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I am inside the elevator. The doors start to close. I peek out and see three women walking toward me. “Going up?” I call out.

They say yes, and I hold the door for them. Once we’re all settled, and appropriate elevator buttons have been pushed, they pick up their conversation where they left off, the key line being:

“Yeah, the wedding is now May 8th. It’s the only date we could get the cathedral and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.”

What? Mental double-take. Ohh-kay. Just then we arrive at my floor, thus I don’t get to eavesdrop on the rest of the arrangements. Perhaps some things are best left unsaid, er, unoverheard.

Oh, I suppose I’ll try anything with a detached air of superiority, but hélas, good taste is a heavy burden when one must suffer the questionable judgment of others, n’est-ce pas? What does Lord Goring say in An Ideal Husband? “What is unfashionable is what other people wear. Just as vulgarity is simply the conduct of other people.” That Oscar, what a dish.

Ah, now this is the kind of esoteric intellectual nit-picking I love: the use of colons in book titles. The Chronicle of Higher Education tracks it in “No Mark of Distinction” (link via Arts & Letters Daily).

Over the last two decades, academic titles have become increasingly cumbersome, and it is rare to find an academic book title that is not lashed together with a subtitle and its colon. Some books even boast two subtitles, glued tenuously to the title with two colons.

“We joke about the title and the subtitle needing colonoscopies,” says Anita Samen, managing editor in the book division of the University of Chicago Press. “People have gone hog-wild with colons.” […]

[Director of the University of Illinois Press, Willis G.] Rieger also bemoans the increase in the number of books that have not only a title and subtitle but also another subtitle. There’s this “assumption that the title needs to tell you everything that’s in the book, that it needs to be something like a mini-abstract.” He says it’s a reversion to an 18th-century practice in which books had lengthy titles and subtitles. Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, originally titled Travels Into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and Then a Captain of Several Ships, is an example.

Heh, guilty.

I have an unwritten rule to not blog about my workplace, just for fear it’ll somehow come back to haunt me, but let me just say these past few days back at work have been a rude re-awakening. Ugh. It’s to be expected, but still. Not only do I have shelves slowly filling with documents that have accumulated since last month, all of which I have to edit, but it’s performance evaluation time again, and boy, it is not fun writing them. Rating your own work is one thing; having to evaluate others–apparently part of the “managing” in my job title–is quite another beast.

While I’m whining: as much as I love this time of year–well, whenever I use that phrase “this time of year,” I guess I really mean the holidays, Halloween to New Year’s, not the post-holiday doldrums–I can’t wait until it stays light out long enough for me to leave the office in daylight. All this late-afternoon darkness is starting to affect me. I don’t know, going home when it’s dark makes me feel like I’ve been at work forever. And so with that, I am outta here. Yabba-dabba-doo.

Interesting article in USA Today–no, it’s a periodical not on my usual reading list, but this morning I briefly scanned the front page of a copy in the hands of a fellow Metro rider–on the state of gay civil unions in Vermont, “mostly affairs of the heart“:

Vermont statistics indicate that gay marriage has a limited appeal, to couples both in and out of the state. The annual number of civil unions has dropped steadily after the first year. Just half the gay households in the state have taken advantage of the law.

Vermont also provides a glimpse of how society reacts to gay marriage. The strong opposition to civil unions that initially resulted from the law has dissipated as it has become clear what gay unions are and what they are not. And the predicted “gay invasion” of the state by outsiders seeking legal haven has failed to materialize.

[Update (13 Jan): Both pairs of tickets have been sold. Thanks for all the inquiries.]

Step right up! Concert tickets for sale! Thom and I will be going to the Rufus Wainwright show in New York next month, and thanks to my calculated zeal in getting the best seats possible–I was at the Ticketmaster website the moment they went on sale a couple months ago; you know how it is, playing ticket roulette to see if you can get better seats–I have two extra pairs of tickets. Who wants ’em? They’re in excellent locations, both orchestra: row BB, seats 9 and 11 (second row, house left); and row A, seats 101 and 102 (fifth row, center on the house left aisle; according to the seating chart, the front rows are lettered AA through DD, which is why row A is five rows back). So, pretty sweet, eh? And yes, you surmise correctly that if I’m selling these, then the seats I’m keeping must be even better.

My asking price is exactly what I paid, $106.05 per pair (each ticket is $42 plus fees). Or who knows, if you make it interesting, I may be persuaded to accept a combination of cash and other goods or services. Or whatever. If you’re interested, e-mail me at jeff@rebelprince.com, and we’ll work it out.

Rufus Wainwright
Friday, Feb. 13, 2004, 8 p.m.
Beacon Theatre, New York

In other news, they recently announced some additional tour dates, so if you’re not New York-bound, maybe he’s coming to a city near you.

Yes, I’ve been waiting for a chance to use that title again. It is rather rainy. And I do love the Carpenters. When I went home over Christmas, I made sure to bring back The Singles 1969-1973. I discovered the album as a kid, listening to my parents’ copy on vinyl, and then many years later I bought my own on CD. It’s by turns fun, weepy, kitschy, whatever you want to call it, and though of course I wasn’t around when these songs were new to the airwaves, it makes me nostalgic for my early childhood, when they were new to me.

Oh, now I’m off track. Usually I think up my entry titles after I write the entry, but since the title came first for this one, it got me all misty-eyed, and I’ve forgotten what I meant to say. The Carpenters will do that to you, you know.

This is somewhat old news, but kudos to DreamHost, the web home of Rebel Prince, for recently expanding a lot of the features in each of its web hosting packages. I subscribe to the basic plan for $9.95 per month, and with the enhancements my disk quota went from 200 to 500 MB. Rock on. Not that I’m even close to reaching the limit, or even using a lot of the bells and whistles they offer, but hey, it’s more bang for the same bucks.

Thom had to go to work, so with most of the day to myself I went to my apartment to check mail, drop off the rent check, etc. Beforehand I stopped at Fresh Fields on P Street for some food, and was reminded why I love that place. No, not the overpriced gourmet food, most of which I’ll never get around to trying. Or the cute boys. (Most of whom I’ll never get around to trying. Are they overpriced too?) Okay, so maybe they are the reason I love the place. Mmm.

Oh, but my point: running a close second is the constant retro hit parade over the loudspeaker. Who puts these playlists together? There must be some big supplier of retail-zone music out there, and Fresh Fields’ standing order is something approximating a “mix” radio station. (Unfortunately, though, no shopping-cart traffic reports: “Folks, register six is backed up bumper-to-bumper, all the way to produce…” Okay, at least it’s not the Soviet Safeway on 17th Street.) Anyway, this morning’s musical highlights, which came on as I perused the frozen foods: “Forever Your Girl”–oh my god, I loved that whole album; how old was I, like, eleven?–and “Our House,” you know, “in the middle of our street…” Nice. You know something’s good when you find yourself not so much walking, but strutting with your shopping cart. We’ve all been there.

Go ahead. Sing it, girlfriend.