Just to let you know

that I am about to go and watch the season premier of Law and Order Special Victims Unit. I tell you this now, at 10:42pm, before I start watching the show because I know that afterwards, circa 1142pm, the last thing I will want to do is get online and tell you how it was. Rather, I will want to crawl into my bed and praise the good Lord above that the season of gore and heinous crimes is upon us again.

I need to read

Dear Readers,

It has crossed my mind that I'm slowly becoming illiterate. I used to read voraciously as a child, then as a college student (it helped, conveniently, that I was an English literature major (oh, in addition to Economics, yes, I wasn't entirely useless in planning for my future)). And now? Well, I barely read, and when I do read, it's about what's happening in New York City so that I can feed my need to be a part of this vibrant! thriving! city. Or it's huffingtonpost.com, or slate.com, or althouse.blogspot.com, or five international law blogs, or the nytimes.com, and occassionally, it's newyorker.com, or vanityfair.com, or the guardian.co.uk, or pslawnet.org (so I can look up non-profit jobs), or un.org/en/employment (so that I can look up UN jobs), or google searches for "international law jobs" so that I can look up international law jobs, whatever the institution might be. I need to read books.

Please hold me accountable if I don't read at least, hmmm, 1 book a month?
(Yes, I'm setting my standards low.)

Yeah Yeah Yeah

I went to see the Yeah Yeah Yeahs perform last night at Radio City Music Hall. What a big venue! And I was way! way! up! To see the Yeah! Yeah Yeahs! The ticket was part of my "I must do New York things while I am in New York." You see, when I was working in Sierra Leone, I used to complain to myself that I missed, oh so much, the culture! the nightlife! the opera! the theatre! the concerts! of New York. But I also knew at the back of my mind that I never ever really took advantage of all that New York had to offer. So, in the last year, it's been consciously on my mind that I must rock the body electric and get my body out to these venues and places.

So, there I was, with my charcoal gray suit, my super white shirt, my red silk tie (which I removed just prior to entering the concert venue and stuffed into the inner pocket of my jacket). Oh, and with my two pockets jammed full and bulging with my (1) work blackberry, (2) personal cell phone, (3) wallets (OK, fine, this was my back pocket, so that makes three bulging pockets), (4) ipod and headphones, (5) keys (with Duane Reade discount card, D'Agastino discount card, and then mailbox key, front door key, building entrance key, and some random key that I think opens my brother's old storage locker in Newark, New Jersey), and (6) my work ID.

Once Puxoticus and I were inside, we made straight for the bar. Novice that she is, I told Pux to just get hard liquor on the rocks b/c it does the job efficiently but doesn't make you feel bloated and/or need to go to the bathroom. But she mumbled something about taste and liking to enjoy what she was drinking. I don't understand those types - when it comes to alcohol, I can be entirely utilitarian.

The concert was great. Well, the first two songs had me wondering whether I had made a big mistake, and should instead have spent the night home with my television. (My TV has yet to fail me. Well, my TV coupled with my DVR have yet to fail me.) But then we hit my favorite songs, and we were on a roll: Soft Shock, Cheated Heart, and, suddenly the music was good! Later, they performed an incredible version of Maps, dramatically done with orchestra-like instruments (violins! beautiful!).

Overall: a very good concert.

Hamlet starring Jude Law

I went to see a production of Hamlet starring Jude Law this evening. It was three hours and ten minutes long with one intermission. Which, when your day started at 645am with a visit to the gym (look how I make myself seem virtuous and industrious!) means that your eyes are closing circa the beginning of, oh, Acts 1, 2, 3, etc. means that you just want to yell at the stage saying, "To be or not to be/ That is the question," and "Methinks the lady doth protest too much" and "Get a move on it."

Which is probably not the best frame of mind, all things considered.

I didn't love the production. I think there are two big reasons why. First, when I watch Shakespearean plays, I'm acutely aware that I'm not watching something that is supposed to be a representation of what's real in the world as I know it. In other words, I'm watching the play to fall in love with the complexity of emotions, the imagined situation and circumstance, the way with words. But I am well aware that the play is not my life because, well, it's set a long time ago and, more significantly, the actors speak in Shakespearean verse. So it's very hard for me to lose myself in such a production. It's all artificial to me.

Second, the character of Hamlet is hard to execute. This is a guy that is going increasingly mad as the play progresses. And it's hard to depict mad. Rather, it's hard to depict mad in a natural way. I could see Jude Law trying to be mad. I could see him hunching over, I could see him twitching, I could hear him modulating his voice from really loud to really soft, I could see him be physical with characters in a sort of flamboyant, uncontrolled way . . . and all I could think was, oh, this is you depicting the descent into madness. Which did not please me. I wanted to see mad as mad, not what it was like to be mad.

I think Ophelia completely sucked. I mean, I haven't seen a production of Hamlet before, but in my mind, when I read the play in high school, I Imagined Ophelia as a character with great, great emotional range. Not so much this actress.

Overall review: Glad I went because it's good to do New York things when in New York. And, you know, it's good to watch plays about a young man going mad because he thinks that his mother might have had something to do with murdering his father and then God forbid it but she married his father's brother, and then a young lady go mad (eventually killing herself) because her father was killed accidentally by the man she happens to love. It's like, Oh you get me and you know what my life is like.

Where have I been?

I know, you have been wondering about my whereabouts, hoping I would return to the blogosphere posting new updates. Or maybe that was just me checking in on my blog everyday to see whether there were any new comments/ commenters asking me to return, and finding none.

I don't hold grudges for that. I know you reader(s) care.

I've been gallavanting, but for work reasons. Went off to Paris where all I did was eat foie gras with bread. I myself am now shaped like a goose specifically fed in a harmful way so that my liver will explode imminently, and you can all spread my innards across substantially large pieces of bread and eat me.

I tried to balance this foie gras binging with some running but the architecture of Paris and my bum legs kept distracting me. How will I ever compete in an Olympic distance triathlon if I can't run more than 10 steps without getting shin splints? I am going to have to try mystic eastern therapies I think since my orthopedic running shoes -- comfortable as they are (and dorky looking as they are) -- are simply not cutting it.

Anyway, I'm back in New York. It's going to be a fun week, people: work, work, work, sprinkled with Hamlet (starring Jude Law) and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

I hate the ending of The Devil Wears Prada

The Shakinator and I watched the last 20 minutes of The Devil Wears Prada, which was in my DVR from years gone by. I've said it before (perhaps not on this blog) and I will say it again and again and again: I HATE THE ENDING OF THIS MOVIE. You see, I think that it's fantastic that Meryl Streep is tough and strong and reviled by everyone. And while it's great that Andy gives up her job to go and follow her dreams (sure, go do whatever it is that you want to do in life and then be good at it, your love for it being the passion that sustains you during the wee hours of the morning when you are chained to your desk, digging through the garbage can for dinner because the leftovers that were not appetizing at 830pm when you finished your dinner are really, really ambrosia when it's 4am) but for the love of God and his Holy Word, do not go back to the loser boyfriend.

Good bye Sasha Dobson

Oh, and lest I be chastized by my throng of readers for not approaching Sasha Dobson to hit on her, well, let's say that the Shakster introduced us, I said hello, how are you, I want you to have my baby and live with me forever, but she declined the offer. I was taken aback.

OK maybe I didn't say those things and she just read it from my face.

Hello Sasha Dobson

Topping up the mad week known as The Week When The Shakinator Came to New York, I had one of my few (perhaps only?) New York moments. The Shakster, the Poopster and I went to The Living Room to listen to some bluegrass music. We really liked only one song, "The Lonesome Road," but between the live music feeling, the drunk couple next to us groping each other,* providing endless entertainment, and several glasses of whiskey, things were feeling pretty nice. A good night out.

We were going to call it a night at 1130pm after the band ("The Five Deadly Venoms" - they were not deadly. They should see Kill Bill 1 and 2 and then they would know the meaning of the words "deadly" and "venom.") Anyway, there we were about to get up when suddenly we noticed the crew assembling the stage, tuning the piano, dragging amplifiers on to the stage, and basically making quite the formal ruckus. Then we heard the words, "Norah Jones is going to perform, it's going to be an impromptu performance," and we thought Holy Whatever it is that Robin says to Batman, we should stay and watch this.

Lo and behold: a few minutes later, Norah Jones sauntered on the stage, and performed new songs not yet released. She performed for like an hour! And we had front and center seats just because we were among the three winners who showed up for the bluegrass set before.

Oh, and if you're wondering about the title -- she's Norah's back up singer/ guitar player, and she's got far more soul.

Oh, and the reason I liked the groping couple was that they were kind of elderly but completely in love with each other, making out and stuff, and for some reason I found it touching that people whose bodies have fallen apart by the wayside can still love each other.