For a couple of months after September 11, the odor of destruction hung over my neighborhood, directly across the East River and downwind from the World Trade Center. Just a couple of weeks ago, NASA released this picture of the smoke plume that resulted from the fire and collapse.

The top of the photo is true north; Over the Edge Headquarters is immediately to the south of the Trade Center site, and in the path of the plume.

I’m still trying to decide how to deal with/what to do on the anniversary.

A friend of mine on one of my mailing lists alerted me to this item, which shows either that toy designers don’t always think things through or that kids are endlessly inventive.

On the face of it, it’s a Harry Potter Quidditch broom.  It makes noises. It also, well…

This toy was #1 on my daughter’s Christmas list… It wasn’t until after she opened her gift and started playing with it that I realized that the toy may offer a more than sensational experience. The broomstick has cute sound effects and ***VIBRATES*** when they put it between their legs to fly. Come on—what were the creators of this toy thinking? She’ll keep playing with the Nimbus 2000, but with the batteries removed.

One might think this was a dirty-minded parent, except:

When my 12 year old daughter asked for this for her birthday, I kind of wondered if she was too old for it, but she seems to LOVE it. Her friends love it too! They play for hours in her bedroom with this great toy. They really seem to like the special effects it offers (the sound effects and vibrating). My oldest daughter (17) really likes it too! I reccomend this for all children.

It would not be the first time that someone was having a little fun with Amazon reviews, of course. But these have the ring of authenticity somehow….

 

Making a bearnaise sauce is a mysterious thing. I once was putting one together — all the ingredients were blended in perfect proportion, gentle heat was being applied, and the sauce was thickening just as it should — when it suddenly just separated out. Fell apart. I applied some quickly learned emergency measures, and the sauce came back together. Mostly. But I’ve always wondered what went wrong at the stove that evening.

Same thing applies to the current Broadway revival of Rogers and Hart’s The Boys from Syracuse. There’s tons of yummy ingredients to the show — including a pretty good retooled book by Nicky Silver (replacing the George Abbott original) — but only sometimes do all the parts smooth out.

The plot is set out in the opening number, “Hurrah! Hurroo!,” a miracle of compact exposition. The action takes place in Ephesus. Two sets of identical twins — one pair of aristocrats and one pair of slaves — from Syracuse are lost at sea seven years ago. Residents from Syracuse are executed in Ephesus because of their origins unless they can come up with 1000 drachmas.  One of the aristocrat twins is established as an Ephesian war hero; the other comes to town to find his twin. Each twin has his respective identical slave with him.

Merriment ensues.

No, really. After the opening number, the show sags for most of the first act as the focus turns on the four romantic leads. But whenever it’s time for the comic leads and supporting players to shine, the pace picks up and the show becomes tons more fun. The second act curtain-raiser, “You Took Advantage of Me,” has nothing whatsoever to do with the rest of the show, but features four of what I think were once known as chorines. I’ve gotta say, I like the chorines. The audience didn’t quite know what to do with them. Applause would have been good. Whistling would not have been out of order, either. One of them, Dierdre Goodwin, will apparently be in the upcoming movie of Chicago. I’ll be there.

Another high point was the song “Come With Me,” perhaps the merriest song about incarceration short of “Jailhouse Rock.” Fred Inkley gets the credit here.

The female comic lead, Luce, is played by Toni Dibuono in a turn that’s more than slightly reminiscent of a much shorter Bette Midler. The two slaves, both named Dromio, were well played by Lee Wilkog and Chip Zien (who counts among his many distinguished credits the voice of Howard the Duck). Erin Dilly played the engenue, Luciana, well enough, though it appeared that she only remembered to bring her energy on stage after intermission.

Jackee Harry (from TV’s Sister Sister and 227) turns up in a small role as a madam and gets the 11 o’clock number, “Sing for Your Supper.” She doesn’t have great pipes, but carries the song off nicely anyway. And there’s some surprise stunt casting in a very small part deep in the second act. I don’t want to give it away — and I don’t know if it’s the same casting every night — but someone highly recognizable from a classic sitcom popped up on stage last night.

Lighting and staging were first-rate, as always with the Roundabout. Sound design and singing were a little problematic. Unison singing was strong, but levels sometimes dropped out unpredictably when unisons broke into harmony parts. Might have been the miking, might have been the singers. Whatever, it wasn’t quite right.

The Boys from Syracuse runs about two hours plus intermission. This production is a second-acter dream. Show up at the break, and you’ll catch most of what’s great about the show.

 

Where do you get the world’s best egg cream? They decided yesterday on the steps of Brooklyn Borough Hall.

The NYSun says there’s a wacky e-mail going around suggesting that the first car of every subway train … well, read for yourself:

Thousands of New Yorkers are now forwarding an anonymous e-mail to each other informing them that from now on, every first subway car has been declared ãthe singles car.ä

(Bonus points for naming the song and artist referenced in the title, above.)

I found myself this evening standing in an around-the-block line at the New York debut of Jaguar, Mac OS X.2. Why? Just looking. And because I have a homebrew Wintel computer that I built to record music, but which I’ve spent two orders of magnitude more time fixing than doing music. That’s time not doing music, not editing video, not duplicating discs. When I hit the power switch, I never know if the damn thing is going to boot. That’s just unacceptable.

Today, it didn’t. Again.

And boy, them Macs sure look purty.

 

Meg Hourihan has an excellent piece on the O’Reilly Network about another way to use weblogs to make money: use them as a promotional tool. Meg oughta know — she’s one of the founders of the company that came up with the popular Blogger software.

Practiced PR pros know, of course, that sponsored content is hardly new. But Meg expands on the concept in some valuable and interesting ways.

Rep. Bob Barr, the Republican congressman who led the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, lost his primary today. It wasn’t even close. Because of redistricting, Barr was up against Rep. John Linder, whose style is somewhat more sedate. From a late Tuesday/early Wednesday NYTimes piece:

Mr. Linder, 59, a former dentist and business executive whose phlegmatic style was a sharp contrast to Mr. Barr’s sizzle, had, at times, made his steady demeanor an issue in the campaign. During one debate, Mr. Linder said to his opponent, “I will remind you that I am the one who has been married for 39 years to the same woman,” a subtle criticism of Mr. Barr, 53, who is in his third marriage.

 

NASA says it can’t read minds after all, though I frankly find this denial less than fully convincing.