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A few years out of school, I’m still on the e-mail list for my college theater group, Ram’s Head. There’s no practical reason for this—it’s not like I have any use for the periodic audition announcements, board meeting agendas, etc.—but nostalgia and procrastination get in the way unsubscribing, I guess.

Anyway, one of today’s e-mails is the announcement of next year’s spring show, chosen by vote among the general membership: Ragtime. That’s awesome! I’d love to see that. The show has some really great music (by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty), and has been a favorite of mine ever since I first listened to the Broadway recording, which features Tony Award-winning greats Brian Stokes Mitchell and Audra McDonald.

Having v. good hair day. Am quite pleased. (Must remind self not to start writing like Bridget Jones.)

But seriously, it’s a good length, finally. Not too short that the back sticks up, defying even the most industrial-strength goop. And not too long that it’s unwieldy. Scruffy, but not studied. The challenge now: maintain.

I’ve mostly steered clear of the American Idol juggernaut, but I totally agree with this article in the Times:

American Idol offers a telling glimpse of the state of American popular singing, an art which has in the last decade been dominated not just by a single style–a kind of watered-down gospel-soul–but by a particular vocal mannerism: melisma.

As I’ve written repeatedly, this has also partly contributed to a decline in public participation in the national anthem. (At least for me.) When you have superstars “leading” the crowd with coloratura-like vocal theatrics, who dares to sing along?

Aside: I remember learning about melisma for the first time, ages ago, on Schickele Mix, a public-radio show that took an educational, but irreverent look at classical music. I read that they’re no longer producing new episodes, and there doesn’t appear to be an online audio archive. Too bad.

Mes amis, one of the secrets to better living: sleep. Miraculously, I got eight-plus hours of sleep last night, woke up at 6 a.m. this morning, watched Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, cooked breakfast (scrambled eggs and potatoes, topped with grated Gruyère, thank you very much), and still had time to check my e-mail over a cup of coffee before leaving the apartment. Go, me.

However, now it’s mid-afternoon, and of course I’m ready to crash. TV note: Yes, I will be watching Martha, Inc. on NBC tonight. Artistic integrity, whatever… I would so love to be Cybill Shepard playing Martha Stewart, just to tramp around the meticulous mock-up of the Martha Stewart Living set and yell that line featured in the commercials: “Did I not ask for merlot?!” So bad, it’s good.

I’m thinking of making these culinary experiments a weekly thing. To follow up on last week’s “Les Oeufs Jeanette,” today I cooked the next dish in Jacques Pépin’s book The Apprentice, which he calls “Maman’s Cheese Soufflé” (see recipe below). It’s relatively easy to make, but of course everything is more involved than my daily routine, which usually just entails unwrapping and re-heating something. So if I can cook it, anyone can. It turned out rather well, if I do say so myself. (Also, somehow I’m always impressed by dishes that involve using both the stove and the oven, which this does.) I would’ve paired this with a light white wine, but all I had was… apricot ale. Mmm, soufflé and beer.

I rounded out the evening at home watching To Catch a Thief over a few scoops of vanilla ice cream. Ah, Cary Grant and Grace Kelly on the French Riviera… parfait.

Down with Love, that new movie with Renée Zellweger and Ewan McGregor… s’wonderful. Really, it’s a lot of fun. There isn’t a weak link in the perfectly cast ensemble (Sarah Paulson and David Hyde Pierce co-star as the leads’ best friends), and the writing, while not stellar, flits and floats at a bubbly pace. The whole eye-popping look–sets, costumes, music, etc.–a shiny, Technicolor vision of 1960s New York almost as a character itself, is worth the price of admission. I think some of the critics are coming down too hard on it. As long as you’re willing to go along for the ride, there’s never a dull moment, and I welcomed Down with Love as a frothy diversion from the other, more serious movies currently out there. Finally, stay put during the closing credits for an exuberant musical number by the star couple.

(On a barely related note, I just found the following in the back pocket of my jeans: a ticket stub to Y Tu Mamá También from May 3, 2002. That’s from the opening day of the Bethesda Row theater, over a year ago! The stub is surprisingly intact, considering how many times I must’ve washed it since then.)

Last weekend I went to a taping of This American Life, which is currently on tour. It was fantastic. Ira Glass is the man. There he was, master of the entire operation, conducting and mixing the show from his board at stage left. As always with This American Life, there is a central theme, and the tour’s theme is “Lost in America”: being lost, being found, trying not to be found, etc.

Sarah Vowell (who at one point had the entire audience on their feet, singing “Battle Hymn of the Republic”–she has that power), Jonathan Goldstein (recounting his adolescent quest to lose his virginity), and Glass (in conversation with a man enamored by Chicago’s ornate Louis Sullivan buildings) presented stories, and Davy Rothbart of Found Magazine, shared his finds, and had audience volunteers perform a four-page play found abandoned on some sidewalk–though he only could recover pages one, two, and four. Heh. It was so bad, it was good.

The house band was OK Go, whom I was pleasantly surprised to see. I had no idea they’d be there. (In the other cities on the tour, TAL is travelling with a different band.) A while back, I’d listen to Ok Go constantly when their CD was in rotation on the listening parties at Real.com. I like ’em a lot. They played their songs in between the stories, and even lip-synched to their song “C-C-C-Cinnamon Lips,” complete with “boy-band meets ESPN cheerleading” choreography. Hilarious.

Excerpts from the tour will air the weekend of June 7-8. (That’s Saturday, June 7 at 3 p.m., on WAMU 88.5 FM for you locals).

After the show, at the merchandise table I bought a TAL tour poster, which I’ve put up in my office.

The West Wing season finale was last night. In one word: wow. In many words: this is Drama with a capital “D.” Really, the writing and the acting are always top-notch. There were so many “Oh… my… god” moments where, mouth agape, I was completely stunned. With the Vice President having already resigned, ailing President Bartlett invokes the 25th Amendment and hands power over to the prickly Speaker of the House; the President’s daughter is kidnapped the night of her college graduation and held as a political pawn; watch-listed terrorists are missing… and we have to wait a whole summer to see how it all turns out!

P.S. If you’re a real Wing nut, check out the “West Wing Watch” at GovExec.com, where the Gaffe Squad slices and dices the technical details of each episode.

In Will & Grace news, Sean Hayes was on with Letterman last night. What a cutie. The hour-long W&G season finale is tonight. I’ve set my TiVo to stun. (By the way, I’ve had my TiVo for about three weeks now. I should write a little review. Maybe this weekend.) Lastly, the NBC Store is now taking pre-orders for the first-season DVD. I don’t know, $44.95 is pretty steep. The price’ll come down as it spreads to other retail outlets, but still, it better have some really good extras.