Miscellaneous Round-Up

A revival of David Mamet's Speed-the-Plow opening on Broadway this October will star Raul Esparza, Jeremy Piven of Entourage, and Elisabeth Moss of Mad Men. All right, I think I could sit through that...Despite my recent praise of big cities for their throbbing sexuality (ahem), I haven't actually been to a city bigger than Milwaukee in quite a while. My depression makes travel difficult for me emotionally, but I am also extremely allergic to the cost of cities, which is worsening all the time. Internet-based cost-of-living comparison tools suggest that in order to maintain my standard of living in Chicago, I would need to make at least twice my current Wisconsin salary; and there is no way that I would be offered that much. The spacious two-bedroom apartment that, with a recent increase, I pay $545.00/month for (including garage and pet fee) would probably run upward of $1,500.00 or $2,000.00 in Chicago, depending on the neighborhood. In New York or San Francisco, it might go for $3,000.00 or $4,000.00...For the past couple of summers, I have been charmed by the ice-cream truck that makes an afternoon run through my neighborhood, tinkling Scott Joplin tunes. It reminds me of Passaic Park, in a good way! It doesn't quite make up for Appleton not being Chicago, but it is pleasant...I was amused to read this in one of the Wall Street Journal's blogs:

...like its competitors, JetBlue has resorted to scouring the couch cushions for change. It now is charging customers $7 for a pillow and a blanket. Meantime, US Airways has slapped a price tag on a cup of water; Delta charges $100 for a second bag on round-trip domestic flights. Not since the days of Woolworths has anyone tried to build a business on nickels and dimes.

I remember hearing the JetBlue announcement and thinking, "Wow! Business suicide!" But we live in strange times...The "Commendatori" episode of the second season of The Sopranos, in which Tony, Christopher, and Paulie visit Naples to do business, renders exquisitely the feeling of visiting a lushly different culture for the first time. Only Tony finds it as magical as, say, I found Mexico on my first trip there; Paulie is let down and is relieved to return to New Jersey, while Christopher doesn't experience Italy at all, spending his entire time there in a heroin haze. It is in this episode that an astute first-time viewer of the series would rightly feel: Christopher is doomed -- not perhaps by the drug abuse per se, but by his inadequacy to occasion.