March of the Nobles

So you remember that air-guitar cover band I saw rocking out across from Tunnel City a year and a half ago? They were back today, except with real instruments making some kind of transcendent noise outside of St. Pierre’s Barber Shop as part of Williamstown’s new(ish?) summer programming movement “Sundays at 6″. I love it [...]

Paging Dr. Spooner

Two weeks after my Hawaiian adventure, I was finally ready to indulge in some sushi again. Erin visiting up for the weekend was another good excuse, to be sure, as was the fact that I’d just finished marching in the Williamstown 4th of July parade.
This was New England small-town in all its glory. Seven massive [...]

Did you know…

…there is a planetoid named after William I of Orange?
 

Ik heb de T-FACTOR!

When I was waiting at the gate for my flight from Gatwick to Fiumicino this January, I watched as each passenger came up to the agent and flashed his or her passport. I was the only American on the flight, and I was feeling quite lonely.
A couple months later the situation felt quite different as [...]

Distilled spirits are a bonanza from a tax standpoint

Awesome article in the Times on microdisilleries, cousin to the recent boom in local microbreweries across the country. Money quote:
On a farm in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Jeff Quint is similarly enthusiastic about his spirits. “I’ll put our gin up against anybody’s, in any city,” he said. “Our gin rocks.”
No, dude, seriously. Wonder what they’re cooking [...]

The Pope Moves to Wichita

From this weekend’s Times Magazine article on the breakup of the Christian evangelical voting block:
Later, as a choir in stars-and-stripes neckties and scarves belted out “Stars and Stripes Forever,” a cluster of men in olive military fatigues took the stage carrying a flag. They lifted the pole to a 45-degree angle and froze in place [...]

You’re never going to burn again

I know I keep posting these. Let’s just say that the morning paper is often the best part of my day:

Hello Ralpho residents. It’s Monday, 10:30 at night and it’s pouring down rain. Those of us who like to burn, you’re never going to burn again. Your supervisors already decided to put a burning ban [...]

Brooke Astor

Brooke Astor, New York’s First Lady of Philanthropy, Dies at 105
…a woman who had defined high society and made philanthropy her career for almost four decades.
She took up that vocation after her third husband, Vincent Astor, heir to the fur and real estate fortune of John Jacob Astor, died and left about $60 million to [...]

NASM, with malice towards none

The family is down for the weekend! They met me in the city this afternoon and we sauntered over to the National Air and Space Museum. Now, I thought I had so gotten over NASM by my fifth trip there (sometime in high school on a music trip to Baltimore, I think) and never wanted [...]

Eating lunch

I brought lunch today so that I could go and eat at the sculpture garden at the National Gallery.
The garden isn’t too big, but it’s surprisingly isolated from street noise given that it’s in between the DoJ and the SI Natural History Museum. At the center is the requisite large round [...]