# 24 Mar 2005, 01:14PM: No:
Is there a television show that balances trash and wit more perfectly than House?
No, there is not.
# 24 Mar 2005, 01:33PM: Take Care:
San Francisco Chronicle readers and a Salon editor tell their stories of continuing or ending extraordinary care for family members during severe illnesses. I cried.
Death may be slow and gradual for me or it may be a flash of white and pain. In case someone else has to make that awful decision, I need to write up an advance health directive and a durable power of attorney for my sister to use.
# 24 Mar 2005, 01:40PM: Happy Purim!:
I hope those of you who celebrate the Jewish holiday of Purim have a good time. I remember evincing amazement when my freshman-year roommate told me she was supposed to booze till she didn't know good from evil; now that seems completely normal to me. Oh no, I've defined deviancy down!
During some services on the "Jewish Mardi Gras", you get to boo when the rabbi mentions the villain's name. That's pretty awesome.
It is customary to hold carnival-like celebrations on Purim, to perform plays and parodies, and to hold beauty contests. I have heard that the usual prohibitions against cross-dressing are lifted during this holiday, but I am not certain about that.
# 24 Mar 2005, 07:41PM: I New York Kind, I Delaware:
I sit in my room and listen to the cover of "Black Hole Sun" on The Moog Cookbook (think rockin', yet Muzak) while composing a review of Good Catholic Girls by Angela Bonavoglia. This morning some subway musicians brought me to tears with Pachelbel's Canon in D.
But the most significant musical experience of the past week has been obsessively listening to a CD by Lawsuit. Lawsuit was a ska band from Davis, California with awesome lyrics and sound. I discovered the band while driving around Oakland and listening to KALX; an infinitely cool DJ played "Oh Boy!", which is about a couch that yearns for a better life. I obtained some of Lawsuit's other stuff. Leonard absolutely adores "North Dakotachrome" above all other Lawsuit songs and can't listen to any others because he worships that track so. That's reasonable, since "North Dakotachrome" possesses upwards of thirty geography puns as well as a catchy melody. Lawsuit's lead singer died years ago and so there will be no reunions, but you can download the music as MP3s and play the "North Dakotachrome" game. If enough people do this and compile lists of the puns, I might have a contest.
Cogito, Ergo Sumana by Sumana Harihareswara is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
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