St. Mary's Scrabble Invitational

Last Saturday, while Kim & I watched Withnail & I, Matthew Rose spent a marathon session on my Mac editing the footage we took of the first inaugural St. Mary's Scrabble Invitational Tournament held at Zach Messitte's parents' place on the Maryland coastline this summer. It was the closest tournament ever. To find out who was crowned champion, you'll have to watch the video, on the Photos page.

Surfing report

The 70's European motoring experience involved me sitting in the back of my (well, technically my parents') rare 2-door Audi 100 LS as they sped me around Belgium, France, Switzerland, and Italy. One everpresent prop was Michelin marginalia--the red guide, the green guide, and wonderful yellow-jacketed maps that marked even the smallest roads in those bright optimistic colors that made you want to drive down them. Michelin has finally brought all these resources on-line, and the result is a slow site that nevertheless exhaustively lists all the best restaurants in all of Europe, and detailed maps of the entire European continent and its cities--www.viamichelin.com

One thing I freely admit sucks about New York is its music radio stations. Until recently, streaming internet music was not an alternative to the local hollering via radio waves, as throughput on the internet was just not high enough. 20kbps is AM quality, but being on a par with FM requires at least a 128kbps stream. URGent, the University Radio of Ghent (get it?) radio station in Belgium now has gone completely overboard, providing a 192kbps MP3 commercial-free stream of great edgy modern stuff to listen to via iTunes on your Mac (or somehow on your PC) while you're doing the dishes. The sound quality is simply much higher than the best FM radio reception, as long as you have a T1, cable or DSL and great speakers.

Leonid meteor shower

It's 3:45 AM and clear in New York City and I've just come down from my roof, where I was checking up on the Leonid meteor shower, which once every generation turns into a stunning storm. It's past due this year, but so far the count has been no more than about one per minute, instead of the much-hoped for hundreds. It's supposed to peak after 5 AM, though, so I will take another look later.

The New York night is far less dark than before September 11; the Empire State Building does double duty now, its lights pressed into service until dawn instead of midnight--a red white and blue beacon shooting a column of light into the sky. And a white glow from Ground Zero floodlights bathes the buildings in the financial district as workers dig through the night. But the building where I used to work, 3 World Financial Center, is still dark. My desk there is exactly as I left it on September 10, and will remain that way for some time to come, a time capsule for memos and pursuits that now seem wholly trivial.

My roof is a fabulous perch. It sits suspended between earth and sky, giving both equal prominence. In Manhattan, the sky's subtle pleasures are easily drowned out--Jupiter in Gemini, Orion prominent in the South, a meteor shower--these staples of the rural night are hard to notice down in the street. But I will always associate the place with what I saw from there on September 11.

5:20 AM: I counted 60 meteorites in a 15 minute period. Quite a few leave trails that last for a second or so.

Movie review: AmÈlie

Oh, look, another movie review. Iíll keep it short.

Go see AmÈlie.

More fun is discussing the minority of critics who chastise the film for not accurately portraying Paris circa 1997. I'm just baffled at the thought that realism should suddenly become a hallmark of a good film. Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet uses all the special advantages of filmmaking precisely in order to bring us into the heroineís subjective world and away from the strain of the constant reality check. I'd even go further: To Jeunet reality is a collective psychosis, and the symbol of this is the Lady Di hysteria to which AmÈlie is blissfully oblivious.

In that vein, here is what I like:
The taste of water when you're really thirsty. A new city and a map. A clear dark sky. Beating people at Scrabble on the last turn. Bragging about it.

What I don't like: Companies that misspell the words in their name and company names that are meaningless. The words "just kidding". Badly poured beer.