It's actually a bit warm now, but last week was very cold. It made me strikingly sleepy (nothing like drowsing on the sofa during a cold, dry day), but it also stirred up, pretty strikingly, a bunch of memories from a few years ago. When I was at Wesleyan, I took a class on formal languages -- it was the first time I ever had to write serious proofs, and I spent a lot of time standing in front of one or another of the blackboards in the hall on the top floor of the Science Tower, trying to puzzle things out. Connecticut always seemed to get colder than New York. I'd shuffle from the Butterfield Colleges through the dead leaves up Church St., take the elevator up to the fourth floor of the (often) empty building, and then struggle to glimpse (and then retain) some relatively obscure truths about the nature of computation. In the clear, gray autumn light from the window, where I'd often find myself looking, you could see this kind of ocean of trees, the scope of which was kind of invisible from the ground. Very picturesque. I had this kind of ugly mottled brown sweater that I was wearing a lot those days. I'd bought it for (literally) fifty cents at a thrift store in town that sold cast-off stuff from hospitals. It was very warm, but I looked like a grandpa-in-training or some kind of weird eastern European.
The venerable Eve is now 26 years old. As with last year, we convened at Buttermilk to celebrate, and as with last year, Eve puked like a champ. The Star Wars pinball machine that caused problems for me last year was nowhere to be found, but Eve herself was a healthy terror, especially after she "rallied" -- the evening culminated in our drunken pursuit of her as she tore down 4th Ave., weaving from side to side in birthdatorial glee.
There's this weekly comedy show at Union Hall hosted by Michael Showalter and Eugene Mirman called Tearing The Veil Of Maya. I have no idea what that means, but the premise -- at least, I think -- is that it's for relatively well-known alternative comics to try out new material and talk about funny stuff that's happened to them during the week. Tom is fucking apeshit for it, and he goes every week. I've been twice now, and both times were fairly spectacular: The first time, Jim Gaffigan showed up (unannounced, I think) and did a whole set about how much loves bacon -- interspersed, of course, with his standard commentary from an imagined critical audience member (which sounds suspiciously close to the ultra-endearing "girl voice" that Tom and I do); last weekend they had Marc Maron, my all-time favorite comedian, bearded and intense and miserable, fresh from what he described as a terrible week in Edinburgh and a break-up with his (second) wife.
His delivery is such that I can't really remember more than a couple choice bits of his set (God speaking to him in Davey-and-Goliath voice; an extended simile about how dating women is like "sticking your cock into a hurricane"), but we (Tom and Colleen and Ted and Jill and I) were sitting in the second row, and intimidating eye contact was made throughout. At one point, he addressed a comment in the second person to some hypothetical hipster -- "I know what movie you're here to see with that haircut" -- while staring right at me. I don't even have a haircut right now! It's all over the place. Later on, warning the crowd that things were about to get weird, he took a guitar pick out of his pocket and winged it into the audience. It sort of boomeranged over my head and then landed squarely in my lap! I'm going to frame it, maybe? Not sure what to do.
Mike Birbiglia was up next. A bit stung, maybe, that Eugene Mirman had let Marc go really long, he explained that Marc was "the best comic," and that he's pretty much exactly the same off-stage -- except not funny. Seeing Marc lingering in the back of the room, he called out, "I slept with your wife!" "That's enough," said Marc, and promptly left.
This weekend is apple picking! I gotta go now -- I've got a meatloaf in the oven, my first ever, in honor of National Meat Loaf Appreciation Day.
No comments:
Post a Comment