Archives for 2005

– Amount paid in 1913 by Henry Clay Frick to Joseph Duveen for Romans d’amour et de la jeunesse, Jean-Honor

– Amount paid in 1913 by Henry Clay Frick to Joseph Duveen for Romans d’amour et de la jeunesse, Jean-Honor

At century’s end

Nobody’s holding out for heaven

It’s not for creatures here below

We just suit up for a game

The name of which we used to know

By now it’s second nature

Scratch the cab

We can grab the local

Let’s get to the love scene, my friend

Which means look, maybe touch

But beyond that not too much

Dumb love in the city

At century’s end

Donald Fagen and Timothy Mayer, “Century’s End” (music by Fagen)

At century’s end

Nobody’s holding out for heaven

It’s not for creatures here below

We just suit up for a game

The name of which we used to know

By now it’s second nature

Scratch the cab

We can grab the local

Let’s get to the love scene, my friend

Which means look, maybe touch

But beyond that not too much

Dumb love in the city

At century’s end

Donald Fagen and Timothy Mayer, “Century’s End” (music by Fagen)

Hurricane Katrina bumped into my end-of-the-month deadline glut, meaning that I had to stay up all last night writing–a Commentary essay from midnight to seven, my Friday Wall Street Journal drama column from seven to ten. John Pancake, my editor at the Washington Post, was able to give me a one-day extension for this Sunday’s “Second City” column, which I’ll write in the morning.

For the moment, though, I’m cross-eyed and sleep-deprived, so I’m not even going to try to blog. Our Girl, bless her, has taken over our “Live from Katrina” page, which continues to draw heavy traffic. Me, I’m going to post some pre-written items, then crawl into my loft and seek a bit of oblivion.

See you later.

Up and coming on my calendar:

– SEPTEMBER 20-25: The Bad Plus performs at the Village Vanguard

– SEPTEMBER 25: The Mint Theater presents the world premiere of Walking Down Broadway, an unproduced 1931 play by Dawn Powell

– OCTOBER 11: Street date of the DVD of Me and You and Everyone We Know (MGM)

– Commissioning fee paid to William Walton by Jascha Heifetz in 1939 for Walton’s B Minor Violin Concerto, including two years’ worth of exclusive performance rights: $1,493.00

– The same amount in today’s dollars, courtesy of Inflation Calculator: $19,589.35

(Source: Michael Kennedy, Portrait of Walton)

“Merely having an open mind is nothing. The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid. To open the mind so wide as to keep nothing in it or out of it is not a virtue; it is the vice of the feeble-minded.”

G.K. Chesterton, Autobiography