Today I learned that I actually really like Valentine's Day. Is that okay?

Favorites include:
2004: Performing Mozart's Requiem with Holden at ACDA*
2007: Beauty & The Geek party. And The Little Mermaid? Or was that '06?
2009: Gallo pinto in Cambridge UK
2010: 10-person dance party, and Disney 'n' pizza


*interestingly, only my third favorite Mozart's Requiem memory, following the (life-changing) first performance in December and the Eliot JCR singalong during comm choir '05.

Sitemeter is awesome

A recent visitor to this blog reached the page through the following Google search:

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Yeah, you read that right. Okay, fess up, who was it?

We have overcome.

I am not in DC for the inauguration. I am not in DC for the inauguration, because my ride left without me. My ride was with my parents. How's that for pathetic?

But I went to BAM's screening of the festivities and watched in a big happy crowd of semi-employed hipsters, complete with enthusiastic cheering at every mention of Bush leaving, and mass waving at the departing Marine helicopter. Buh bye!

Anyway, some thoughts about the inauguration. Predictably(?), they are almost all about the music.

• It's a little bit sad that John Williams is the closest thing we've got to a national composer.
• That being said, his Simple Gifts arrangement was 1) less annoying than Copland, and 2) significantly better than that of Aretha's song. Seriously, wtf was that? The hat made it okay, though.
• Hail to the Chief ain't got nothing on Domine Salvum Fac
• and relatedly, anyone else notice that inauguration is just Harvard commencement on steroids?
• OMG playing reed and brass instruments in 11 degree weather. Ow ow ow.
• The folk who own Yo Yo Ma's cello probably weren't too thrilled either...
• I have an entirely irrational love of Stars & Stripes Forever. I know, wtf right? But I hope that, somewhere, John Philip Sousa is happy that his tunes are still the default for anything patriotic and/or outdoors.

Joking aside, it's so rare that we have an opportunity to actually feel patriotism - and even rarer if you omit patriotic feelings inspired by by 1776 or an episode of West Wing. Today, when the CNN camera swooped past an old black woman holding a WE HAVE OVERCOME sign, I felt that shiver of glee that's usually reserved for fictional or historical politics.

Thank you, President Obama, for making it okay to like our country again.

To thy jubilee throng

Excerpted from a letter I wrote to Quentin this evening (so, Quentin, don't read this or I'll have wasted 32 cents. everyone else, go ahead):

As you probably gathered from the date line, it is the Sunday of Harvard-Yale weekend. I shall spare you the gory details of the concert and the Game, as by the time you read this you will probably have been filled in on the Wookie, the 703rd rendition of "If You Could Only See," and the thorough if wholly uninteresting trouncing of the sons of Eli by the Glee Club.

That sentence's syntax got away from me a bit there - the intent was that you had been updated by members of the Glee Club, not that the sons of Eli had been drubbed by the same. But if you would prefer to imagine the combined forces of the Glee Club storming the gridiron with crimson in triumph flashing, then I won't hold it against you.

Suffice it to say, at this weekend's tailgate I learned that contrary to popular wisdom, you will not become magically warm if you try to combat the freezing cold by getting drunk - you will just be freezing cold, and drunk. As both involve compromising the ability to feel your feet, it should come as no surprise that combining these states makes a most admirable and praiseworthy accomplishment out of the normally mundane task of remaining perpendicular to the ground. I am pleased to report that my tailgate was a success in this regard, barring an unfortunate twenty minutes spent in Gordon Track trying to make my toes wiggle through sheer force of will.

The weekend also served as a reminder of what exactly I enjoyed about college life. Not the crowded and sweaty parties that I no longer feel remotely obligated to pretend to like; nor the social events filled with old friends who I would love to talk to for hours but who, when in a parade of obligatory five-minute catchups, inspire attacks of my usually latent social anxiety; nor, shock of shocks, the football.

Rather, I was happiest this weekend sitting in a Leverett common room with a pair of RCSers and their blockmates, watching a movie, and each of us on a laptop or knitting or otherwise going about our business in each other's company. It's that sort of background socialization - having friends in the same room to comment at occasionally without necessarily having a full blown conversation - that was a constant element of my college days, and that is almost entirely absent from my life in New York.

In short - I miss my roommates.

Follow up: Errata

JK Rowling's 2008 Harvard Commencement speech - The Drinking Game

[repost from Facebook, back-dated accordingly]

JK Rowling’s Harvard Commencement Address
DRINKING GAME
June 6, 2008

By the 2008 Commencement Choir


Single drink for each mention, unless otherwise noted:

About herself
- being a single mother
- writing on napkins in coffeeshops
- if she wrote her speech on a napkin
- if she claims to have still been thinking about what to say in the speech last night
- if she got the idea in Drew Faust’s bed last night
- Talks about what inspired her
- Talks about her kids
- Quotes directly from her own writing
- Denigrates herself in comparison to the other people on stage
- Talks about her own college days
- Talks about her shiny new Hahvahd degree
- People lining up at midnight for books
- How long it took to get the books published
- Number of books sold
- Richest woman in the world
- Her earnings vs Harvard endowment
- If she stutters, Liz gives Harker a dollar
- If she drinks, waterfall

Harry Potter
- If she reads us an original story
- If that story is in the Harry Potter universe, squeal happily
- Actual new info about Potterverse, two drinks
- Uses phrase “Potterverse,” three drinks

Harvard vs. Hogwarts (drink in general, and one for each specific)
- Annenberg
- Houses
- Academic regalia
- Compares Faust to McGonagall
- Compares Voldemort to George Bush
- Compares Yale to Durmstrang
- Whomping willow
- Quidditch
- Sorting hat as metaphor for college admissions/life


General
- ___ is the real magic
- Drink at every pun
- Imagination
- Creativity
- getting kids to read
- God, or the lack thereof
- Puritans, witch-burning, Salem
- Following your dreams
- Luck (felix felicis, two drinks)
- Women speaking at commencement
- Mentions that Drew Faust is, in fact, a girl
- if she talks about homosexuality
- if she talks about gay marriage
- If she outs any new characters
- If she outs Drew Faust
- If she outs herself
- If she has sex with Drew Faust on stage, drink till blind
- If she mentions Ted Kennedy, drink till your liver cries

British
- pronounces something funny
- attempts Boston accent
- Criticizes American politics
- Tony Blair
- British vs American education
- Other Cambridge
- The Queen
- Btdubs, Dumbledore is a Queen

Graduation speech cliches
- provides a dictionary definition
- asks a rhetorical question
- forgets to answer rhetorical question
- mentions The Facebook
- consulting sucks, Econ majors drink
- references Faust’s speech
- references what she did with Faust last night

Unlikely stuff (drink as much as you want)
- Potter Puppet Pals
- If it becomes Naked Time!!!
- Harry and the Potters back her up
- If the Happy Brigade are aurors
- Fan fiction, one drink. Slash fan fiction, three drinks
- If Larry Summers appears
- If Larry Summers appears in conjunction with the Avada Kedavra curse

Magic
- If she is wearing any Harry Potter paraphernalia
- If she utters any spells
- If she uses an Unforgivable Curse
- If she uses any fake Latin, sing the first verse of 10,000 Men
- If she performs a magic trick, finish your drink
- If she performs real magic, finish the bottle
- If she bursts into flames and rises from the ashes, pour drink on flames
- If the steps of Memorial Hall open up and a basilisk emerges, run like hell
- If the graduates have crossbows under their academic regalia, steal one from the nearest CS major

Music
- References the choir
- References the band
- If she says Glee Club needs women, RCS drinks
- Any editorial comment or look from Jim
- If the band plays the Harry Potter theme
- If she sings at all
- if she announces the release of her upcoming solo pop album, chug
- If she compares Fair Harvard to the Hoggy Hoggy Hogwarts, sing a round of “Weasley is Our King”
- If she says “baller,” finish all drinks on campus


If she never mentions Harry Potter, chug until tour