Recently...

It's Friday morning, and Jen just dropped me off from taking our cat, Cosby, to the vet. He's doing fine, he just needed his regular checkup. Dr. Hotchkiss gave him a clean bill of health, but they have to get a sample of his "used water" so Cos is at the vet now. It's odd and quiet without him here - I usually write posts for you all with him in my lap. I miss him, but we will get to see him again at 5. (Although it is nice that he is not attacking the various papers and magazines out on the desk now.) I don't have any single thing on my mind I want to share this morning, so let me do some housekeeping and update you on a few smaller things today.

So, I like Sleigh Bells (the band). We bought the album a while back, and I really didn't like it on the first or second listen. However, as all good albums usually go for me, the more I listened to it the more I liked it. As a matter of fact, if you don't know about them, check out this video, though don't judge them based on those terrible fuscia pants the girl is wearing:



Ok, next topic: the last two issues of The New Yorker. I am going to do a condensed write-up, as follows. The only two remarkable articles I want to highlight are the articles here:

• The Critics: A Critic at Large; Queen of Crime, How Agatha Christie created the modern murder mystery, by Joan Acocella. P. 83, Aug. 16 & 23, 2010. This article took me back to my days in High School, when I loved reading Agatha Christie. I read all the Hercule Poirot novels, as I remember.



• Our Far-Flung Correspondents: On the Prison Highway; The gulag's silent remains, by Ian Frazier. P. 29, Aug. 30, 2010. This was fascinating to me, as I know little of the Gulags - so I identified on some level with Mr. Frazier's point of view and his urge to see a gulag. Great article.

As promised, I have been reading exclusively on the iPad this week. I'll write a lengthier post about it next week, but my impression so far is: "Meh." I did find a new RSS app, though. I'll talk more about that next week.

The weekend holds a show opening and I am going to go unplugged again this weekend. What have you been up to recently, and what are your plans this weekend? Anything fun?