I wrote the cover story (or, some would say, cover stories) for the October issue of Continental magazine. It’s our twice-annual Broadway special, and I interviewed Tony winners Nathan Lane (regarding his role in the new revival of Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple) and Michael Cerveris (regarding his role in the new revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd). Continue reading
For as long as I’ve been an active reader of magazines, I’ve been a fan of A.J. Jacobs. As far as magazine writers go, he’s one of the best.
I first became aware of A.J. when he was a writer for Entertainment Weekly. A.J. would write some of the funniest articles EW published, including one where he spent, if I remember correctly, 24 hours watching TV and documented the experience. (Something like that.) Long story short, when I went for a job interview at EW in the summer of 1996, part of my excitement came from the fact that I might get the chance to meet A.J. On my way out of the office, after blowing my chance to work for my favorite magazine (one of the worst job interviews I’ve ever given), I passed by his office. The door was closed. Oh well.
A.J.’s made quite a career for himself. He is now an editor at Esquire and he’s kept on writing some of these stunty-type articles. A month or two ago, he outsourced his life by hiring two assistants in India, and turned that into a great article. And actually, he turned one of his ideas into a whole book: The Know-It-All: One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World, which came out about a year ago and is now available in paperback. It’s a great, very funny book — and I don’t just say that because I got to interview A.J. (!) and he told me it was. It’s an easy, quick read and I highly recommend it. (You can read an excerpt of the book here.)
Anyway, A.J.’s at it again. According to CNet, he’s written a story about Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that invites readers to post entries and edit others. Call it “the people’s encyclopedia.” Essentially, since the theory is that the Wikipedia readers can collectively rid the site of errors better than a small group of editors could, A.J. thought he’d put his story — which intentionally included a bunch of mistakes about the site — on Wikipedia and see what happened. Brilliant. I love it. This is classic A.J. Jacobs.
The story is going to appear in Esquire‘s December issue. You can get a good idea of its final version by clicking here. Good stuff. Check it out. And hey, help a brother out by buying his book next time you’re in your favorite book store.
Boston’s gone baseball crazy this weekend. And some are saying the editors of the Weekly Dig — one of the free publications you’ll find all over Boston — are just plain crazy. You be the judge.
Even the youngest fans know who to root for this weekend …
(And no, I don’t know who these kids are. I just found the picture on the web.)
Martin's Musings 