I’ve been longing for weeks now to pull together a huge post of cool links (while simultaneously updating “Sites to See”), and went so far the other day as to sift and prune my lengthy list of bookmarks in preparation for the Great Elsewhere Posting. But is this it? No, this is not it. Nor am I holding forth on recently consumed high art, for the good reason that I haven’t consumed any, at least not in the past couple of days. I got back to New York late Tuesday afternoon, and Our Girl showed up on my doorstep eight hours later. All I’ve had time to do since then is catch up with my accumulated snail mail, stay on top of the incoming e-mail, tinker with my theater calendar for January and February, and embark on the gratifying process of showing off my co-blogger to a select list of blogbuddies (as well a few culturally challenged no-blog types).

The one gainful thing I’ve managed to do is finish writing my next Commentary essay, which is about the letters of classical composers. I tried to write it in Smalltown, but my mother shifted into Full Distraction Mode With Deflector Shields when I spent a whole day writing my “Second City” column for this Sunday’s Washington Post, and the most I could manage after that was to read two relevant books, draft the opening section, and think through the whole piece in my head. In fact, I wasn’t able to get down to serious business until…well, er, one a.m. this morning.

First, OGIC and I watched a DVD of Near Dark after returning from Blogdinner No. 1 (we’re soooo into vampires). Then we listened to music and talked nonstop for a couple of hours (we’re still getting used to the simple pleasure of being in the same room). Then I sighed deeply, arose from my comfy berth on the couch, bid my guest farewell, took a scaldingly hot shower and a stiff dose of aspirin, and retired to my office. Four hours later the piece was done, after which I ascended to my loft, fell asleep instantly, and awoke without benefit of alarm at 9:30, wrenched into consciousness by what sleep specialists call my clock-dependent alerting (that’s what wakes you up at two in the morning the day after you fly to Europe). I found in my e-mailbox a note from the editor of Commentary, asking me what the hell I was doing sending him pieces at five-thirty in the morning (of course he knew–that’s just his way of being polite) and promising that he’d send me back galleys to read and correct later today.

That, my friends, is journalism.

As for my previous Commentary essay, a paean to Haydn, it’s in the issue that was just mailed out to subscribers, and I’ll be posting a link in the right-hand column as soon as it becomes available on the magazine’s Web site. In fact, OGIC and I will be posting quite a bit of other fresh stuff in the right-hand column between now and Monday–look for it. In addition, I’ll make her sit down at my desk sooner or later and blog about what a great time she’s having. And I do solemnly swear that the Great Elsewhere Posting will materialize at some point in the next few days.

For now, though, it’s back to living in the moment, or maybe slightly behind it. Our Girl, who was previously asleep on an inflatable bed placed in the middle of the Teachout Museum, is now making interesting sounds suggestive of potential wakefulness. We’re having lunch with an old friend–OGIC’s first boss in New York and my first book editor–followed by more schedule-tinkering and mail-answering, followed by Blogdinner No. 2, followed by more conversation and music and DVDs. Nor would I be even slightly surprised if a nap takes place somewhere in there. Sounds like a full day to me.

Slate asked an assortment of writers and other culture types to answer this question: “Which cultural happening most amazed or disappointed you this year?” Among those present are Hilton Als, Rachel Cohen, Stanley Crouch, Daniel “Lemony Snicket” Handler, Jim Holt, Neil LaBute, Jane Smiley, Dana “Liz Penn” Stevens, and me.

To see what we said, go here.

Artie Shaw, the clarinetist and bandleader who was the last great survivor of the swing era, has died in Los Angeles at the age of 94. Here’s a wire-service obit from NPR.

I profiled Shaw in the New York Times on his ninetieth birthday, and posted the text of that piece on “About Last Night” earlier this year. To read it, go here, where you will also find links to some of his finest recordings. (I’ve been told that Shaw himself liked this piece.)

UPDATE: The Washington Post appears to be the first major newspaper out of the box with a lengthy in-house Shaw obituary on its Web site. (The New York Times is still running Reuters wire-service copy as of this hour.)

MORE: The Times just posted its obit, a blandly institutional piece that was obviously written years ago by the late John S. Wilson and updated only slightly since then. We’ll see how they do tomorrow morning.

MORE: Not at all to my surprise, the Times opted to go with its stockpiled obit, a lame response to the death of a great American musician. I guess he was too old for anyone over there to care….

I flew into LaGuardia at the blue hour, the moment when the city lights overlap with the fast-fading sunset. The air was full of translucent droplets of snow, diffusing the late-afternoon light still further, and as my cab rolled across the Upper East Side, down Museum Mile, and through Central Park, I thought, New York doesn’t even have to try to be beautiful–it just is. Of course the beauty of the blue hour means different things to different people, and sometimes even to the same person: I can imagine finding it either romantic or depressing, depending on my mood. Not currently being disposed to either extreme, I was content to call it beautiful and let it go at that.

The last sound I heard before I got in my rental car this morning and headed for the Smalltown city limits was a train whistle. My brother tells me that more freight trains have been passing through Smalltown lately, and though the tracks are halfway across town from my mother’s house, you can still hear the whistles loud and clear. My mother thinks they sound mournful, but I never thought so. They used to make me curious about the big world somewhere down the track, and now that I live in that big world, they remind me that I have things to do back there.

My kitchen table is usually piled high with mail when I come back from Smalltown, especially when I’ve been gone for a week or more, but this time there wasn’t a thing–it’s at the post office, waiting to be picked up. All I found were flowers in a vase and groceries in the refrigerator, courtesy of my adorable assistant, and in the absence of any visible signs of the urgent tasks that await me come morning, I decided to take the rest of the night off.

No doubt I’d have done better to roll up my sleeves and get cracking, especially since I have a piece to write, a sackful of mail to answer, a half-dozen theatrical previews to schedule, a dozen phone calls to make, and a houseguest arriving in the afternoon, immediately followed by a week’s worth of more or less nonstop activity. Still, it was a long day–I had to get up early in the morning, pack my bags, scrape the frost off the car, and drive all the way to the airport in St. Louis–and I had a feeling that I might possibly be better served by spending an hour or so reacquainting myself with the Teachout Museum, then curling up on the couch to watch a few of the episodes of What’s My Line? that my DVR harvested for me last week. So that’s what I’m doing, after which I mean to take a book to bed and read myself to sleep. Tomorrow will have to take care of itself, and if it doesn’t, that’s just too damn bad. Tonight is for me.

“On any person who desires such queer prizes, New York will bestow the gift of loneliness and the gift of privacy. It is this largess that accounts for the presence within the city’s walls of a considerable section of the population; for the residents of Manhattan are to a large extent strangers who have pulled up stakes somewhere and come to town, seeking sanctuary or fulfillment or some greater or lesser grail. The capacity to make such dubious gifts is a mysterious quality of New York. It can destroy an individual, or it can fulfill him, depending a good deal on luck. No one should come to New York to live unless he is willing to be lucky.”

E.B. White, Here Is New York

Our Girl in Chicago is now on New York’s Upper West Side, napping on a couch in the middle of the Teachout Museum in preparation for just short of a week’s worth of nonstop partying and art consumption. (I was going to make her write this posting herself, but I think she needs a little REM sleep before the festivities commence.)

Later this evening we’ll be meeting Megan McArdle and the Mutant, respectively my tallest and shortest friends, for dinner at Good Enough to Eat, the official “About Last Night” hangout. If you’re in the neighborhood, stop by our table and kiss the rings!

More anon.

That’s it from Smalltown, U.S.A. The next time you hear from me, I’ll be back at my desk on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Don’t be surprised if I fail to post again until Wednesday, when Our Girl in Chicago joins me in New York for a week of mad hilarity (I can’t wait to see her start hitting the bars with Maud in tow). Oh, the humanity!

In the meantime, many thanks for all the e-mail you’ve sent in recent days. It’s nice to know you’re out there.

Later.

“There is no bottom. There is no low. You never know what you’re going to see next. There’s no worst–it does amaze me what people do to other people, that’s what’s crazy about it–but there’s no worst. You know what I’m saying?”

Anonymous Chicago policeman (quoted in Connie Fletcher, What Cops Know)