Scarlett Letters

1) I'm glad to hear that my friends and family back east are safe as Big Mother-F*cking Storm Sandy moves on.

2) Weather in Seattle has been mild and damp, not as cold as one would expect at the end of October for which I'm truly grateful.

3) I'm way behind in processing my Europe trip pictures. Maybe I'll get more done tonight. ::fingers crossed:: Trouble is that I discovered spots on a lot of the pictures, which suggests that my lens was dirty and I didn't notice. I'm just glad that I have enough facility with Photoshop to attend to it, but it's slowing down my preferred posting speed.

4) This house desperately needs to be decluttered and vacuumed. I have no idea when this is going to happen.

5) Ezekiel Report, Day 4: Zeke has settled in nicely. He's playful, affectionate, and curious. He and Sophie seem to have achieved detente--no more hissing, but lots of sniffing each other nose-to-nose and a great deal of chasing each other about the house. Sophie has been unwilling to cuddle or sleep with me since Zeke's arrival which, while expected, has been genuinely upsetting to me. Last night for the first time, both Sophie and Zeke got up on the bed at the same time. This morning, when I woke up to Zeke kneeding my cheek, I discovered a big lump at my feet--Sophie, curled up between the top sheet and the quilt. It's not the kind of cuddling with her that I'm used to, but as far as I'm concerned it's progress.

BONUS! 6) This evening on KUOW-FM (94.9 FM, also streaming online and available as a podcast), Selected Shorts is offering Tales of Terror by Edgar Allan Poe, featuring "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Raven," hosted by Neil Gaiman. What a lovely, seasonally appropriate program!

Today is my semi-annual stint answering phones for the local National Public Radio affiliate, KUOW-FM, for their pledge drive. I'm looking forward to it, as I always do. I am, if you haven't figured it out by now, a huge supporter and lover of NPR. We're fortunate in Seattle to have a rich, robust public radio station. Their local coverage is as fine as the national and international coverage. This is one aspect of my adopted home town that I'd put up against anyone else's. KUOW would win hands down.

That being the case, this morning's LJ post is about audio coolness from KUOW and NPR.

First up, KUOW is running a series called This NOT Just In, featuring archived audio from local historical events. One of the most extraordinary (to me, anyway) is a recording of an event held in 1953 at Seattle's Museum of History and Industry. The event commemorated the Great Seattle Fire, which took place in 1889. The audio includes the only known, first-hand descriptions of the Great Seattle Fire by people who were there. I find this fascinating because the fire shaped the downtown we know today, and because the audio is a wonderful window into the past: listen to the accents, the intonation of the people speaking. They truly sound like people from a different time. I love stuff like this.

This morning, NPR ran a piece on the last man to interview John Lennon, a journalist working for Playboy magazine. He spent three weeks with John and Yoko, recording their conversations. The interview became his Playboy piece, but this program played the actual audio from those weeks, which had never been broadcast before. It's remarkable to listen to clips from these conversations. In 1980 I was 18 and John was 40--so much older than me that I couldn't imagine what it would be like to get to that age. And now, on the downslope from 40, it seems so much younger than it could have ever been old. It's sad, too, to hear John talk about the future with such optimism, knowing what followed just days later. But it's very special, and well worth listening to.

If you haven't turned on the radio lately, go do it now. Or stream KUOW live on the Web. You might be surprised--delighted, even--by what you hear.

PS: Bonus silliness-- My favorite commercial ever has just been spoofed for posterity: The monster your monster could smell like. Sesame Street does the Old Spice Guy thing. Wonderful! (With thanks to madrobins for the tip. I'm still smiling.)

I don't know who's at the helm today at KMTT-FM, but for the last hour, a lot the songs have been about awareness of mortality and using your time wisely and so on (Green Day's "Time of Your Life," Pearl Jam's "Just Breathe," Rod Stewart's "Maggie May," and now Talking Heads' "Once in a Lifetime").

I love all of these songs and never fail to enjoy them when I hear them. But when they're all programmed together this way? I can't decide if I want to drop everything I'm doing and go hike my way across the planet with nothing but a backpack and a camera, or just throw myself off a cliff. All this musical introspection is hard to take, especially on a gray Seattle day when I'm working at home and feeling the press of time.

Here comes the twister...
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ETA: Oh wait: Now they're playing Joe Cocker's "You Can Leave Your Hat On." That makes up for a lot.

Movie critic A.O. Scott sends memos to Hollywood to try to spork it out of its collective stupor. Funny and true.

An examination of President Obama as college professor in context of the Supreme Court nominations to come.

Maureen Dowd on the Republican party's floundering and the Professor in Chief.

Yeah, I'm a whore for The New York Times. You can take the girl out of New York...

In other news, the West Seattle Blog is running a photograph I took of the Alaskan Way viaduct in context of the nightmare that will be traffic today here in town. (For the out-of-towners: Today is Opening Day for boaters. In this town surrounded by water and filled with draw bridges, there will be long waits in favor of marine traffic.) I think it's a pretty boring shot, but out of all the West Seattle photographs I recently took, that's the one they wanted to use. I'm not complaining.

This week, This American Life featured Dan Savage and Joss Whedon. Did you hear it? Doesn't look like it's been archived online yet, but watch the site; should be coming soon.

I'm sitting in the volunteer room at KUOW answering phones for the spring pledge drive. I'm sharing a table with a former Microsoftie, a current Microsoftie, a current Real employee (who apparently knows ironymaiden, markbourne, and kijjohnson), and a former sailor who knits. It's a pleasant group, chatty and smart and, obviously, all KUOW fans. The food supplied for meals has been tasty. I had a bagel breakfast and just completed a spanokopita lunch. The little thank-you gift for my service is a KUOW Nalgene water bottle.

One woman at the table has been to Paris a number of times, and she's been sharing her experiences and tips for places to stay. I'm taking notes (I must remember to look for Hotel Grand Leveque, surrounded by a boulangerie, a fromagerie, fruit stand, etc., but remember that it's apparently been overrun by Rick Steves devotees; also look for the medieval museum).

I love the people who pledge and then thank me for volunteering my time. That takes some thought to consider and I really appreciate it.

The woman sitting next to me has taken a pledge from someone's cat.

One of the most entertaining bits of doing this work has been trying to describe the t-shirt available at a particular pledge level. We're split, we call operators, about how to describe the color of the t-shirt: Is it brown, chocolate brown, milk chocolate brown? Is the design golden-rod yellow or canary yellow? We can refer people to the web site but that doesn't help us in the moment. We're each developing our own strategy, but it's been entertaining listening to the fashion consultation going on during pledge calls.

miki_garrison, who is coming to join me answering the pledge lines, just called to ask me about her highest priority: whether or not there will be enough Diet Coke for her on the premises. She's hilarious.

3:20 PM: We've just completed a premium offer for tickets to see the Capitol Steps. I was going to pledge, but realized I have other plans for the date. These are the wages of being overbooked. And yet . . . I can't complain.

I'm struck by the number of women showing up to answer phones who are older and are wearing long falls of wild silver gray hair and tie-dyed t-shirts. It's a certain kind of artsy crunchy type that's a Northwest stereotype.

5:40 PM: So many of the calls I received today were pleasant: people pledging, expressing their enjoyment of public radio, thanking me for volunteering, making some comment about the programming on air. (I received calls from three English majors during "A Prairie Home Companion," during which Garrison Keillor had run a humorous piece about same. I could only smile and admit that I, too, had been an English major.) But my last call of the day left a sour taste in my mouth. I picked up the phone and said, "Thank you for calling KUOW's spring pledge drive. May I have your name please?" The woman on the other end said, "No you may not. I want to say that I protest my tax dollars being used to support your left-wing organization." She then hung up. What I wanted to say in response was, "You nasty old b*tch." I hung up the phone and couldn't help but wonder why that call was necessary. Certainly everyone has a right to their opinion, but when I compare the amount of money spent on public radio to the amount of money this country has spent fighting an ill-conceived, ill-executed action in Iraq during which thousands of American men and women have died, or giving tax breaks to major corporations, I can't figure out this woman's beef.

But that's just me.

Mostly it was a lovely day. I suppose there's a use in considering others' perspectives. I resent that such bitterness was the final note of my otherwise pleasant day at the station, however.

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Happily, I had miki_garrison for company during my second shift, and after we were done answering phones, we hit the U Bookstore so I could drop some books for trade, then strolled through the UW campus to see the cherry blossoms. They're just beginning to bloom; I'm guessing that next weekend they'll be in their full glory. I took some photographs; I hope to download and post them tonight. We then had a quick dinner at Pagliacci Pizza and retired for the day. I crashed when I got home.

I should have driven to the Eastside this morning to meet with the Sunday morning writing posse. Instead, I was a lazy thing, staying home, reading (Phillipa Gregory's The Virgin's Lover), then going to Barnes & Noble to use my gift card to pick up a copy of Spooks: Science Takes on the Afterlife by Mary Roach, about which I've heard excellent things, and which, in the first few pages, shows a clever and intelligent narrative voice that I look forward to reading more of.

I also, this afternoon, watched my tape of the first two hours of HBO's mini-series Elizabeth I, perfect timing since The Virgin's Lover is set earlier in Elizabeth's reign. I'm besotted with Elizabethan England right now and enjoying it hugely. The HBO production is quite excellent, very literate, and all the performances are terrific.

As I drove about town, I heard three excellent and thought-provoking pieces on Studio 360 about Japan's Culture of Cute. I highly recommend a listen, especially if you have an interest in Japanese culture. You can find links to all three pieces here.

Such a beautiful day in Seattle today, sunny and clear and warmer than it's been in quite some time. Tonight's local headline news just announced that we were one degree away from a record high for the day. Spring is finally in full swing!

For the film The New World, linguists reconstructed at least part of a lost Native American language. The New York Times is running an article today that, in some part, explains how the work was done. Fascinating reading.

I heard an announcement on KUOW, Seattle's NPR affiliate, that they will be broadcasting a recording of the debate between King County Executive Ron Sims and Rev. Ken Hutcherson on the subject of gay rights and gay marriage that occurred last week. Following the broadcast, there will be a call-in session for listeners. There's nothing on the station Web site about this event right now, so I called the station to confirm it was happening before posting here. Anyway, if KUOW is true to form, you should be able to listen to it streaming on the Web (for you out-of-towners, if you're curious). That's my plan. Should be . . . interesting, based on spazzychic's report on the event.

In what must be signs of a psychic link, I, like herself_nyc, am wearing 3-inch heels to work today. Seems those heels I bought on Sunday were higher than I thought; I actually measured them this morning. She's right: I feel powerful wearing such shoes. And they look good. And suddenly, I'm tall. How...odd. ::grin::

If you've never had dinner at McCormick & Schmick's on Lake Union, I highly recommend it. The food's delicious and the view is to die for.

I can't find a playable version of the new Doctor Who trailer online. ::pout::

And lastly, this may be in poor taste, or at least politically incorrect: I received this via an e-mail list I subscribe to and, yes, I admit it, it made me laugh:

"What's the difference between the Rolling Stones and a Scotsman?"

The Rolling Stones sing, "Hey, you, get offa my cloud!"
The Scotsman says, "Hey, MacLeod, get offa my ewe!"