Hot Chip

Happy birthday / April Fool’s day to Chip Delany! Thank you for keeping faith in my abilities as a publisher, long after a sensible man would have given up.

Samuel R. Delany and Dennis

What It Is: 3/31/08

What I’m reading: Desolation Road by Ian McDonald

What I’m listening to: Odd Couple, Gnarls Barkley

What I’m watching: NCAA hoops

What I’m drinking: nothing, after reaching double-digits in Hendrick’s & tonics last week in Philadelphia

Where I’m going: no traveling this week!

What I’m happy about: Amy & Rufus didn’t kill each other while I was away last week.

What I’m sad about: Davidson fell 3 points short of reaching the Final Four. But this post about the sheer joy on display in Western Kentucky’s first-round buzzer-beater win helps me get over the sadness.

What I’m pondering: How to write a convincing evocation of a place I’ve never been.

Cajun style!

I was going to post this column by James Carville just so you could read his defense of his “Judas” reference to Bill Richardson’s endorsement of Obama. I mean, it’s a pretty entertaining read:

Heck, I give myself some credit for managing to get the Clinton and Obama campaigns to agree on something — that neither wanted to be associated with my remarks.

But then I got to the end and was struck by this phrase:

Most of the stuff I’ve ever said is pretty insignificant and by in large has been said off the cuff and without much thought to the potential consequences.

“By in large”? I always thought it was “by and large.” This conversation would seem to confirm that (well, since it’s derived from nautical terminology, they propose “by and larrrrrrrge,” but still), but since my just deserts mistake a few months ago, I’m gunshy. Maybe this is just how you say “by and large” . . . Cajun style!

Any insight on this?

Outerphex

Sorry for the postlessness, dear readers! I’m down in Philadelphia for the Interphex conference and been busy getting things set up.

I’ve been attending this annual event since 2000 and this is the second time it’s been in Philly; all the other years have been in NYC. Not sure why it got bumped this time around, but hey.

The “fun” thing about these conferences is finding out what state our booth is in. Every company has horror stories about their booth materials (their stand, handouts, etc.) being lost. In this case, all of our things arrived, but the conference administrators forgot to tell the decorating company that we were supposed to have carpeting, two tables, and four chairs. Which is to say, I arrived yesterday to find our stuff — a pop-up booth in its crate and 24 boxes of magazines — sitting in the middle of a 10′ x 10′ concrete square.

So that took a little time to get resolved.

I always marvel at the scene on an exhibit hall floor 12-15 hours before an event begins. It’s absolute chaos, but somehow it all gets put together in time for a 10am opening.