reasonable creature

I had made a mental note not to write about TV again so soon after the past few posts. HOWEVER. I was poking around the Sci-Fi channel site, trying to figure out when the next episodes of Stargate SG1 and Stargate Atlantis would be running, when I learned that the channel has actually cancelled SG1.

This will not stand.

Please join the campaign. There is no greater issue facing the nation today.*


*Yeah, I know. But wouldn't it be great if this were true?

Unless I'm mistaken, former New Jersey governor James McGreevey last night ditched David Letterman for Jon Stewart. Gawker referred us to this clip of Letterman's response to the last-minute no-show, a McGreevey-themed Top Ten list that is about one step away from straight-out (!) homophobia. Compare it with the Daily Show's interview with McGreevey, which, while goofy, was also kind of sweet in parts. It's a perfect example of why Letterman's day is done: the culture has passed him by.

Oddly enough, I was watching prime time TV last night, and managed to see all of "Ugly Betty." There are certainly some interesting things to say about it, but I was too distracted to think about them due to this: Could Kevin Sussman, who plays Betty's creepy ex-boyfriend,

... possibly look any more like Malcolm Gladwell??

Wasn't it funny to watch Stephen Colbert accept Mort Zuckerman's "apology" last night, in honor of the week between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, a period of atonement? And wasn't it funny to hear Mort say that he feels free-floating guilt at this time of year, for some reason? Why would that be?

It was already bugging me that in Philadelphia they get the Times Sunday sections on Saturday, as in New York, when we in Washington have to wait until Sunday. But this weekend I learned that the egregious crossword error (noted in the previous post) that so frustrated me on Friday did not occur in the Philadelphia edition. Which is just so unfair.

Really, I do. I just want there to be some time during the day when I can sit on my own and work the Times crossword puzzle. The days that this doesn't happen, usually I am prevented by mommying duties, and I accept that as a matter of course.

So when baby went for a blessed second nap late this afternoon, i sat down with my folded over Arts section and a nice black pen. Looked down at the first few clues, and realized only then that the paper had reprinted the same puzzle from yesterday.

I had to retrieve my copy of yesterday's completed puzzle just to make sure I wasn't imagining it. And while I could say something more about the end of high standards in journalism, I'm just too depressed to think about it.

I'm a big fan of the "Domains" feature in the New York Times magazine. Love looking at other people's homes, especially kitchens. But I was a little surprised when I came to the column in today's magazine, featuring the four-bedroom London Victorian of Alain de Botton. It seemed so, well, familiar, with the white paint and the bookshelves and the Wittgenstein-designed door handles.

That's 'cause I kind of already read it.

The piece that first came to mind appeared in one of the Times of London's weekend magazines this past August. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be online. But you can still find this August 23 piece from the London Independent. Sample de Botton quote from that article:

"London doesn't really work like cities should. It is far too spread out, it is too big. It has become rather like Los Angeles, it doesn't have that tight city feel which is what makes cities attractive."

And from today's NYT piece:

"What he misses about abroad when home: The feeling of tightly packed urban life that you get in a place like Manhattan or central Paris. London is such a disappointing city. It is spread out and suburban, in many ways closer to L.A. than New York."

Hungry for more? There's also this April story, also in the London Times, but this time listed under the rubric "Women," for some reason. All of the press is in support of his new book, which is about architecture. So I guess that makes it fair play. Don't be surprised, though, if you open your September issue of Cat Fancy and find a feature about de Botton's cat's Bauhaus-inspired scratching post. Consider yourself warned.

When I was a kid, I had piano lessons, and while I started out strong, I didn't really like to practice. Eventually, I quit, but not before mastering a single piece of music (or at least, the first movement): Mozart's Sonata in C major. I have always felt guilty about quitting. It seems weak, and allows me to globalize the idea of a personality defect, my lack of followthrough. Plus it would be cool to be able to play an instrument.

Flash forward 20-some years. Baby has exactly two electronic toys, one of which she has become completely attached to. It's part of her "gymini" activity mat--the mat itself has been retired, but we kept this thing around, which plays, you guessed it, the first bit of Mozart's Sonata in C in a seemingly endless loop. Every now and then the loop ends, but baby is quickly on it, grunting and pointing until I restart it.

Dante could not have devised an apter hell.

A perk of the stay-at-home life is that you can do your errands whenever you want, which also means you can avoid the rush at the supermarket, you get public buses all to yourself--and you don't have to wait in line on election day. Apparently Madeleine Albright is on the same schedule: This afternoon she arrived at Ward 2's 6th precinct polling station just ahead of me, wearing a plain but elegant grey suit. We were getting our ballots, and when the polling staffer asked her "Democrat?" She paused for a moment and said "hell, yeah!"--to the delight of the four other voters nearby.

Incidently, one of the poll workers told me to doublecheck that my party affiliation was correct on their list--she said that a lot of Democrats had been finding that they were listed Republicans. She speculated that someone was trying to make it seem like there are more Republicans in the District of Columbia than there really are. Interesting, no?

Been following the story of the literary prank perpetrated by John Betjeman biographer Bevis Hillier against rival biographer A.N. Wilson? The London Times now finds that Hillier's hoaxes go even further back.

Can't get enough of Christopher Shea's "Critical Faculties" column in the Boston Globe? You're in luck: He and his fellow brainiacs have finally launched their blog.

Yes, the pix of baby Suri have finally arrived. It's a lot to digest, I know, so take it slowly. At first glance, she does look quite a bit like mama Katie Holmes; can't tell if there's Cruise in her, too. Kid's got a lot of hair, though.

But before we join the frenzy, let's reflect on this controversy for a moment: Everyone is suspicious of TomKat because they waited so long to expose their new baby to the celebrity spotlight, and are shielding her from the outside world? Doesn't that actually make them the sanest couple in Hollywood? You know, apart from the fake religion and all.

Is there a treatment for Ziploc addiction? I find myself wanting to organize my entire life in satisfyingly sealable transparent plastic bags. It started with keeping all in one place the manuals for baby's play center, bouncy seat, high chair, pack 'n' play, et cetera, ad nauseam. But just now I was putting a hunk of parmesan in a baggie and fantasizing about a Ziploc-based filing system for all of the house paperwork, and financial records, and personal mail....

Yeah, you can tell I've been on vacation. Welcome home.