Bits and Pieces

Davé
Originally uploaded by gwdexter.

A few things:

First, I only took three pictures in France. A picture of the Massenet memorial, which didn't really come out, a picture of the Cop Copine store in Châtelet, which is intended only for a few musicologists, and this one. It turns out Davé, the hippest bad chinese restaurant in Paris, is surpisingly close to the the old National Library on the Rue Richelieu, where the manuscripts are. Readers of the New Yorker will know why this is big deal. While many magazine articles in several languaged are posted in the window, the New Yorker piece (in which the chef is pointly accused of not caring about the food at all) is conspicuously absent.

I forgot to mention that I ran into a certain Berkeley professor on sabbatical in the music reading room of the BN. Let call him... um... Professor WorstTeacherEver. He bought me lunch—he really is a really, really nice guy. He told me that he's recently made a rather shocking musicologal discovery involving a 40-voice mass. Is this common knowledge around the department?

I meant to mention: the uniforms of the Eurostar staff are so awesome. I can't find any picture on the web, but take my word for it.

The williams.edu email address is officially dead dead dead. This makes me very sad. I could bitch but I won't. Send all mail to berkeley.edu.

I have a deadline for the next chapter: a real draft to The Advisoress by Friday April 22. Hold me to this, friends. It's time to get serious about a lot of things...

It's what ya call growing up

So, what's the best way to feel better about living in a place where you feel out-of-place and foreign? Why, go to a place where you feel ever more out of place and foreign, of course! Seriously, I arrived back in London yesterday, and suddenly everything felt... familiar. Comfortable, even. I realized this with a shock.

Here's the thing: you'd think that with a childhood like mine, in which I changed schools every two years, I would feel very comfortable in unfamiliar situations, right? Well, to a certain extent this is very true—some of you know the story about my adviser saying to me, before a particularly tense dinner with famous musicologists that hated each other: "Oh Greg, you can talk to anyone..." I concede this, and I'm in fact proud of how I can ingratiate myself into so many different, seemingly incompatible circles of friends.

But from a different angle, this same ability to fit into different social situations become a rather self-defeating need to fit in. Thus I was miserable when I first got here, not just because I was homesick and all that, but also because my rather deep-seated psychological mechanisms to fit in would never work—I would always be "an American." As some of you will remember, the situation was the same in France a year ago, but ten times worse. (At least in the UK I didn't stop eating because I was too afraid to go to the grocery store...) When even a little piece of my self-presentation is taken out of my control, I think, because of my peripatetic childhood, it is more upsetting to me than to most other people. (This may also be a gay thing. Aren't there those who say that homos are over-represented in careers focusing on surface and appearance because little gay boys were forced to police their own self presentation to a greater degree than little straight boys?) Does all this sound like just a rationalization for the fact that I'm just insecure? Well, perhaps, although I normally don't think of myself as a particularly insecure person.

The point that this is all leading up to is: I'm getting better. I was actually quite comfortable in France, although god knows my French isn't much better than it used to be. I'm just learning to relax, to just accept that there will be situation where you won't fit, and that's okay. I probably should have figured this out years ago, but, particularly in San Francisco, there was never any need to, y'know? Those comments I got from a lot of people about this trip to the UK being good for me, which I always rejected in my head, might be turning out to be right, although perhaps not exactly in they way they were intended.

This whole issue was driven home by a brief email exchange with a figure from my past. Out of the blue I receive an email from a particular ex-Berkeley ex-colleague, whom some of you will remember all too well. You know, the one with the excellent German pronunciation. Let's call her "Fräulein Glockenspiel." So, while I'm in Paris, she emails me out of the blue, asking what I'm up to, and tells me that she's living in Paris for the year. "Hey," I reply, "I'm in Paris right now!" We tried to have lunch on Easter, but I lost her number. Anyway, in the email she summed up her Paris experience by saying (I paraphrase): "I find it really annoying that whenever I talk to someone I say pouvez-vous parler plus lentement s'il vous plaît, and then instead of repeating themselves more slowly like I asked, they just switch to English! Can you believe it!?"

Yes, Fräulein, I can believe it, and if you took a half a minute to put yourself in their shoes you would believe it too. This, I submit, is an example of my mirror image, a person with no concept of their own self-presentation whatsoever. (Berkeley people will recall that Fräulein Glockenspiel's experience in the UCB Music Department confirms this impression.) It was only when she said this that I consciously realized: I would never dream of asking someone to speak more slowly! It would be all but yelling out loud, "I am an outsider!" Rather, when I don't understand something in French, I simply spit out pardon? or quoi? and make a facial expression that, ever so subtly, implies that it is their fault that I didn't understand them, rather than my own. Works every time.

By the way, did I mention that the bibliothecaire who did my entrance interview for the BN assumed I was British? Also, when I went to the opera I was seated next to a rich old lady who couldn't tell I was American from my accent either. (When I told this story to P—'s flatmate, she commented, "it much have been rich, deaf, old lady..." but I choose to ignore this.) So, oddly, it is just when I relax into my role as a foreigner that my foreignness become less pronounced! Who'da thought!

There is much to report from my last few days in Paris, but it will remain mostly unblogged, I'm afraid. The opera (Prokofiev's War and Peace, in the Zambello production that some UCB folk will remember from her residency) was fantastic. It is a massive work, and I think there's something to be written about how the love scenes are so much less emotionally affecting than the patriotic scenes—I only really wept during the Act I "epilogue" chorus, and the amazing moment when general Kutuzov, having made the dreadful decision to sacrifice the capital in order to save the army, sings "Moscow! Mother of the cities of Russia! You fade before our eyes!" My friend the Spaniard would say, in his delightfully unidiomatic English, "I cried all my tears..." (By the way, are these moments tainted by Stalin? Discuss.)

Work went very well, I met P—'s new boyfriend, I got kicked out of A—'s apartment after an unexpected visitor arrived, I didn't meet up with Fräulein, I spent some time in the Grands Magasins (comme l'habitude), I saw La Vie Aquatique (thankfully subtitled, not dubbed) and really enjoyed it. More soon.

Stanley Sadie

Am I the last to hear the news that Stanley Sadie died on Monday? This is very sad. If I were living in San Francisco, I would SO be throwing a "Stanley Sadie" memorial party, where we all go around the room reading out our favorite passages from the New Grove. I call dibs on "Mode"...

[For those for whom this is meaningless, Sadie edited the massive New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, the standard musical reference work that quite literally changed musicology forever.]

Perhaps I could make it a "Stanley Sadie Hawkins" party, where the girls would have to ask the boys to read from the New Grove.

It was rainy in Paris today, but still nice.

A Nice Day

I went in early to the library, and looked at more letters, fruitlessly. I finished around 1 pm, and I was going to go across the street to Music Department to look at some scores. But then I said to myself, "it sure is a nice day," and I went walking in the Jardins de Luxembourg instead. The chestnut trees were not, as it happened, in bloom, but they were sprouting leaves, and the weather really was beautiful.

While I was there I saw a tee shirt that amused me. Imagine a picture of a maple leaf, then below it the words "LEGALIZE CANADA." (This is funnier in a place where the word "cannabis" is used more colloquially.)

Paris is not that bad

So, a year ago everyone in Paris was really mean and everything was a big trial, but in the intervening year, all the Parisians have become much nicer, and the whole city has become easier to negotiate!

Oh I'm just kidding! It's me that's changed, silly! Also it is springtime, rather than oppressive winter, and I'm sleeping in a charming apartment in the 10th arrondissement, rather than in a vermin-infested flophouse in the filthy ghetto-suburbs. It's the little things that make the difference, really.

And the library work is going really well, too. The entrance interview which was such a trial last time, was a breeze. And my interviewer thought I was British, which I consider an odd sort of triumph. But the big news happened in the Manuscript Department.

Some of you may remember that I wanted to go through the massive collection of correspondence belonging to Félix-Hippolyte Larrey, since my beloved Garcia cites him as a friend in a letter. So I get the letters, and there's no index, or even a table of contents, just a big jumble of about 900 letters of different sizes and colors all bound together into this one big messy volume. To find any Garcia letters, I thought I would have to just trudge through the whole thing. So I start at the beginning, and just when I realize that the letters are in fact, roughly organized alphabetically by author, a name caught my eye: Bennati. For those of you who don't know, Bennati is this totally different doctor who I am very interested in for totally different reasons. The feeling was a lot like that one time Katie took me to a party with her friends in the Mission, and I ran into this girl I went to college with. I'm all like, "What are you doing here?!"

More than his mere presence in the collection, the letter was very, very intimate. Bennati was writing to Larrey while the latter was in Flanders with the Army perfecting his battlefield amputation skills. Bennati reports that he was visiting Larrey's mother often, that his sister was doing well, that when he visits they talk constantly about "notre excellent Hippolyte." He signs the letter "a thousand kisses, and then a thousand more from your good mother -Bennati." (Also, for my purposes, the fact the Bennati provides him with a fairly detailed sketch of the recent goings-on at the Théâtre-Italien is more than a little useful...)

Remember when I wrote in these pages about the seductiveness of manuscript sources? This was the same feeling, but ten times more powerful than the Minute Books I was working with then. I mean, it's like: the letter is dated 21 October, and he says that he thinks his chances in the Montyon competition are pretty good, but he hasn't heard yet. Well, I know, from the Académie des Sciences records, that his was going to win, and that the award would be announced just ten days later, on 2 November. I want to shout back at him—don't worry! Be patient! And of course I also want to shout back at him about his early death—he's dead less than two years after writing the letter. You might want to avoid the Boulevard de Gand, monsieur...

There were no Garcia letters at all. But frankly this might be more interesting.

Safe and Sound in France

The Eurostar was really lovely—worth every penny, I say. I'm not exactly sure how much less expensive EasyJet would have been, once you factor in the not-negligible cost of getting to and from the distant airports. Less expensive, perhaps half as expensive, but still...

I assume the following doesn't happen every time, but it made my day: My train left at noon, and after half an hour or so, I decided to go buy a sandwich in the snack bar. When I got there, the snack bar employee was happily giving out free glasses of champagne to everyone. Free glasses of champagne. Including kids who, in my world, would be called "underage." He said it was his birthday, but he said it in such a way that it may have been a joke. In any case, I got free champagne on the Eurostar. It was awesome.

A—'s apartment (obviously) has an internet connection, and a comfortable bed. He left for Barcelona about two hours after I arrived. I had dinner with P— last night, who's doing rather well, but still pessimistic about the future of German Studies in France. "But what about, y'know, the whole Europe thing..." I queried. "Exactly..." he replied in his oddly British-inflected Franco-German accent.

The library is closed until 2 pm every Monday (I dare you to ask to me to explain why), so I think I may go and, I dunno, walk along the Seine or some shit. Perhaps the chestnut trees are in bloom. It is officially spring today, after all.

Let's Go! Paris

So I'm leaving for Paris in 10 hours, which means I'm leaving the house in about seven hours, which means I'm way screwed since I'm neither packed nor have I typed up the list of things I want to consult in the BN, which I wanted to do before I left since there's no guarantee that there will be a printer that I can use in A—'s apartment. I also haven't done the final round of changes for the Andriessen review, which I said I would send off before I left, and so I'm just going to have to hope and pray I can find free wireless somewhere to send it off while I'm there. It's the kind of thing A— would have, but I don't want to get my hopes up...

Why am I so behind? And why am I typing this instead of packing? Because I'm some sort of lazy lout, I suppose. But also because I've been hanging out with rock stars. (Notwithstanding my friend who once said to me "Drew and Martin aren't rock stars! They're... laptop stars." You know who you are.) Yes, Matmos are in town, and J— and I went out drinking with them Thursday, St Patrick's Day. Their show tonight, despite massive technical difficulties, was quite good. The venue for some inscrutable reason decided to have the two opening acts play simultaneously, in different rooms. We didn't see the xeroxed signs that announced this, and so I missed Charlemagne Palestine altogether, which is irritating. He was mentioned in passing during my orals.

Regietheather is Over. No, Really, It's Over.

I don't think the estimable J— will mind me posting this email of his here, unless it was destined for Van Twee's inchoate blog. But really, you all have to see this.

Scroll to the bottom of this page and watch the video. Do it even it you don't speak German, although it's even funnier and more pathetic if you do. Seriously, watch it right now.

My one comment: Okay, I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that Planet of the Apes was an allegory against racism—how is it that the imagery can be coöpted for an exercise that is... um, er... undisguisedly racist? Okay, well, slightly-disguisedly. But still...

[PS. Cambridge talk was good, I wore the grey. Paris crisis averted. More soon.]

T minus 5 hours

Everything's set for the Cambridge talk, except I should read through the damn thing one more time, and I haven't decided what to wear. (Black corduroy suit? Grey wool suit? Jaunty green blazer over khakis?) The talk has been cut down to 7600 words—does that sound about right? Also, although I still think I'm actually not that stressed about this, my oral herpes outbreak would seem to suggest otherwise. But R— M— is coming, which is very comforting, and he's bringing a new lady-friend.(!!!)

In other news, have I mentioned that I'm going to Paris in four days? And yet, I have no place to stay. I mean, both my Paris friends agreed in principal to letting me stay with them, but neither are answering my emails, in which I try not to sound to frantic, even though I'm slightly terrified at this point, since my ticket is non-refundable. I'm sure they're just... um... busy. And I really, really cannot afford a hotel at the moment, thanks to my lovely quarterly paychecks.

If anyone knows anyone in Paris, let me know.

Also, remember that AMS travel grant I won? Why haven't I seen a penny of that money? I swear, life is tough.

God things, bad things

I have approximately 30 hours to go before I give my colloquium at Cambridge, and the talk is not, exactly, "ready." So this will be brief. Sunday was lovely. The housemates all had roast meat, roast vegetables, and Yorkshire pudding all swimming in gravy in big bowls. Then we watched the rugby (and they always say "the rugby") in an Australian-themed chain bar. The crowd got rowdy; Wales did very well.

Then a quick errand in Camden, and I was about to go home to work on the talk. But I thought I'd call the housemates and see if they were still out. Of course they were, and four bars later I stumbled home. Actually, I got to sleep early, well before midnight.

There is some good news: the Turkish tailor came through for me in spades, completing a quite elaborate crotch patch. And my anti-corporate sneakers came in the mail. They have a situationist maxim stitched into the insole.

Too Much Theater (er, "Theatre")

Hey did you all know that Schiller died in 1805? Why did I think that Don Carlos was, like, well post-French revolution at least? Okay I guess we all know the answer to that: Verdi—particularly since Don Carlos seems to fit so squarly into what I've always understood as Verdi's post-1848 framework, of Realpolitik and compromise. Why was Schiller writing a post 1848 play in 1784? (That's a joke.)

Anyway, Don Carlos was way good. Great performances all around. Unfortuately, I read in the program book (which cast £3, since you never get a program for free in this country even though the programs are still filled with diamond ads you cheap bastards) that in the orginal mounting of this production the role of Elisabeth de Valois taken by Laura Linney, and now I'm obsessed with how much better that production would have been, both because Laura Linney effortlessly communicates that mixture of imperiousness and woundedness that characterizes Elisabeth, and also because an American accent would have nicely communicated her cultural difference as the free-spirited Frenchwoman in the oppressive Spanish court.

The other thing about seeing Don Carlos for me (and for my companion at the performance, the musicologically-inclined Spaniard), was, of course, the distance between the play and the opera. These went far beyond the standard "there are more characters and subplots in the play" observation, although one plot detail, that the Grand Inquisitor had tortured the Queen's page, filled the nagging plot hole—how does Philip know where to find Carlos and Elisabeth in the last scene? I was more interested in the lack of a big public spectacle scene in the play. Even though such a scene is a conventional requirement, and even though the presence of those dumb Flemish ambassadors never really makes sense, that one big public scene serves to really "open up" the whole drama, providing a hint of the social world outside the Escorial that is only referred to in the play, which dwells entirely inside oppressive hallways and chambers.

The scene between Phillipe and Posa which ended the first half of the evening was fascinating for being basically point-for-point exactly the same in the opera, with all the twisting, flip-flopping power dynamic (that one moment where Phillipe, out of nowhere, says "what do you know of my son" was exactly as chilling when spoken). The big exception is the very last line "but beware of my inquisitor," the final flip-flop, which if I were staging the play I would just insert. There is a similar of uncanny correspondance situation late in the play, when Eboli confesses her misdeeds to the Queen, who first forgives everything, until Eboli discloses the king's infidelity, at which point the Queen kicks her out of the palace. Again the drama proceeds in the order I was familiar with. But in the opera, of course, as soon as Eboli is kicked out, she launches into "O don fatale," in which she curses her own beauty, which has brought her nothing but misery. In the play, she is kicked out... and the scene ends. Verdi and his librettists... they really knew what they were doing, y'know?

Anyway, it was good. And, I think, relevant in the way I expected it to be, especially when compared to the second play of the day. Yes, after seeing no West End theatRE for four months, I see two plays in one day. H—, whom I haven't seen in weeks, had suggested we do "something," a concert or performance or movie, when we arranged to meet up. When we actually did meet up, he surprised me with ticket to Festen, a play based on that actually-pretty-good-but-tainted-by-its association-with-other-Dogme-movies film, Celebration. It was good, and quite convincingly theatrical, but after Don Carlos, the whole thing seemed so... small. It was a small play. Lots of yelling, lots of rolling and the floor and running around, but no big ideas. No philosophy.

I'm not explaining this well. Festen was a good play. It also felt emotionally "true." I guess there what I'm reacting to was the lack of what we might call "the social," or perhaps "the polis." As big as the emotions in Festen got, they could ever only be as big as the oikos. Does that make sense? I guess if I actually followed this line of reasoning, I'd end up sounding like Tom Wolfe arguing for a retour à Zola. Well, I don't know...

Anyway, today I'm having brunch with the housemates, maybe watching rugby(?!). and running an errand in Camden market. And then, hopefully, practicing the Cambridge colloquium. Which I have not practiced. Because I am a lazy excuse for a musicologist.

Sinfonietta Insta-review

So, I just got home from the London Sinfonietta concert on the South Bank, and man was it good. Wait, actually that's not true. Actually the Michael Gordon/Bill Morrison collaboration Gotham was so, so good that it made up for an uninspiring and in fact someone dispiriting first half. I was warned in advance that the London Sinfonietta players think that they are, in a sense, too good for anything that seems minimalist -- and their reading of Reich's City Life confirmed this rumor. There is only one word for how they played the opening section—sloppy. It's not easy music; maybe it was just under-rehearsed. But there was no bite, no attack, and the interlocking entries are so exposed that the timidity was glaringly obvious. This despite the fact that they were one of the commissioning ensembles! (I exempt the percussionists from this accusation, by the way.) The new-ish piece by Mark Anthony Turnage was... well, it was good. It was fine. It was extremely well orchestrated. It was a kind of music that I used to like—the Young British Good-Orchestration School. Now, I'm sorry, it bores me. The piece was called Crying Out Loud—so, um, why did the whole thing seem so affectless? So lacking in either rigorous form or compelling content?

Gotham, however, was a different story. Man. Man oh man. Jesus. It was... I'm sorry to say it, but it was transcendent. One movement based entirely on scales, eternally climbing and falling in different temporal levels. Another movement based on angry repeated chords, and glissandi borrowed from Decasia. A last movement which begins with frantic figuration, which led me to fully expect the material to move in a direction toward frantic unison writing for the whole ensemble. Rather, the filigree multiplied itself, until the counterpoint was so rapid, and so dense, that it crossed an invisible line and ceased being heard as counterpoint at all, just one teeming mass of sound. The movement reached its punch-line when the material—which once seemed to move, but had finally achieved stasis—was itself manipulated as a now unitary object, turned on and off like a light switch. The whole work was so assured, so visceral, so clear in its small-scale gestures and large scale forms.

I should mention that I was blown away despite the fact that the film portion of the work was completely fucked up or invisible for most of the first movement, and we were seated directly in front of a speaker that had blown out and was making hideous crackling noises. If the piece had been anything less than enthralling, I would have been irritated beyond belief.

I should quickly mention my date for the evening, a fascinating graduate student in communications and media studies, who is also on the same fellowship as me. Let's call her J—. She grew up in rural Wisconsin, and is now writing a dissertation at McGill on information excess and digital waste. We've been meaning to hang out ever since meeting each other at that reception four months ago.

The best moment of the entire evening was toward the start, when we were having a glass of wine before the show began. "How's your work going?" I asked. "I've never been more unproductive in my life," she replied. I am not alone! This was validating, if not exactly comforting....

Tomorrow: Schiller! Derek Jacobi! Absolutely no Canzone del velo. Or is that Chanson de voile? Either way, it won't be there. Tant pis.

Apologies, Performances, and Trousers

I'm climbing out of the funk I've been in, slowly. I've even made some progress writing emails to people! Please note, however, that if I have not yet replied to an email of yours, this is in no way an indication that you are somehow lower down on my list of priorities to write to. I've just been writing to people who, if you can believe it, I've been out of contact with for even longer.

So, I finally have a big big deadline looming: the 45-minute colloquium I'm giving in Cambridge in exactly one week. Oddly, while in Seattle what I was most worried about was the Q&A, this time I'm not worried about that at all. I suppose I have fewer people to impress in the Cambridge audience. The biggest worry, is, I guess, that RP will realize how little work I've accomplished since I got here. Pathetic, really.

So what do I do now that I finally have something big and high-stakes to prepare for? Well, finally start going to plays and concerts, of course! Friday I have tickets for the London Sinfonietta, playing Michael Gordon's Gotham (probably won't be as good as Decasia, but that would be asking a lot), Mark-Anthony Turnage's Crying Out Loud (World premiere, I believe, and it's probably too much to hope for that it somehow involves the Peter Allen song), and finally Reich's City Life (Now!! With Extra Added Post-9/11 Resonance!!).

The next day I'm catching a matinee of Schiller's Don Carlos, starring Derek Jacobi, which I am approximately 90% sure I will enjoy less than the last time I saw Verdi's Don Carlos, but which I'm looking forward to nonetheless. The Schiller centenary or something is going on, so there's more Schiller drama available that one has any right to expect in any non-German-speaking country. I'm kicking myself for missing his Mary Stuart in one of the fringe theaters a few weekends ago. Although this is a little odd, I have a sense that the big big Romantic/historical epics by Schiller and Victor Hugo and, I dunno, Goethe and the like might be due for a revival. There's something about the seriousness and sweep that seems, I dunno, somehow right just now.

Soon the world will be ready for my long-fantasized staging of Hugo's Cromwell, performed uncut, with little physical movement, and very slow, uninflected line readings. Someday...

These are, in fact, the first instrumental music concert and the first spoken drama that I have seen in London (no, the organ recital does NOT count). Isn't that pathetic?

Some of you have been forced to hear me wax lyrical about the Marc Newsom for G-Star Raw collection. Well, I went and tried them on... and they are so beautiful. You may not be able to see in the pictures on the G-Star website that the white rubbery outlining of the back pocket elegantly flows into the hammer-loop, from which no hammer will ever hang. Details, darlings, details! Anyway, when I tried them on, I half expected to maybe splurge and pay something ridiculous for them. Only after I had put them on did I discover that they were not around £100, as I was casually expecting, but rather two hundred and forty-five pounds. That is, almost $500. That is, almost as much as a month's rent in my first apartment in Oakland. Then again, I suppose pants last a lot longer than a month. And these pants would bring me much more joy that 1849 6th Ave #4 ever did. And £245 is only about 2.5 weeks rent in my current situation.

Anyway, after trying on the Thing of Beauty by Marc Newsom, I took my favorite favorite jeans in the whole world to the Turkish tailor to get a rip in the crotch patched. Yes, again. (These are the pants that, last time I was paying to get them repaired, prompted the fashion-conscious A— to remark "why, exactly, are these jeans so great?") Dropping them off, the guy said "Do you want us to clean them, too? Because if they see them like this, they won't touch 'em."

Well, £8 and some humiliation is still cheaper than a new pair of jeans.

um... well...

Okay so I haven't posted in a while. This reflects the fact that I also haven't done any work in a while, I haven't responded to anyone's emails in a while, I haven't read anything except magazines recently, I haven't actually cooked for myself in a week, etc. In other news, I have been watching Grey Gardens over and over.

Okay this sounds worse than it is. I bought a chair on eBay! That's productive! My sister suggests I post pictures of my room—my big orange room. There's still no folding screen, but beyond that, it's in pretty good shape. I also should return in these pages to wacky observations about London, the British, and their quaint customs and mores. Oh... who can be bothered? [Little Edie voice:] "I think I have the saddest life..."

A Full Weekend

Lordy, but I've been busy. I've sent The BF out sightseeing by himself for the afternoon, so that I can write a review of the Zauberflöte that we saw on Saturday (writing the review being the condition of getting the free tickets and all). So I should be doing that rather than this, but it's been a while. There has been shopping, museums, heavy drinking, laughter, tears, etc. The BF: quite a guy.

In other news, Williams email has been hacked and is down... again. Why do I put up with this? The answer, of course, is that I just love reading email in pine. Pine! Is that such a sin? Why must I suffer so?

In the meanwhile, send email to the Berkeley address, k?