Watching Listening

La Rondine

The last act of the opera, I sat next to Wayne Koestenbaum, who is a culture critic and gay. Wayne Koestenbaum writes about gay men's penchant for opera. He wore red rimmed glasses and yelled 'Brava.' Before that, I bumped into Reese by the bar. I said, Gheorghiu's voice is like red wine; but Fleming's is like prosecco. He said, Her top gets louder as it gets higher. I'm learning to speak cleverly about "top." Before that, I was on my couch and almost didn't go out.

Tacos Avant Garde

Watched three short films by Aaron Balkan sent to me by my HTML Giant secret santa. In the first, 12 Jobs, a boy watered his front stoop then slid back and forth on it, barefoot. In another, three people on the street fight in Chinese over a car dent. I liked those best. All of it was shot in Beijing. I sat four feet away from my TV on the floor.

Watching the film about WTC, I thought less about WTC, and more about tourists and bright blue backpacks. If my mind went to WTC, it was blocked by my memory of that day - during my eighty-block walk from Soho, I saw Charles standing on the street. Two years had passed since I'd seen him. He said, "Do you want to have lunch?" I said, "Maybe another time." Then a building fell.

The promotional video of Las Vegas got me to not think about Las Vegas - a city I don't like - at all, which I liked.

Great gift. Thank you secret santa.