- Monty Python’s Life of Brian recreated for BBC comic drama. This could be interesting.
- Wendell Pierce, of ‘The Wire’ and ‘Treme,’ to open groceries in New Orleans ‘food deserts’. Good for him! [via]
- Thudfactor in defense of parental leave:
Finally, complaining that parental leave is an unfair “benefit†because not everyone has or wants children is a like complaining psychological medial coverage is unfair because not everyone is insane, or permanent disability coverage is unfair because not everyone is guaranteed to have their legs chewed off by mechanical equipment while on the clock.
- Of course, along the same lines, the sad news that Women have to have a Ph.D. to Make As Much As Men With a B.A.. [via]
- And finally, the trailer for Francis Ford Coppola’s new movie, Twixt is just bizarre. His plans to “exhibit [it] as a road show, re-editing the movie after every screening based on audience reaction” sounds almost normal by comparison:
work
A long and boring day
Today was almost indescribably boring. It had the drawback of also being almost indescribably loud, as construction, or demolition, or whatever it is continued outside our office windows all day. It was especially grating today, and I left around four o’clock. (I got in around eight, so it’s not like I was skipping out particularly early or anything.)
I did finish reading Irmgard Keun’s After Midnight on the train ride home, though. It’s part of the Neversink Library, a gift from Heather, and it’s the second of those books that I’ve read thus far. I liked it, although not quite as much as Georges Simeon’s The Train, which actually takes place only a few short years later, as World War II is getting underway. Keun’s book is set in Germany just as the Nazis are coming to power in the late 1930s, something she had first-hand experience with. It was published just a few years after she herself fled the country, and it’s a sometimes chilling and personal look at a nation descending into hysteria and violence. It does feel perhaps a little unfocused near the end, but overall I quite liked it.
Thursday
Today was a pretty typical day, if you discount being woken up at five in the morning by a barking dog who wanted to go out, then nearly missing my train later that morning, and then getting on a subway that was so crowded we were all basically spooning one another. And, of course, this afternoon I received some sad news: one of our authors, on who we’ve been waiting on some revisions, passed away unexpectedly over the weekend. I didn’t know him well at all — I think we spoke directly all of once — but it’s still a huge shock and a loss. He’s co-author is going to try to pull the book together, since it’s actually finished, just not all together in his hands, but obviously and understandably it’s going to be a little delayed.
Plus, I spent the day trying to get some actual work done, so there’s that.
Otherwise, it was, as I said, a pretty typical day.
What? Wednesday?
No free lunch today, unfortunately. Almost everyone in our group, in editorial and marketing, is at one conference or another this week.
A week that I am amazed to discover is already half over.
Tuesday’s child
This morning it seemed like the Long Island Railroad hadn’t quite recovered from yesterday’s weather-related madness, with a super-crowded train all the way to Jamaica and some confusing announcements once we got there. But after that, everything seemed to run as smoothly as it ever does, and I got to work around the usual time.
Which is good, because today’s sales meetings were a lot more specific and targeted to our individual books. And I worked extensively on at least two of the books we were presenting to the reps, so I was glad to be there to add my little bit of input.
And we got another free lunch out of it, so there’s that.
Then in the afternoon, we had a fire drill. I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to working again in a building where “fire drill” doesn’t translate into “testing the alarms 24/7.” Then again, as a co-worker remarked, he’d willingly trade that now for the constant drilling that’s going on around us all day. (Until the end of August, we were told. At times it’s really tough to concentrate.)
And then? A quick birthday celebration for another co-worker, with a card and some cookies.
And that’s really it for Tuesday. A decent enough day, as far as those things go.