One day in the Greece of legend, Eurydice, beloved of Orpheus, died, and descended into the Underworld. Orpheus was the most gifted lyrist that ever was, and when he found the rock that guards the mouth of Hades, he sang of his lost love, till the rock shed tears and rolled away. Cerberus lay down to listen. Charon’s oars kept time.  
 
At last, Hades himself heard him, and Persephone cold in her shroud begged that Orpheus be given his Eurydice again. And the Rich One, Lord of the Dead, granted it, saying, She will follow you as you lead her to the light, but you may not look on her until you both are free. 
 
And so Orpheus sublime in song walked up toward the bright land of the living, singing in soft joy. But he was lonely, and in need, and afraid. He must be reassured of his beloved. So he turned, looked over his shoulder to see Eurydice… 
 
… and Hermes, who touched the Caduceus to her eyes, and led her back into the Darkness. 

Posted by: Fritz Anderson

@ December 1, 2012 9:50:13 AM CST ( )

I would like to meet the person who invented “Tell us what you think!” because I want to strangle somebody, I’m not particular, and this would be a free shot. You can no longer write about Leopold and Loeb but you must close with, “Do you like to strangle children for fun? Tell us what you think!” It has to be the worst phrase in the world. It’s narcissism made universal. 
 
Your opinion does not count. It is interesting to you, and you have a global audience, but not one of them is interested. They’re just waiting for their chance at a global audience. 
 
If your opinion does turn out to be interesting, it’s because it’s abominable, and people will watch the way they watch Honey Boo Boo. If you are interesting and right, you deserve a radio show, or a TV show, or a book, or a column, where you can do your work undiluted by idiots trying to show they can do your job. 

Posted by: Fritz Anderson

@ November 30, 2012 11:28:27 PM CST ( )

[I apologize for the wretched formatting. Blojsom strikes again. I had something that formatted beautifully in pure HTML, but Blojsom's preprocessor rejects styles and block-element markup.] 
 
Here’s the deal. It’s 2006, and one of my improv heroes, Tina Fey, had created a new show, 30 Rock, based on her experiences as an improv artist and as head writer on Saturday Night Live. This was great, but it was on at the same time as Jericho, another show I particularly wanted to see. 
 
I’d had good luck with keeping up with shows like Battlestar Galactica by subscribing to them on iTunes and watching them on my iPod. Given the choice between downloading an hour-long epic to my iPod (a two-and-a-half inch screen in those days) and a half-hour sitcom, I’d rather have downloaded 30 Rock. But NBC had not released the show to the iTunes store. The alternative was to watch it on NBC’s website, but in those days web video was extremely poor, and it’s still the case that it isn’t portable. 
 
I wrote to Tina Fey, in care of Silvercup Studios, where the show is taped (please don’t take my word on whether that’s a good address for her — nobody ever answers my fan mail), and asked that she exert her influence to get it onto iTunes. I claimed acquaintance on the basis that (1) I had once stood in line behind her at the Old Town Arby’s; and (2) I had been on friendly, if very casual, terms with Jeff Richmond, her husband. (He had been exceptionally kind to my sister when she visited the Second City Training Center.) 
 
A few weeks later, 30 Rock was available on iTunes, and it had been rescheduled so I had no conflicts. I was very happy. 
 
The conceit of the following poem is that this was all my doing, having urged Ms. Fey to heroic lengths to meet my needs. 
 
I already know it’s very silly, and idea behind the second act is a cliché. 
 
The changes in meter are mostly intentional. 
 

Tina Fey Gets Results

 

An Heroic Epic in Twelve Cantos

 
 
Argument 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Muse, I pray urgently, answer my needs.
Only a goddess can tell all the deeds
that Tina Fey wrought with her memos and phones,
battling desk-jockeys, dullards, and drones.
Hear me, O goddess! Retell and take stock	[5]
of the new distribution of Fey’s 30 Rock.
Make my tongue nimble, to dance and to bob;
forfend it be thought that I cadge for a job.

 
 
Canto I 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Chicago was home to a programmer, who
had trifled at improv a season or two.	[10]
Piñata and Paradigms were his delight;
the one about Gates upon opening night.
A child of the Cold War, bereft of a mom,
the crux of his life was the threat of the Bomb.
Took Physics at Kenyon, to Georgetown for Law;	[15]
atomic destruction still ate at his craw.1
CBS whelped in the fall of ’06
a tale of post-nuclear life in the sticks.
“Hot puppies!” he cried, “Just like Herman Kahn!
The social disruption! The green-glowing dawn!”	[20]
But the sons of Bill Paley chose eight Wednesday night,
to screen Jericho, which he felt like a bite:
For NBC set the same place on the clock
for Tina Fey’s masterwork of 30 Rock.

 
 
Canto II 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

In search of solutions, he ventured a bet	[25]
on a plausible áddress he found on the net.
He put his predicament to Tina Fey,
and ‘fessed to his conflict on 30 Rock day.
“Grant to me, lady, this smallest of boons:
Suffer your show to go out on iTunes.	[30]
Two dollars a pop would enrich NBC,
and I’d iPod your program, and watch it ad-free.
“A consummate video program is clear,
with crisp color palettes, and sound you can hear
in stereo; not jumped-up fingerpaint shows	[35]
with cotton-wool sound wrapped in sponsorly prose.”
She wondered, “If he’s such an all-fired fan,
what keeps him from framing an alternate plan?
iTunes has Jericho on it already —
that should suffice him for keeping him steady.”	[40]
Grasping her knees, he pled, “That is not all!
Behold Tuesday’s Newsday: The Office appalled
in earliest ratings; scant viewers before it.
Remun’rative iTunes built audience for it!”

 
 
Canto III 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Matchless Fey uttered broadcastable oaths:	[45]
“By cracky, this lunatic Anderson clothes
his ravings with reason! Yes, now is the season
to draw forth my lance! Now comes the Big Dance!
No more my guise as Mistress Nice!
I’m on this quest like white on rice!”	[50]
On the lot of Silvercup,
Mrs. Richmond jiggered up
weapons needful, weapons made
to fortify her on crusade.
Arrows made she of desire	[55]
Made a chariot out of fire.2
Set the dogs of war at large;
put her cell-phone at full charge.
Crafty Adsit,3 wise in counsel,
kept intruders out of bounds, till	[60]
all was past the pow’r of those
apt to cavil or oppose.
(Naught sufficed to draw upon
Rachel Dratch’s4 Myrmidons.
Fearsome Myrmidons were pent	[65]
while brilliant Rachel kept her tent.)

 
 
Canto IV 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Sure her cause was just in essence,
crost th’East River’s iridescence,
stoked for teaching baleful lessons
to Phílistines now in charge	[70]
of GE, paid in hundreds large.
Eyeless in their corporate Gaza,
Thirty Rockefeller Plaza,
patzers gaze through double glass,
each the guardian of his ass;	[75]
brood in silence, brood in horror
lest writers raid the cookie jar, or
actors jinx their plans to sell:
For weekend heaven, they reign in Hell.
From the findings of the spreadsheets,	[80]
eldritch focus groups on spreadsheets,
founded they a viewing model,
counterfeit from fulsome twaddle.
Blindly said, “We see no need for
iPod shows on broadband feeds; nor	[85]
Market Research is discerning
iTunes download lust a-burning.
(We did not put the question to them,
nor did they write it in, so screw them.)”

 
 
Canto V 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Despite Fey’s heart’s essential purity	[90]
network-minions of security
balked her at the building’s entry.
She saw she needed stronger gentry.
Sent she Dorff to beg dispatch
the Myrmidons of grey-eyed Dratch.	[95]
But in her tent she’s fuming, pissed
(but that’s another rime, not this).
At the front door Tina pounds, till
crafty Adsit, wise in counsel,
has a brainstorm: Deft Scott Adsit	[100]
found a push-cart of fruit baskets
destined for the dressing rooms
of guest stars, every one of whom
from table read through dress rehearsal
flacked for Peacock - Universal.	[105]
Adsit’s plans ape Escher’s plumbing,
but Tina Fey saw what was coming
miles away, yet suffered him to have his say:
“Rent-a-cops will surely pass
these tokens meant for kissing ass.	[110]
Ironic, then, to use this barrow
to evade them and to harrow
functionaries in our way!
Displace some fruit and stow away!”
In among the basket-load	[115]
was matchless Tina 5 thus bestowed.
And in that fragrant, cramped condition,
held a fetus-like position.
Soon the testing-time arrived:
Network henchmen came to drive	[120]
the basket cart into the tower.
Were there room, she would have cowered:
Did the watchmen stay alert,
she’d be in dutch, a world of hurt.
Never fear! The odds were steep,	[125]
but salutary gods made sleep
the guardians’ powers of oversight;
their watch that moment was not tight.

 
 
Canto VI 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Through corridors the barrow trundled,
bringing Fey midst favors bundled	[130]
till the moment came at last
when no more baskets could be passed
without revealing where she hid.
She knew what must be done, and did.
In passageway on six or seven,	[135]
Tina Fey appealed to Heaven
(or something like it) — but the point is,
access to the network joint is
hers, and knowledge that she’d done it
sped her to the building’s summit.	[140]
Lest her progress be discovered,
floor-plants gave her secret cover.
‘Neath yucca plant and pink clematis,
she gained the top floor (whichever that is).
On that floor her cunning instinct	[145]
showed her to the bigwigs’ precinct.
Mangoes mashed into her hair,
she fixed them with her flashing stare.
“You owe me big-time!” thundered Fey,
“Those Myrmidons are pay-or-play!”	[150]
She put her case before the Suits;
she spoke truth to high galoots.6
She played them like so many lutes.
She danced on them with hobnailed boots.
She ate the one who called her “Toots.”	[155]
She proved the iTunes veto moots
the worst decision since their hoots
at buying Alex Haley’s Roots.7

 
 
Canto VII 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Car service costed Fey nary a cent, to
Silvercup (nobody knew where Scott went to).	[160]
Thousands accorded her improvised triumph:
jubilee games, with the discus and high-jump.
Multitudes, gathered for tribute and fun,
bade her recount to them what she had done.
“Exploits so fabulous must always live!	[165]
Mrs. Jeff Richmond must tell us — so give!”
Reticence over her story were false;
modest belittlement nothing but schmaltz.
Middle-class upbringing frowned upon pride,
But love for her coworkers threw her heart wide:	[170]
“I showed them what’s what! And
I beat them so soundly,
I’ve a Thursday-night spot, with
a hammock around me!
iTunes? No problem! We’re lacking no more!	[175]
Met I the bosses, and now they are mine!
Effective this Tuesday, it’s all on the store!
Make free the flow of the wine… dark… um… wine!”

 
 
Canto VIII 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

While casting about for distractions from work,
Anderson opened up iTunes in Turk	[180]
(he always found localizations amusing),
then summoned th’American store for perusing —
and what should he find on the TV show page:
30 Rock offered, to quiet his rage!
Further he learned from the promos that night	[185]
NBC massed all its comedies tight
on Thursday night early, from eight until ten
So Jericho never could balk him again!
“’Tis all through my efforts these things came to pass!
For does not the sun rise and fall on my ass?”	[190]
You see at this canto the epic has died.
Twelve cantos I’d promised (or threatened); I lied.

 
 
 
 
The companion to this epic is forthcoming,
 
under the title
 
Adsit Has a Hell of a Commute. 
 
 
 

1 [16] This is not strictly accurate. I could never write autobiography; I lack a protagonist. 

 

2 [55] Truth be known, chariots of fire get lousy mileage, and the pavement melts, which is embarrassing if you’ve been at a light for a while. Also, who needs a flaming chariot in New York? Where would you park it? [Dear Sirs, I herewith return Stock New York Joke #7, slightly soiled. Any consideration you could give me on the deposit would be much appreciated.]

 

3 [59] Scott Adsit has a regular role on 30 Rock as TGS’s producer. He, Tina Fey, Scott Allman, Jenna Jolovitz, Rachel Dratch, and Kevin Dorff, were the cast of Piñata Full of Bees, the groundbreaking show on the mainstage of The Second City in Chicago, in (as I remember it) 1996. Jolovitz, by the way, is the best bullshit artist (term of art) since Severn Darden. I'm sorry not to see her anymore.

 

4 [64] For ten years, I’d had a crush on Rachel Dratch. I was thrilled when she was cast as Jenna for 30 Rock; alas, NBC replaced her with Jane Krakowski. A fine comedienne, but not the same. Rachel appeared in various roles throughout the first season.

 

5 [116] This is an epithet. Gotta have epithets in Heroic Epics.

 

6 [152] With this, I have exceeded my month’s quota of “galoots,” but it’s too much fun to drop. Say it with me: Galoots.

 

7 [158] This is ostinato. I hope you relish it as much as I.

 

Posted by: Fritz Anderson

@ August 30, 2010 11:57:09 AM CDT ( )

[This entry comes before the one that appears previous to it, entitled With the greatest of ease. It's here because the Blojsom blogging software that came with Mac OS X Server 10.4 makes it very, very easy to delete a posting when all you want to do is to block comments and trackbacks. — F] 
 
Actually, I saw very few police here in London, and most of those were securing high-value places like Parliament. That's also the only place I saw the classic helmet. By comparison to Chicago (even the Loop/lakefront, to make it equivalent to Westminster and the West End), London isn't policed at all.  
 
Smiths was a great success. The meat was grilled but not charred, and was an honest medium-rare. I now await strawberry soufflé. This has been a restful day, and I thank my friend and Dr. Jacob for putting it together.  
 
I think there would be a market for a London city map that more clearly shows the size of a street. Such-and-such Street appears on the map no different from the Strand, and you miss it because it is no wider than a truck, and you're surprised it has a name at all.  
 
This is completely explicable, and it isn't bad. It's just remarkable.  
 
You want strawberry soufflé. Trust me on this.  
 
Monday: Westminster Abbey! I want to take it home! My promoting the Tudor queens to my daughters must be tiresome to them by now, but I was especially glad to see Mary and Elizabeth.  
 
They saved Darwin, Newton, and the physicists (even the thermodynamicists, grumble, but James Clerk Maxwell!) for last. I expected a memorial for Lewis Carroll, but Edward Lear 
! Is it okay to grin at a tomb? 
 
T.S. Eliot just wished he was English, but it seems the English wished it, too.  
 
Alfred Russel Wallace has a place right next to Darwin, which is just fine. 
 
At the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior, there is a Congressional Medal of Honor. No other country's honor is displayed.  
 
My arrival in the nave coincided with the Eucharist there, and the service was much more familiar to me. They pass the Peace at the Abbey, and it was affecting to do so among locals and distant visitors. The service at the Abbey was just fine, and made my visit perfect.  
 
Afternoon — I am just finishing an adequate burger at the Tower, and I think I'll have plenty of time… 
 
And so I did, almost: Four hours. I didn't get to see much of the White Tower — they kicked me out. Also, none of the Medieval Palace. As elsewhere, the Tower is not as large a place as I'd expected. Too small for all the history, and built for smaller men.  
 
I had a great time at the Tower of London. 
 
The first picture I took there, my camera told me its 1GB card was full. Fortunately, I had an annual pass for re-entry, and the souvenir shop sold memory cards. At least a quarter of my pictures are establishing shots (wide, for the context of the real picture to follow) or billboards (closeups of signs to identify place or subject). If you see my photos, and wonder why there are so many pictures of bridges on the Thames, that's why. London Bridge in fact seems to be in good repair. Taking all these extraneous pictures makes me feel quite the professional. 
 
Still, I expect I'll have scores of pictures that I'll never identify.  
 
My tour was led a different yeoman warder, but when he surveyed visitors' nationalities, he asked for Texas separately. Something must be up with that. I asked another YW how he was to be addressed — yeoman? warder? sergeant? He looked at me as if I were feeble-minded, and said, "Yeoman Warder." I didn't think it was that dumb a question.  
 
That was my worst experience in London so far. Not bad. People have all been gracious and helpful.  
 
My feet are hamburger. They feel warm and slightly squishy when I walk, which is better than hurting, but it disturbs me. I think at long last I'll go to the corner Boots and get an anti-inflammatory. This will be the first time my thinking of it coincides with their opening times.  
 
Fantasy: Telling a local that in Barack Obama's (and my) neighborhood, the drugstore never closes. Not for the dead of night, not for Christmas, not for communist revolution. Never. You can come back from the theater and still get an aspirin. They will marvel.  

Posted by: Fritz Anderson

@ August 29, 2010 5:13:34 PM CDT ( )

[Note: This entry should follow the next entry in the blog, Like a pendulum do. They are out of order because the Blojsom that came with Mac OS X 10.4 makes it very easy to delete a message, without warning, when you mean to edit it.] 
 
In the restaurant on the way back from Boots, I made a friend at the next table. This happened when I was attempting to spread firm butter on a springy roll. The roll flew from my hand, landing in the other seat at my table. "Good shot, mate!" 
 
I passed my meal in silence, delighted at the prospect of Eton mess. This is a dessert my daughter had recommended, a meringue filled with whipped cream and strawberries. I had not found it in my online researches, and it was only in my last night that I found it. Eton mess is delightful; I'd be hard put to choose between it and strawberry soufflé.  
 
Once I'd finished, my companion asked how I liked it, and we struck up a conversation. He was from Kent, and found London dirty, crowded, noisy, and multiethnic. I said I was a city dweller and an anglophile, so I found it not to be a bad city at all, and I'd been there a short enough time that the inconveniences still charmed me. We talked a few minutes more, generally on the lines I've already written here. He seemed a little snooty about Spamalot.  
 
A very nice man, and so much for my fear that somebody might want to pick a fight with a Yank. 
 
This morning I packed up and paid my hotel bill, which was very sad, but it was time.  
 
I then spent a derisory amount of time — two hours — at the British Museum. I got the audio for the highlights tour. Audio tours turn out to be a very good idea, but there are only a few more than 50 highlights in the vastness of the BM, and I found the signs that identify the stations very hard to locate.  
 
I wanted to see the Rosetta Stone, the Easter Island statue, and the Lewis chessmen, and I hit those, and photographed many interesting things on the way. Where I could, I also snapped the labels on the things I took. Good thing about electronic cameras: 300+ pictures a "roll." 
 
Well, I love the Lewis chessmen. I bought a Lewis chessmen tie and a Lewis chessmen bookmark. There is a replica set available, but I couldn't spare the space, the £45, or the indignity of its being labeled a Harry Potter Wizard's Chess Set.  
 
The cab driver was charming as before. It works — I'm pretty sure I tippped him well enough. I don't know whether to be ashamed of that cynicism. I truly was entertained. Heathrow Express departed as soon as I boarded.  
 
You may remember a 1990s Mac game called Oni. It featured stylized combat, often in stark, modern, and ominous buildings that happened to be easily rendered on a computer. Heathrow Terminal 5 is such a building.  
 
However, HT5 has shops and gourmet restaurants on the secure side. O'Hare Terminal 5 was built pre-security, and it has a cart with Gatorade and chips on the secure side. So I ate at Wagamama, a soba restaurant that has a branch a block or so from the Morgan, but this was my first chance. Good teriyaki steak soba, but the service was inattentive. 
 
For the first time this trip, I passed a metal detector without tripping the alarm.  
 
I'm on BA 299 now. On the way out, I'd been seated next to another large man, and when I tried to nap, I found our breathing would synchronize. Very disturbing. This time I'm seated next to a slender woman. 
 
In London, I could get all the Coke and Diet Coke I wanted, though not actually cold. I drank a lot of tea, with much pleasure, though I don't expect I'll keep the habit up. I don't have a teapot, which seems to make a difference. I could, I suppose, get one. The weather, as a whole, was beautiful, sunny most of the time, mid-60s in the day, mid-50s at night, and I never dressed wrong for it. Ibuprofen cleared up most of the foot problems, and I'm sheepish I didn't think of it sooner.  
 
I never lacked for a toilet, though I did have to backtrack through the Queen's Gardens, which got me stopped a couple of times before a very kind warder walked me back.  
 
I was at home in England. Maybe it was my anglomane mother (and no less my father, who taught me to believe in the common law), who spent weeks there, it seemed, every other year. Maybe it was 40 years of the BBC World Service, and the subscription to Punch I had in my late teens. Or Dorothy L. Sayers (didn't look for 110a Piccadilly — or 221b Baker, for that matter — something else left undone). I planned this trip for my honeymoon, in 1983. I'm glad I finally took it. It was worth the wait. I left many things to do in England. I hope I go back.  

Posted by: Fritz Anderson

@ August 29, 2010 5:02:10 PM CDT ( )

Between Oxford and St. Martin's there were 90 minutes, so I decided to sample Burger King, which is a British company so it counts.  
 
The English Whopper, with everything, is bland. How did they do that? 
 
The Church of St. Martin in the Fields may be the world's most famous venue for chamber music. (They also run Westminster's leading mission to the homeless.) The concert tonight was called Eight Seasons, after Vivaldi's Four Seasons and a suite of four seasonal concerti by Astor Piazzolla, an Argentine composer of the mid-20th century. It says here he revolutionized tango music. The Vivaldi was energetic and joyful, and I much content. The Piazzola, interleaved with the Vivaldi, was a challenge I could not fully meet. I am an eighteenth-century man.  
 
Okay, one more bus story. St. Martin's is at the north-east corner of Trafalgar Square. As I emerged, I could see my 24 bus coming up the square. As it was only half a block away, I was across a busy street, and no stop was in sight, I figured I'd just go up the street and endure the wait for the next bus. The next stop was two blocks away. I waited there a minute or two, and I caught that bus. It was like an episode of Top Gear. 
 
Fairness, though it spoils the story: It went much faster than I could walk once it got clear of Trafalgar Square.  
 
Sunday. I have a few things on my to-do list, and less than two-and-a-half days to do them. First, an Anglican service. Easily done; St. Giles, the parish church, is a few blocks away.  
 
The service at St. Giles in the Fields was not what I was used to. The parish is no longer residential, and I suspect that the Venerable Dr. William Jacob, Archdeacon of Charing Cross, is not principally in the retail-clerical business. His sermon was learned, but it was an essay, whose elements I could follow, but not the overall theme. It was not constrained by the simple attention of the listener. 
 
I emphasize: Dr. Jacob is a nice man, learned, and, I am convinced, dedicated to his calling. But as a newcomer to English worship, I was a bit lost. 
 
The congregation filled perhaps 15% of the pews. Mostly they were elderly, but there was one very noisy toddler. 18th century churches do not have crying rooms.  
 
Curiously, the hymnal contains no music, only words. It made it hard to sing along, but I had no mercy on those next to me. I saw no prayer book: The order of service was in a printed booklet, which in the states, at least, I take as a bad sign. But it was Communion, which is the whole point.  
 
The people were very nice. They brought me tea and biscuits, and we discussed the credit business back home. The ladies were looking for wickedness; I mildly suggested stupidity. Dr. Jacob was very pleasant to talk to, and he talked me into the slow river cruise down to Greenwich, which was one of my dreams from being an astronomy buff as a child. So here I am, eating a chicken salad sandwich in the park. It is tranquil.  
 
My solution to how I can document myself at the prime meridian, without steeling myself to ask a stranger to photograph me, was to set my camera to take a movie, and pan down from the sign to my feet. People chuckled.  
 
I photographed others a few times. Perhaps my non-mini camera inspires confidence.  
 
I didn't see everything I meant to, but I saw enough to have a very good time.  
 
On the recommendation of a friend, I am now going to a steak house called Smiths of Smithfield (warning: Flash). 

Posted by: Fritz Anderson

@ August 29, 2010 4:29:16 PM CDT ( )

I am taking tea at Claridge's Hotel. I ordered my tea — Assam leaf — and a young man better-dressed than I pours it. I have had finger sandwiches. I have not broken myself of trying to order à la carte from table d'hôte menus. And I have misapprehended the nature of scones, though it seems there is nothing really wrong you can do with clotted cream.  
 
A harpist is playing Norwegian Wood. They have dimmed the lights with the coming evening. I know of no ritual so calculated to assure the participant that all is as it should be.  
 
I'd take a picture, but that would involve flash. 
 
Here is where the men (mostly) wear ties.  
 
I came here by the second-nearest tube station, Green Park, because I wanted to walk through Mayfair. The street I walked (Berkeley, because it was reputed to be the home of Bertie Wooster) was less in townhouses than I'd expected, and more in bespoke tailors, discreet offices, and well-kempt dealers in luxury goods and property. I saw a scale model of a three-decked 75' yacht that looked as though it would be pricey even among three-decked 75' yachts.  
 
More souvenirs, from Stanfords: a book of flags of the world (though I am by way of a vexilologist, I haven't had a new flag book in 20 years, and I was behind); a better street-map booklet for London; and an Underground tea towel. Stanfords floors each level with gigantic maps. I took a picture.  
 
Her Majesty's Palace and Fortress the Tower of London. I love saying that. The Ceremony of the Keys. I was worried I couldn't navigate, but once I was fairly out of the station, there was White Tower. Just over 30 minutes, door-to-gate. Yay TfL.  
 
They assembled us right up against Traitors Gate. Traitors Gate, right there! And they use active-duty soldiers (plus a warder or two). When the young man (just back from Iraq) in the bearskin hat and the red tunic points his automatic rifle at the key group, and demands to know who goes there (the keys!), he isn't kidding around.  
 
The Yeoman Warder in charge of us was great fun (I gather they are selected to be personable). A young woman from Texas went beyond his instructions early on, and he was beset by Texans the rest of the evening. He spoke darkly of the Alamo. He put her in charge of the Escape Committee, after someone quite reasonably asked how we were getting out, if all the gates were locked behind us. I suppose someone always asks.  
 
Saturday, on the way to Oxford. Low clouds and a light fog. The long-range forecasts used words like "beautiful." Britain is hard to forecast. The farmland is not quaint to my untutored eye, but I doubt they run farms for beauty. I am too late for the extended Bodleian tour I'd signed up for, and I've purchased one of those get-on-get-off bus tours.  
 
It has since cleared up, and the pictures look promising. I am sitting in the King's Arms pub at the north-west corner of Catte and Holywell, waiting for my steak braised in Guinness, and nursing a sparkling (hard) cider. I essentially don't drink — my family has had bad luck with it — but I'm in a pub: I have to have something drawn for me. The signage promises authenticity, which may be a bad omen, but I'm just starting out.  
 
Pound coins make sense, but only because they are much thicker than the fractional coins. The American scheme of giving a gold hue to a large quarter does not work. My guess is that vending-machine makers won't tolerate thicker coins, but the things have to have some heft. I can identify £1 or £2 in my pocket. I don't trust myself to sort out fractional coins, so I am accumulating them.  
 
A half-pint into the cider, and I am making double the typing errors. I'm a lightweight.  
 
I lasted about five hours in Oxford before my feet gave out. It's the standing — in this case at the Museum of the History of Science — that did me in. The three hours walking were no trouble. The last of my Oxford photos are from the top of the sightseeing bus. Disappointing, given that I couldn't line them up or clear obstructions. But I think I did 80% of what there was to do. 
 
I did see one college, Pembroke, in detail. A properly ambitious tour would have taken more in, but Pembroke is a little jewel. I stopped in the chapel a while, then looked in on Hall. When you read about a school's hall, you never think of steam tables.  
 
I stopped at Blackwell, the 160,000 bookseller on Broad Street, and found that Neal Stephenson's next book 
was at long last out. I bought it without hesitation, but I have no idea how I'm to fit a Stephenson book in my luggage.  
 
Somehow, on the way back, in the sunlight, the countryside became prettier. The weather is beautiful.  

Posted by: Fritz Anderson

@ August 29, 2010 4:06:05 PM CDT ( )

As I waited in line at the Palace of Westminster (Houses of Parliament), fire trucks started to arrive. An alarm had sounded and the building was cleared. After the sixth emergency vehicle, I decided to take up the offer of a later ticket, and walked the block or so to the office. But the all-clear was given just as I arrived, so back to the tour line. 
 
The tour was magnificent. We went the length of the building, from the Lords to the Commons, with long stops on the floor of each. Amazing to be on the floor, but of course I'd been searched and photo-badged on the way. Again: smaller than expected. But as I said, I am the sort who can say "Mother of Parliaments" without affectation, so it was just what I wanted.  
 
It is intermission at Spamalot, which is exceedingly silly. So far, I've best enjoyed The Song That Goes Like This, and the fish-slapping dance. Other people (at intermission) are fooling with their smart phones and (next to me) reading the tabloids. I don't know why this makes me feel less barbarous for writing this, but at least I'm not reading anything. Just writing. You see. It makes a difference to me.  
 
I wouldn't do it if there were someone with me. 
 
Okay? 
 
English vegetables in a chicken broth is tasty and nutritious, but is it minestrone? And I'm not prepared to swear the chicken was not breaded in a commissary. But it was competently executed, came hot, and the accompanying pesto made it quite palatable. Have I had better in Indianapolis, or am I unfairly comparing an after-show restaurant with the best I'd had, albeit cheaper, back home? 
 
Soho is wild, what little I saw of it.  
 
I saw by the maps that a few bus lines went right past the hotel, and it has been useful: If the bus passes you while you're walking, that tells you not to spend so much time in the store. (This is not true all the time.)  
 
I am now in the café at the back of Stanfords Map Store, which has free wireless. I came here via Covent Garden, which was a sight. I gave very little money to a beggar with flowers, and more to a busker.  
 
I was coming from Simpsons, where they called me sir and Mr Anderson, and allowed me to choose from the Bill of Fare (menu would be French, as would be jus instead of gravy). This is a monument to English cookery (in the good sense), and P.G. Wodehouse and Arthur Conan Doyle set scenes there. About half the men there were in ties, which is the best so far. I don't say I'm a fashion plate, but I show an effort. Simpsons is grand. I took a picture of it and the front of the Savoy Theatre.  
 
This came after the Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms. Churchill was mad for maps, was never without a hat, and could not tolerate whistling. Winston Churchill was a very great man. The war rooms were fascinating. I picked up my only souvenir so far, a navy-blue bow tie with white polka dots.  
 
A cab driver called me mate. About half the people I told I was from Chicago immediately responded, "the Windy City." They are not interested in the origin of the phrase.  
 
This afternoon, tea at Claridge's; this evening, the Ceremony of the Keys as they close down the Tower. Tomorrow, a day trip to Oxford followed by a concert at St. Martin in the Fields.  

Posted by: Fritz Anderson

@ August 29, 2010 3:42:29 PM CDT ( )

The Apple Store on — in — Regent Street is like all the others, not just in layout (it's a wider version of the one on Michigan Avenue in Chicago), but in that when they saw my card, they knew my name and email address. Please God this new charger works (it does, or this would have been my last report). Very crowded at six on a Wednesday evening.  
 
Oxford Street is a major thoroughfare and commercial corridor. It is two and a half lanes wide, and at least ten bus lines keep the outer lanes stopped at all times. This is crazy.  
 
Taking the bus down Oxford Street to the Apple Store was interesting. For further interest, I shall attempt the walk down Regent to Piccadilly Circus, and the Comedy Store nearby. Perhaps it will be dark enough to make a good picture. I think my camera has a setting for night landscapes. (No-ooo, it isn't fast enough.) 
 
Everything is so small! Piccadilly Circus has incomparably more going on, but I don't think it's any bigger than Monument Circle in Indianapolis. Finding Oxendon Street among the twists, angles, and spotty signage, however, was a trick. I had to resort to iPhone mapping. The map booklet I'd been relying on didn't catch that Rupert became Oxendon. Google knew.  
 
The Comedy Store Players were almost all games, rather like Whose Line is it Anyway? There was a longer scene, with something of a plot, and improvised songs, at the end. Second City's improv aims at scenes that might become sketches, and iO at least says it wants to develop improv as a form of theater. I have a snobbery about jokes and moment-to-moment entertainment, and I didn't enjoy the show as much as I should have — it's not just the players who have to remember to stay out of their own heads.  
 
Josie Lawrence is still luminous, and uninhibited, which is the way to go if you can avoid being cheap. 
 
English audiences are as apt to suggest "dildo" as Americans. The principle of accepting whatever the audience offers is long-dead.  
 
I have yet to get through my first full day here. I feel I've been busy.  
 
[Morning] The Morgan's bed is comfortable and its breakfast generous. I must now head for Buckingham Palace at 9:30, Parliament at 3:00, and the Cabinet War Rooms somewhere in there. At 8:00, Spamalot. Being organized is truly the easiest thing a lazy man can do. 
 
I thought I'd lost my tickets for the day, which confounded me as I'd been methodical in arranging myself. I don't know what led me to examine my inner breast pocket, but there they were.  
 
The Queen's Gallery came as part of Buckingham Palace package, and I took it as the spinach course, but I was wrong. I was nose-up to sketches by Leonardo! They were part of an exhibition of studies by naturalists. In the general gallery, there was Judith with the Head of Holofernes, depicting the Hebrew seductress with the severed head of an enemy general. The notes say the head is the artist's self-portrait, and the (hot) Judith, the girlfriend who had just dumped him. I've been there.  
 
The State Rooms of Buckingham Palace are magnificent. My interest was in the statecraft of the place — they had laid a full state banquet, and explained the logistics. State banquets are an instrument of statecraft. I was also interested in the palace as an emblem of the British people. In token of that, I kept my hat in hand; there was no question of not having a hat. Nor of not wearing a jacket and tie. I was surprised to find I was the only such man there.  
 
Security at both places, and at the London Eye, was airport-style, the necessity of which is sad. 

Posted by: Fritz Anderson

@ August 29, 2010 3:20:14 PM CDT ( )

The way from the airport, it is said, looks the same everywhere. There are a LOT of TV antennas. Cable seems not to be basic infrastructure here.  
 
I checked my heavy luggage at Paddington, then went to Embankment Pier for my lunch cruise. I arrived in plenty of time and photographed Cleopatra's needle and the memorial plaque to WS Gilbert (of and Sullivan).  
 
For a drink, I asked if they served something nonalcoholic; the waitress was nonplussed, but this may be because I'd missed that part of the menu. She then asked if I were vegetarian. I don't know whether the two were related either in her mind or in her experience.  
 
The Coke was undercarbonated and tepid. I gather this is to be expected. I saw that a fish course was part of the fixed menu. I decided to bear up.  
 
Okay, so I ate the trout. It was meaty, not fishy, which I had not expected from an upbringing in a mid-continent city before cheap air freight. The seasoning was a bit bland, though. So was the chicken entrée, which resembled a disassembled pot pie. The Thames cruise was by far the highlight. I was very pleased and took many pictures. The Tower turns out to be hard to photograph from the river.  
 
It is also hard to photograph from the London Eye; I couldn't find it. I suppose it is relatively squat and far around the bend. Horse Guards Parade, yes. Nelson's Column, yes. Buck House and associated parks, yes. St. Paul's, like a majestic sore thumb. The Houses of Parliament are 20% of the view, so they don't count for credit, but I don't know if I identified the Abbey.  
 
I have been rained on and had trains delayed by works on the line. This is the authentic London experience. The Tube is easy; the streets less so. I minded the gap, and mean to take a picture of it when I think of it.  
 
I took a genuine London black cab. The driver was very friendly and I hope I didn't undertip him. 
 
My room at the Morgan is small, but complete if you don't need a desk. It's on the third floor (American), but I walk up to my third-floor office every day.  
 
My iPhone won't charge. Fortunately the Apple store is open late. Then improv. Then to sleep, to wake at 7, even though I've been awake since 1PM BST yesterday.  

Posted by: Fritz Anderson

@ August 29, 2010 3:05:30 PM CDT ( )

I'm reviving this blog (yes, I've given in to the word) at least briefly, because I want to publish some of my notes from my trips to England in 2008, and Britain in 2009. I'm planning on going to Japan in 2010, and that may appear here as well. 
 
I've been reluctant to do this. These are edits of letters I sent to my family as I was on the road. They were personal. It was not fitting that what I wrote as something intimate should be made public. But these are edits, and it's not as though my loved ones had to see it here, in a public forum, first. 
 
Some background: I grew up in an anglophile household in Indianapolis, Indiana. My parents even sent me to St. Richard's School, a then-new day school staffed by young Englishwomen who taught us a song satirizing the Duchess of Windsor, and had us put on pageants celebrating the Commonwealth. Their methods of discipline included slaps on the face hard enough to leave handprints, which I know is very wrong, but surprisingly, I don't much resent it. 
 
It was part of my inadvertent upbringing as an Anglican. 
 
Anyway, what you'll see is a celebration of Britain as seen by someone who already loved the place. When I was little, I was given M. Sasek's This is London, and the whole idea started when I bought a fresh copy for myself. If you think of the arrival scenes in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, you'll have the right idea. 

Posted by: Fritz Anderson

@ August 29, 2010 2:53:19 PM CDT ( )

A noun… verbs… 
 
A noun… verbs… 
 
Something cute will teach them all the true meaning of abstraction… 
 
And one of their own will Pay the Price. 
 
 
And what's the deal with these "all new episodes?" Do they usually run clip shows? 

Posted by: Fritz Anderson

@ February 28, 2007 5:19:27 PM CST ( )

Something I never have had the courage to shout in an airport: 
 
If you can't move it without putting wheels under it, then it isn't "carry-on," now is it? 
 
WWDC registration had never heard of me, got in anyway. 

Posted by: Fritz Anderson

@ August 6, 2006 9:03:44 PM CDT ( )

... who would think someone who refuses to spell "mortgage" properly is a good person to entrust with large sums of money? 

Posted by: Fritz Anderson

@ July 30, 2006 12:37:42 AM CDT ( )

All the cool kids are talking about "Best Practices." I have in my mailbox an offer from Adobe to show me the "Best Practices" for using DreamWeaver. On mailing lists, people no longer ask for the right way or even the best way to solve a problem. They ask, "What is the best practice to accomplish X?" 
 
Two things here. First, "Best Practice" is pretentious. Before they heard the nifty new phrase, the same people would be talking about "the right way," and not feeling the lack of a better term. They say "best practice" because it makes them sound ever-so-professional. 
 
Second, "Best Practice," if it has any distinct meaning, doesn't mean "the right way" or "the best way." It means something different from either. In the law of negligence, a defense against a malpractice or product-liability claim would be that one exercised sufficient care by following the methods of other competent professionals. If everybody else tells their clients to jump off bridges, it isn't negligent for you to do the same. 
 
This is "Best Practices." It's not the right way. It isn't the best way. It is the opposite of the innovative way. It is the cover-your-ass way, the follow-the-herd way. "Best practice" is a weasel-word. 

Posted by: Fritz Anderson

@ July 11, 2006 4:13:44 PM CDT ( )