Odds & Sods 1

E-Readers: It'll be a little while before I enter chapter 2 of my Kindle Kronicles, but this article from Wired.com offers a nice pro/con on all of the e-readers currently on the market. E-Book Reader Roundup: Samsung's Papyrus Joins the Crowd | Gadget Lab from Wired.com.

Editors Wanted: Here's an excerpt from a review in today's Wall Street Journal of a history of Gray's Anatomy (the book, not the TV series). What error jumps out at you (but apparently not at the editor)?

"With this world as a backdrop, Henry Gray (1827-61) began climbing the professional ladder at St. George's Hospital in London at age 15. He didn't attend a university before starting his studies at the famed medical school attached to the hospital, and even then he focused on surgery instead of becoming a general practitioner, or apothecary-surgeon, as those doctors were then known. .. If Gray skipped a university education by choice, Henry Vandyke Carter (1831-97) initially went without one from necessity. His family was too poor to send him to college, so in the late 1840s Carter enrolled at St. George's -- Gray, 10 years his senior, was already teaching and working at the hospital -- and studied to become an apothecary-surgeon..."

My Day Job: I'm often asked, "But what you do every day at work, really?" My answer is us, "I usually don't know until I get there." This blog is not about my work, but now I will be blogging at work. Check out Comcast's brand-new blog, where you can see a couple of my postings.

Hot List: I subscribe to a few email services - from Amazon, Fodor, and others - that direct me to neat stuff on the Web or in the physical world. I often get a charge out of Very Short List, which lands in my inbox a couple of times a week. Among the things they've flagged for me recently: rare video of a '70s appearance by George Harrison on Eric Idle's "Rutland TV" comedy series where Harrison plays a pirate; the live performance archives of KEXP Seattle, a station that appears to be right up there with WXPN Philadelphia and KCRW Santa Monica as a live-acts showcase for modern music; "The End," a terrific collection of "end cards" from movies and TV shows -- no clues, you have to guess where they originally appeared; "The Big Picture," a photoblog by Alan Taylor of the Boston Globe, with huge, crystalline digital photos of news events great and small. Fun, and the price (free) is right. (BTW, Comcast Interactive Media owns a similar service, Daily Candy, that focuses on stuff of interest to women.)

Music I'm Enjoying Now 2

The Suspicious Cheese Lords: Thanks to Don Laub for reminding me about this D.C.-based male a capella group (numbering 13-15 voices) who have released three world premiere recordings of sacred music of the Renaissance - by Carpentras in 2002, Ludwig Senfl in 2005, and Jean Mouton in 2007 (all of them available from CD Baby, a terrific distribution house for independent musicians). The first two were recorded in the acoustically glorious Franciscan Monastery in northeast D.C. The self-released CDs are beautifully produced and packaged, with musicologists' liner notes that are illuminating. Transporting.

Pat Metheny & Anna Maria Jopek, Upojenie: In the early Seventies, on a study tour and "roots" visit to Krakow, I was first exposed to the vibrant world of Polish jazz. Although the Iron Curtain was firmly in place, every young person seemed to tune in to DJ Willis Conover's Jazz Hour on the Voice of America. Young Poles' main connection with Western musical culture was through Conover's playlist, artists like Coltrane and Miles and Wes Montgomery. On a subsequent trip in 1977, I got to know some Polish jazz journalists, and starting writing for a Warsaw-based magazine, Jazz Forum, that was published in three languages. That was about the time that Pat Metheny was capturing attention for his first two ECM albums, and I had the pleasure of doing the first (so far as I know) internationally published interview with Pat for Jazz Forum. (He was a terrific, and enthusiastic, interview.) That's why it was a special treat to see Metheny team up with vocalist Jopek and other contemporary Polish jazz artists on this CD of originals, reworked Polish folk songs, and Metheny tunes of the Nineties retrofitted with Polish lyrics. Recorded in 2002 but just released in the States last year, this is a worthy addition to Metheny's extensive discography.

Jason Vieaux, Images of Metheny: And speaking of Metheny, his work is reimagined by the terrific classical guitarist Jason Vieaux on this 2005 tribute album. Metheny's distinctive sound limits the number of artists who try to "cover" him, but Vieaux brings wonderful dimension to these solo acoustic interpretations, particularly the sensitive opener "Every Day (I Thank You)" and a gorgeous take on "The Bat" (By the way, we met Jason at a recent house concert, and he told us that Metheny is still delightful and accessible, and that he had invited Jason to his New York apartment to compare notes when Jason was working on this CD.)

The Kindle Kronicle, Ch. 1

I wasn't convinced to try out the original Kindle, but I've now had the Kindle 2 for about a month. On balance, it's a very good device -- not as life-changing as the Logitech Squeezebox, but certainly a keeper. As I live with it, I'll add chapters to my Kindle Kronicle.

The form factor is pretty good. You wouldn't want to hold the bare Kindle 2 tablet in your hands for several hours, but when you wrap one of the available leather covers around it, you can cradle it comfortably like a small hardcover book.

I'm not crazy about the screen size -- it's about 4 3/4" high by 3 1/2" wide, or smaller than the copy hole the a typical page of a mass-market paperback. You can adjust font sizes across six settings (and you can make it large enough not to need reading glasses, even if you're one of us "older/senior bloggers") -- but obviously, the larger the type, the less copy on the screen (at the second-largest font size, you get about 55 words on a page). The contrast of black type on light grey background is pretty good. The screen is not backlit, so you will need ambient light to read, just as you would with a book. Conveniently, Amazon will sell you a clip-on booklight that is adapted to the Kindle 2.

You turn the pages by clicking on a "next page" button that you can hit with your thumb. It appears on both the left and the right edges of the device. (There's also a single "previous page" button inconveniently located in the middle of the left side.) A small number of other buttons let you navigate through a book's contents, do searches, look up definitions, connect wirelessly with Amazon, and so on. I think it will take me a while to get over watching the page "turn negative" when you click "next page" -- the screen briefly flashes black with white type as it resets and calls up the next page -- but I suspect it just becomes part of the rhythm after a while.

I'll be curious to see how these buttons hold up to frequent use. Also, there's a keyboard to let you do searches, annotate your copy, and so on, but it may be the second-worst keyboard I've seen on a device after the iPhone/iPod touchscreen. (I haven't played with the Blackberry touchscreen, which I understand may fall even lower on my list).

Here's what's truly great about the Kindle 2:

* Instant wireless downloads -- you can sample the first chapter for free from just about anywhere, and if you're ready to buy, one click generates a wireless download that's complete in about 60 seconds.

* Huge storage capacity -- you can carry around 1500 books, periodicals, and other documents -- and if you run out of space, you can store the rest in your Kindle account online and swap them out at your convenience. (One long-term question I've got, to which I hope the answer is a simple "yes" -- will all future Kindles and Kindle reader software on other devices be backward-compatible?

* The Kindle online library -- they currently count around 240,000 volumes -- if you're looking for best-sellers, I'd say about 50-60 percent of them are available for Kindle. There are also a number of leading newspapers and a small number of top magazines, including The New Yorker.

* The voice-reader feature -- could be a breakthrough for people with disabilities... and I see a day when my favorite Wall Street Journal stories are read to me while I commute to the office. I read that, over objections from some publishers and authors, Amazon has decided to give them the ability to authorize or prohibit the use of the reader for the works they own. I hope they'll be inclined to opt-in -- after all, the reader is cool, but it's not going to replace John Lithgow or David Sedaris or Barack Obama's unique voices.

What needs improvement? In addition to some of the features mentioned above:

* A shortage of reference books -- the Kindle 2 will be a terrific way to bring cookbooks along when you're at the beach house, or travel guides when you're visiting a couple of countries and don't want to carry 10 pounds of bulky guides... right now, however, Kindle is short in both of these categories, and in others like music buyers' guides (though they do have "1001 Recordings to Hear Before You Die," which, unfortunately, I bought in paperback the day before my Kindle 2 arrived). Frommers, Time Out, Lonely Planet -- get with the program.

* Not enough public domain stuff -- when I tried out a Sony e-Reader last year, they offered me 100 free books from a large, predominantly public-domain library the moment I signed up. No such thing with Kindle 2 (unless I missed an e-mail somewhere)... searching the free public domain stuff on the Kindle site seems deliberately difficult. I did manage to find the Bible, the Koran, some Yeats poetry, Machiavelli, Mark Twain, Homer, Henry James and a few others... I'll let you know how the translations and chapterizing are. Where are the gazillions of public domain volumes that Google has put online?

* Newspapers and magazines -- I'd like to see the price of The Wall Street Journal bundled with my daily print paper and my wsj.com subscription... I'd like to see The Economist and The Atlantic and a few other quality "keeper" magazines.

An interesting development since my Kindle 2 arrived was Amazon's decision to release Kindle software for the iPhone (the device with my least-favorite keyboard). I may give that a try on my iPod Touch, but I can't see it as a replacement for serious reading.

Over the next few weeks, I'll be reading some books on the Kindle 2 for purposes of preparing a couple of speeches. I'll be interested to see how the features that let me pull quotes and insert my own comments work -- that may be key to our long-term relationship.

Outside Chances

I'm the proud spouse of a truly outstanding gardener, as I mentioned in an earlier post about the selection of our garden for the Smithsonian's Archives of American Gardens. Not sure that the Smithsonian has gotten its photographs of Ann's work posted yet, but the folks at Philadelphia Magazine have done a beautiful profile of the garden with Ann's commentary on her approach here: Outside Chances - Philadelphia Magazine - phillymag.com

An Exclusive Club

Just read an article about "elder blogging" in a Smith Barney publication. An interesting reference in the article: "According to a 2006 study by Perseus Development Corporation of about 54 million blogs on the Internet, 160,000 are run by people 50 or older." This is one of them.

The article encourages "older bloggers" (puhleeeeze) to use the tool to maintain a virtual network. The piece focuses on "Time Goes By", created by a now-67-year-old former TV producer who lives in Maine. While I hope that "senior bloggers" (I'm still fishing for the right term) will try it out, I hope they won't become frustrated by the article's advice to use "WorldPress.com" -- if you go there, you'll see a pretty good site that amalgamates news from sources around the world... but it's not a blogging tool. Instead, fellow Boomers, try WordPress.com instead... or blogger.com, which I'm using.

From the Artist Who Brought You "Obama HOPE"

I'm glad that Randy Kennedy of The New York Times alerted me to the Shepard Fairey exhibit that opened in early February in Boston's very handsome Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA). It's always good to have another reason to return to this beautifully situated and architecturally satisfying building on Fort Point facing Boston Harbor.

Fairey is a Charleston-born, RISD-trained street artist. I remember my first (unwitting) exposure to his art, when I saw his Andre the Giant stickers plastered on tollbooths on the New Jersey Turnpike in the early Nineties. As he put it, "the sticker has no meaning but exists only to cause people to react, to contemplate and search for meaning in the sticker." He succeeded. I remember thinking at the time, "What the...?"

In the past year, we've all come to know his art. The centerpiece of his ICA exhibit is a beautiful mixed media rendition of his "Obama HOPE" poster, which I first saw outside the National Constitution Center when Obama and Hillary Clinton came to Philadelphia for a presidential primary debate last spring. In a little over a year, that depiction of Obama has achieved iconic status, and a rendition now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in D.C.

Fairey has been cranking out his version of "propaganda" for about 20 years. His work is inspired chiefly by Russian Constructivists and Latin American Social Realists of the '20s and '30s. He borrows liberally -- images of dictators real and imagined, the graphic styles of Warhol and the Haight, the textures of wheat-paste posters and flocked Victorian wallpaper can all be seen in his work... not to mention photos of Obama "liberated" from AP. He's had success as a printmaker, a designer of skateboard art, and an illustrator of CDs and record albums.

His work often mocks advertising and American symbols by giving them ironic treatments or substituting his own "meaningless" symbols to challenge our perceptions. His pieces are bold, jarring, amusing, annoying. The exhibit is extensive, proceeding across a half-dozen themed exhibit rooms ("Portraiture," "Music," "Propaganda," "Question Everything," etc.). I particularly appreciated his observations on music, which is a major influence on his life and art: "music is a lot cooler (than art) and way more able to reach people's hearts and minds." Agreed -- but his work at the ICA can also reach deeply, and is well worth spending a couple of hours with.

Given his propensity for borrowing from others, I was amused in flipping through the exhibit catalog at the several hundred "bootlegs" he has collected, where his Andre stickers have been adapted to salute Ralph Nader and Don King, among others. And I also realized that I've bought some of his work before -- I think. A couple of holidays ago, I bought some "Obey the Greyhound" paraphernalia for my wife, done in that same Constructivist style. Still not sure if it's his or someone paying homage to his style.

Not many street artists make it to the museum. The ICA exhibit is Fairey's first curated museum exhibit. It's worth the trip to Boston.

Not-So-Secret Garden

Philadelphia is a city that takes horticulture seriously. It's the home of the largest indoor flower show in the world. It's also the home of world-class gardens like Longwood and Chanticleer. Ann got the gardening bug when we moved to Philadelphia 15 years ago, and has invested a lot of time, effort and ingenuity into creating a pretty nice little garden for us. The folks at the Garden Club of America asked if they could photograph her garden for inclusion in the Archive of American Gardens, part of the Smithsonian Institution's Horticulture Services Division (those guys have some pretty cool gardens under their purview, too). When it came time to make the submission, we figured our garden needed a name. We decided to call it La Colline, for three reasons: we live on Chestnut Hill ("colline"), our home has a French Colonial aspect, and this was also the name of one of the most popular restaurants on Capitol Hill in our days in D.C. So La Colline is how one of 6,350 gardens included in the Archive, available for "scholarly and educational purposes as well as... design inspiration." At this writing, it doesn't appear that our photos are live on their website (though we have received their lovely "Certificate of Appreciation"), but when they're up, I'll link to them. Meanwhile, if you're in the Philadelphia area, you can look for a small feature on La Colline in Philadelphia Home Magazine this spring (they found us, too... our garden is not-so-secret).

Music I'm Enjoying Now 1

Whenever possible, I like to find time for music in my day. On occasion, I'll write a few lines about some of the music that's engaging me. No negative reviews -- I'm only going to write about "music I'm enjoying now."

Very Best of Naxos Early Music: A free download from Amazon! A dozen ethereal tracks by Hildegard von Bingen, Orlande De Lassus, and others, performed by Naxos artists. Naxos seems to be one of a very few classical record labels that have figured out how to sustain a strong business in a weakening recorded music economy. They deserve your support.

The Construction of Boston: Ann gave me this new live recording of Scott Wheeler's first one-act opera dating from 1989 as part of my Christmas CD extravaganza. It's on Naxos. I was delighted to discover that Wheeler has been an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where our son Jack is a senior, and music director for dozens of Emerson Stage productions. His work bring to mind Adam Goettel (Floyd Collins, Light in the Piazza, Myths and Hymns).

Ayombe!: The Heart of Colombia's Música Vallenata
!Ayombe! The Heart of Colombia's Musica Vallenata: A Smithsonian music sampler that you can dance to. Think of this as the Colombian version of the Buena Vista Social Club -- but even better because the centerpiece is... accordions! :-) Several styles including paseo, merengue and son, with distinctive percussion. A couple at tracks are at incredibly fast tempos -- but most of the 15 songs are bright and jovial.

North Texas Jazz: Ann took her undergraduate degree at North Texas State College, now the University of North Texas, in Denton. While Austin is the place that usually comes to mind when you say "music" and "Texas," the University of North Texas in Denton has trained dozens of renowned jazz performers, including Lyle Mays (piano, The Pat Metheny Group), Lou Marini (sax, The Blues Brothers), Adolfo Acosta (Tower of Power), Marc Johnson (ECM bassist), Herb Ellis (Verve guitarist), and dozens of others. For a great sampler, try North Texas Jazz: Fifty Years, a four-CD compilation mostly featuring performances by the One O'Clock Lab Band (so named because it features the most accomplished big band players whose class meets at 1 p.m. - less accomplished or up-and-coming performers are in the Two O'Clock and later bands).

A Movie Liker's Guide to the Oscars

I as a music lover (you couldn't tell?). I am a movie liker. I might watch 30-40 a year, mostly on VOD or DVD, and maybe a half-dozen in the theater. I don't put a lot of stock in the Oscars, but since that particular set of award nominations does help to focus the mind, I'll use it as a jumping-off point for my views - not my "picks," my views.

Best Picture of 2008 has to be Slumdog Millionaire. It was one of the most original, creative and energizing things I've seen on screen in a long time. Superior cinematography, sharp and edgy direction and editing, and a knockout score that will bring overdue attention to A.R. Rahman and ultimately to other Bollywood composers. I found the story a little too contrived, but that didn't get in the way of what I considered to be the best movie experience of the past year.

As for Milk - superior performances by Sean Penn and Josh Brolin, but this was a by-the-numbers bioflick that, had I not known the story (which is quite moving), probably wouldn't have grabbed me. As for the performances, I felt Penn's pain, but I felt Brolin's, too, as a working-class Irish-Catholic pol who just didn't know how to handle change. Between this film and No Country for Old Men, I think Brolin has put some of the best work up on the screen in the last two years. Brolin is nominated in the same Supporting Actor category with at least two extraordinary performances - Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight, and, in one of the bravest and funniest performances I've seen in a long time, Robert Downey, Jr. in Tropic Thunder - a movie I wanted to hate but couldn't. (Come to think of it, Downey has put up two of the best performances of the last two years, too - he was great in Iron Man, which had me right up to the final fight scene that looked like a parody of the dumbest action picture ever).

I hope to see Frost/Nixon next week. I will wait for Benjamin Button and The Reader on VOD. Having not yet seen those three, I will still puzzle over why The Dark Knight and WALL-E didn't get Best Picture nominations. WALL-E deserves to walk away with Best Animated Feature. I'm surprised that The Wrestler was passed over - that's on my VOD list, too.

We'll probably hear a lot of lamenting that this was not a great year for the movies. That's OK - the year gave us 30 Rock, The Office, Mad Men, and Flight of the Conchords on cable and broadcast, which was plenty to keep me entertained when I wasn't watching UConn basketball.

Inaugural Recap

With wind chills on Capitol Hill in the teens, it wasn't easy to peck out a post on my Blackberry this morning, so here's a catch-up. The event has been reported to a fare-thee-well, so just a few personal observations onsite.

The lines to enter the Capitol grounds moved along well despite a lack of official or volunteer marshals. Once inside security, as we walked to our seats, the air bore the slighty sweet, slightly manure-like smell of wood chips underfoot.

Under a dappled blue/grey sky, with a mass of humanity behind us as far as the eye can see, the voice of God announced, "The President-Elect of the United States, Barack H. Obama." As he strode through the portal and shook the hands of dignitaries on the way to his seat, the crowd erupted in chants of "Obama, Obama."

It was a bit distressing - but, with such an immense crowd, not surprising - that the introduction of the outgoing President drew a few boos and a few round of "Na Na, Hey Hey, Goodbye."

During Rick Warren's invocation and other speeches, someone standing in one of the palladian windows behind the podium kept wiping off condensation so that those tucked in a warm room behind the podium could have a good look.

The music: Aretha Franklin sang "America" (introduced by Senator Feinstein as "My Country 'Tis of Thee"). She couldn't hit the high notes of "let freedom ring" and she's lost a lot of vocal strength, but she beautifully occupied the role of icon. The "Air" by John Williams, based on an Aaron Copland theme and performed by a quartet that included Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman, was the single most moving element of the entire ceremony.

Our first impression of the President's inaugural address was "good.". You can only write your Ninth Symphony once, and expectations were high. But Obama plainly wanted to move on from the platitudinous to the practical, immediately reminding us of the hard slog ahead as we look to restore our economy, calling for seriousness and unity of purpose, speaking of peace and war with compassion and strength - and setting the table for what promises to be a busy and challenging agenda.

After his remarks, thousands of us began a show shuffle away from the seating area, mayors and campaign donors and a lot of just plain folks. As we left the secure zone, several guys with paper money in their hands were offering "$20 for your Obama stub" - next stop, eBay. We saw that the streets approaching Capitol Hill were almost covered with shredded newspapers - and it dawned on us that Obama fans who had arrived in the middle of the night had stuffed these in their clothing to keep warm.

We then dropped by a couple of receptions along the Inaugural parade route. At our second stop, a law firm office on the top floor of the Market Square building at 7th and Pennsylvania, we watched as the First Couple stepped out of their tank-like limousine to walk the rest of the parade group, thrilling the spectators.

We continued our long, happy, exhausted walk back to our hotel, looked at each other, and decided to pass on a third night of partying. We'll satisfy ourselves watching ball coverage on CNN. David Gergen just made a statement that sums up our sentiments: "People wait hours to get into these things - and then they're standing there and they ask themselves, 'what the hell are we doing here'?"

The Inauguration was a wonderful day that showed off America at its best. Let's pray that this sense of unity continues. It's essential to the revival of our economy, our global standing and our greatness as a nation.

Obama's Most Quoted Line: Lyrics by Dorothy Fields

Obama called up several great quotes - from the Bible, George Washington, and others - but would be cool to know whether a President has ever before quoted a lyric from a Hollywood musical in his acceptance speech. "Pick Yourself Up" was a Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers song in the 1936 movie "Swing Time" -- lyrics by Dorothy Fields, music by Jerome Kern.

Inauguration Day: Off to the Capitol

Roger Simon write on Politico this morning: "I have never seen so much hope, so much optimism and so much sheer joy as in Washington this week."

That captures it. The street scene is like an Istanbul bazaar - hordes of people, everyone well-behaved, striding by retail encampments offering street food (Shep's Chicago Polish sausages look awfully good for breakfast), memorabilia (looks like someone emptied every Washington Post box the morning after Election Day and slipped copies of the paper into glassine sleeves for sale today), tees, totes, red, white and blue boas, and on an on - an unfathomable variety of... stuff.

We decided not to beat the rush, but to take a more Zen approach. We're cabbing to Union Station to our designated security entrance - and making very good time, all things considered.

More from on-site.

No Longer Live from the HuffPost Gala

An after-party wrap-up from the very welcome warmth of our room:

*Ann could not resist marching up to Larry David and Christopher Guest, declaring herself to be their biggest fan, and shaking their hands. In return, they simply muttered "thank you." Disappointing. We were actually hoping for Emmys tickets.

*Kudos to the DJ who got a great techno groove going under Barack's "red states/white states" speech from the 2004 Democratic Convention, and who mixed samples from Michael Jackson's "Billy Jean" with MLK's "I Have A Dream" speech. Made the interminable wait for the live performances more pleasant.

*Additional celebrity spottings: Jesse Jackson, Eric Schmidt of Google, Sen. Frank Lautenberg, Jonathan Alter of Newsweek, Forrest Whitaker, and David Gregory of NBC. Reportedly on the scene but not seen by us: Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, and Robert DeNiro.

*Also spotted: the marvelous actress Glenn Close, who a dozen years ago sat in the front row of the Big Apple Circus on the afternoon when I was the audience member chosen to perform the Lucy-and-Harpo skit in the center ring with Bello the Clown. I thought I had greatly impressed her with my comic timing, but she never called. Too bad, Glenn, we could've torn up the screen together.

* My biggest disappointment: didn't see Kareem, whom I'm told had RSVPed.

*As we walked out into the very cold night, people was buzzing about alternatives to getting up at 6am on Inauguration Day and walking miles to Capitol Hill to stand around until the 11:30am swearing-in ceremony begins. Let's see what the morning brings.

Live from the HuffPost Gala

The press and blogosphere said that THE "celebrity-watching" event of the Inaugural would be the Huffington Post "Countdown to Change" at the incredible new Newseum on Pennsylvania Avenue, and I'd say they had it right.

We got into the "VIP line" around 9pm, just in time to see VVIP Larry David whoosh by (with, I believe, Ari Emanuel hanging on his shoulders), carrying bags of cashews.

We headed right to the main floor and the lip of the stage (same strategy we used for the '92 MTV Ball). Pretty amazing celebrity parade in just the first half-hour: Jamie Lee Curtis and the brilliant comedy director Christopher Guest, Sting and Will.I.Am (who are to perform tonight), telejournalists Gloria Borger and Bob Franken, Sharon Stone (interviewed by comedian/actor/telejournalist D.L. Hughley), Sen. Chris Dodd, Senator-to-be Ben Affleck, Wanda Sykes, Steve Case, and the inimitable Don King wearing a one-of-a-kind denim-and-spangles jacket celebrating "The United States of America."

We're anchored about 15 feet from the livebloggers who also seem to be trained celeb-spotters. I'll take them at their word (it's on the big screens here, so it must be true) that they've eyed Ricky Schroeder, Val Kilmer, Tina Brown, and Mayors Gavin Newsom and Cory Booker, among others. One of them just blogged, "Hey, famous people, please come closer," so I guess I need to move in their direction after I finish my post.

A nice fellow standing in front of the livebloggers just handed me a copy of "The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging." I can take a hint. I'll read it next weekend and become a real blogger.

OK, guys, bring on Sting!

C-SPAN Turns 30

With all the talk about how the Obama campaign helped to promote "digital democracy" in America, it's important to remember which network was the first to bring the everyday workings of our federal government into our living rooms and offices: C-SPAN.

Ann and I had a chance to catch up with friends at C-SPAN at their studios this morning. We were reminded just how groundbreaking C-SPAN was, and how many conventions of cable news coverage that we now take for granted actually originated with C-SPAN: taking viewer calls during shows, using close-ups of highlighted newspaper stories to help summarize the issues of the day, bringing cameras into radio station studios, real-time coverage not just of floor proceedings but also committee hearings, extending free access to these proceedings to the Internet, etc. And C-SPAN's hallmark is its objectivity - no other media outlet is so committed to let the facts speak for themselves and let the viewer decide.

Because C-SPAN largely refuses to toot its own horn, its contributions to digital democracy are either overlooked or taken for granted. With tomorrow's Inaugural, this is a good time to take a fresh look at all the ways C-SPAN is putting people in touch with government. As we celebrate a peaceful, democratic change of leadership, C-SPAN is another bit of democracy worth celebrating.

How to Pack for Barack

*Boarding the "Regional" shortly from 30th Street Station, where the President-Elect began his whistle-stop journey to DC yesterday. Remember when every train route had its own romantic name? I still see the "Keystone" and the "Carolinian" and a few others on the train information board from time to time, but you'd think they could give a cooler name than "Regional" to a train running from Boston to Newport News. "Yankee/Dixie Express"? "The Snowbird"? "Harvard to Hampton"? Brand ideas welcome at www.amtrak.com.

*Not quite sure how to pack to be ready for our trek to the swearing-in ceremony on Tuesday morning. We've been advised to be at security gates as early as 6am for entry to the very large restricted zone, and we expect to walk a mile or more to the East Front of the Capitol. So I decided to take no chances on the weather - dug out my old Patagonia capilenes (do they still make that stuff?) for extra warmth, and brought along my black Stetson (a gift from our corporate retreat last year) just in case. When the cameras pan the crowd, the tall dude in the cowboy hat will likely be me - or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who will also be in town.

*I see the HuffingtonPost folks have teased the guest list for their Monday night "countdown to change" party to The New York Times, which reports that Sting and Will.I.Am will perform and that Halle Berry, Tom Hanks, George Soros and George Stephanopolous are among those expected to attend. I got a peek at the list myself, and I can tell you that what the Times ran is the barest tip of the iceberg - they're expecting more athletes, Hollywood stars and moguls, musicians and entertainers, writers and bloggers, and other Very Interesting People than you can imagine in one place. Hope to have a little time to blog from onsite.

DVR Alert: Flight of the Conchords Returns on HBO

What a great day it would be to stay home and watch HBO (but instead we're boarding Amtrak to the Inaugural). At 2:30 ET, the "We Are One" concert will feature Bono, Beyonce, and the Boss - along with Stevie Wonder, Will.I.Am, Herbie Hancock, James Taylor, Shakira and many more. Most every cable operator in the country will be carrying HBO "in the clear" so everyone with cable can enjoy this concert, whether they subscribe to HBO or not.

Now here's one of the (IMHO, many) reasons to subscribe to HBO: Flight of the Conchords, the spectacularly silly musical-comedy sitcom, returns tonight at 10:00 ET.

"Flight of the Conchords" is the name of the "band" consisting of these two New Zealand comedians (Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie, who his fellow New Zealanders on the show always call "Britt"). We first saw them do their funny folk-rock schtick at the late, lamented U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen about four years ago, where festival sponsor HBO showcased them. (So I guess we can say we "discovered" them in Aspen, much as we "discovered" Barack Obama along with 40,000 other conventioneers when he addressed the Democratic convention in Boston in 2004).

In the series, the Conchords have moved to New York to pursue stardom. The plots? Well, if Seinfeld was about "nothing," Conchords is about absolute zero. Deadpan and clueless, Jemaine and Bret try to cope with agents, groupies (well, one groupie, which is all they can seem to attract), a mistaken case of anti-Australianism, and other plot contrivances that can usually be summarized in four or five words (as I just did). Every episode includes at least one song that may or may not advance the storyline, but it's almost guaranteed to be charming, melodic and amusing in its wordplay. Great supporting cast, too, including (in season one) several appearances by one of my favorite Broadway musical comediennes, Sutton Foster.

I caught the first episode of season two on Fancast (shameless plug for employer). Sample it now.

Stone Beautiful

A large percentage of the village of Chestnut Hill (our neighborhood in the city of Philadelphia) is built of stone -- Wissahickon schist, to be precise, with flecks of mica that led to it commonly being called "silverstone." Much of the stone was quarried in the immediate vicinity (some quarries are still active), and chunks of schist are periodically burped up out of the earth. Working in stone requires special skill and a special eye. The number of qualified stoneworkers in the world tallies in the dozens. One of them is a man to whom we were led by word of mouth when we moved to Philadelphia: Martin Smith, whose handiwork has earned him a well-deserved profile in the Philadelphia Inquirer. We are the proud owners of a small Martin Smith wall and other projects. You can see more of his work here.

My First Time

Although I've made a career in and around the political process, I've never felt compelled to attend a Presidential swearing-in. In fact, my only inaugural moment until now was attending the MTV Ball celebrating Bill Clinton in 1992. We stood at the lip of the stage all night to enjoy Michael Stipe, Natalie Merchant, En Vogue (trivia question - who were they?), and an appearance by the First Saxophonist. Why go anywhere else? Best moment was coming face-to-face with ABC news anchor Peter Jennings garbed in what I could only guess was a Canadian admiral's uniform, replete with braids and epaulets.

Well, this time it's different. Ann and I will head from Philadelphia to D.C. on Sunday afternoon (presciently, I had rescheduled my trip from Saturday, which turns out to be the day when the President-Elect will board Amtrak in Philly for a symbolic ride to the Capital). Talk about a mix of anticipation and apprehension - we expect huge crowds, impassable streets, who-knows-what weather... and a deep gulp of history that we'll be proud to be part of.

We will blog our adventures on my trusty Blackberry. Next report on Sunday.

Standing Tall

We just returned from a nice break for a family Christmas in Cowtown (Ft. Worth, TX). I got to ride both ways in yet another too-small airplane - on this occasion, an Embraer courtesy of US Airways, who seems to believe that these little crackerboxes whose aisleways and restrooms can barely accommodate someone who's six feet tall are quite adequate for a 3 1/2 hour flight.

I hate to end this rather painful year on a grumbling note, but as 2008 gives way to a new one with new possibilities, I think it's time to rise up to my full height (6'6") and talk down to some of those who have made being tall a real pain - and salute those who have rejected "heightism" and made life just a little bit better for big guys.

Thumbs-down to every airline that won't take an extra step to accommodate a tall person in an appropriate seat. Thumbs-up to the occasional savior at the gate who takes pity on the tall person with a quickie seat reassignment.

Thumbs-down to the sadistic interior designer who spent the '80s and '90s in the Marriott organization designing utility soffits that hang over the bathroom sink at forehead level. (Brush, lean, spit, indent scalp.). Thumbs-up to those few hotels I've found that offer California king beds.

Thumbs-down to SUV designers who think that loading up a bloated center console with buttons, screens and features is more important than creating legroom for the driver whose sole reason for buying the big rig is to be able to push the gas and brake pedals without having his knees in his chest. Thumbs-up to the designers of my 2004 Acura MDX who got it right - I may need to drive that vehicle forever.

Thumbs-down to the taxicab sedans in Boston, Philadelphia, and other cities whose driver security panels seem to be made of battleship steel, giving me nowhere to put my legs, let alone trying to turn my feet around. Thumbs-up to the occasional taxi driver who comes along in a minivan, SUV or Lincoln sedan - may their numbers increase (and their gas mileage improve).

Thumbs-down to hotels and restaurants who equip their conference and dining facilities with low, rigid chairs with backs that hit me in the ribs. Thumbs-up to the growing trend in restaurants to make bar-height seating (with nice tall stools that frequently have backs) one of the dining room options. And thumbs-up to the Herman Miller salespeople who manage to talk some of the best hoteliers into equipping their conference rooms with Aeron chairs.

America is growing taller. Let's hope that in 2009, American seating, bedding, and shower heights grow with it. Happy new year.