Hard Case T-Shirts

My favorite noir publisher, Hard Case Crime, has licensed several of their most salacious book covers to be put on T-shirts. I thought they would be cool, but I'm not so sure, based on the final product. They don't really seem to be doing anything to incorporate the cover into the shirt, so it sort of looks slapped on. Here is a link to the site.

I loathe weddings for the most part. Not because I am a grouch, but because they are so rarely sincere. Between being an alter boy, my time in the band (where I was attached by a drunk father-of-the-bride) and then as the dutiful boyfriend/husband, I have been to more than my share. People lose their way and become outwardly focused instead of hanging on to the simple fact two people are going to be spending their lives together. Between being an alterboy, my time in the band and then as the dutiful boyfriend/husband, I have been to more than my share. Amy and I eloped, and it was amazing.

The wedding last night in a Missouri Synod Lutheran church followed by a reception on an acre of lawn cut from a soybean field in verdant New Haven, Missouri, was absolutely unique in its planning and purity of intent. The bride, Amy's friend Natalie, conveyed a rare appreciation for the very best and most beautiful aspects of rural America. It was the most thoughtfully planned and lovely wedding I have ever seen. It's tempting to list individual aspects, but taken out of context, they wouldn't do. Natalie and her family harmonized food, music, design and a loving spirit into an event meaningful to everyone who attended. It will stand alone, I'm sure, for most as one of the only perfect weddings.

Big days

I've in the middle of my second week on the new position. It seems to be going well, though, for the first time, I'm really seeing that I only have so many hours in a day. I finally put another aspect of David Allen's book, Getting Things Done, into practice. His basic concept is that one must keep one's head as free of small items to remember as possible.

Thus when something comes up that will have to be dealt with at some point in my in box, I try to either 1) Deal with it if it takes two minutes or less, 2) delegate it if appropriate to do so, or 3) File it in a manner that I am comfortable that I know to deal with it later. This is keeping my Outlook inbox on zero messages these days, which is a great help. Why? Because according to Allen, and he's right, our conscious mind is like the RAM on our computer. It can only handle so many things at once before it begins to stutter and fail. If you keep your ram free to focus on tasks at hand, you will deal with those tasks more effectively.

So this led to the next stage for me, the "43 Folders," which has become something of a cult in the United States. There was a nice NPR story about it a year or two ago. The idea is that you have a tickler filing system of 43 folders--one for every day of the month and every month of the year. I in fact own a label maker.

The thing is that this actually works. I have never been much of a self-help guy, but this is an easy system that can be used a little or a lot. The end result is that your head is clearer and calmer than before.

Mary Poppins

At Amy's suggestion, we went to see Mary Poppins at the Palace Cadillac last night. My feelings about the show were complicated. I admit a strong prejudice against this horrible trend of taking successful motion pictures and turning them into Broadway shows in order to ensure the return on investment. However in this case, they did change the story a fair amount and added in more of a storyline.

The care they took with the sets and costumes was amazing, as was the chorus. The main characters, particularly Bert and the kids were played extremely well, as was the father, who was always my favorite character from the movie and became mine in the play after a rough start.

The first act was too long. No way around it. It needed to be compressed. Overly long scenes in which very little actually happened, despite the lovely moving statuary in the park and other effects, it was too long of a set up.

The second act, which was shorter, darker and lively, saved the show for me. 1) Things began to happen dramatically: the arrival of the evil nanny, children running away, jobs possibly lost. 2)The chimney sweep scene on the rooftops really was a showstopper with Bill doing a dazzling up to the ceiling of the theater.

For me the best part was that it became clearer that the writers had taken pains to heighten the stakes a bit. In the movie, the father is a good man who's lost site of what really matters and is at risk of permanently alienating his children. Here we (and his family) learn that he was in fact raised by a ghoul of a woman who caused him psychological harm (and scared the crap out of me for a moment during her introduction).

Also, unless I'm just reading too much into family entertainment, the writers seem to be suggesting a bit more about Mary Poppins. There are allusions to the gods of Greek Mythology, voodoo, immortality, angels, the stars. She and Bert share an affection to each other, but it's understood that they really can't be together.

I guess I like the show better today than during the actual viewing.

He's dead. I haven't the words. I really, really liked watching his television shows and movies.