For those of you just tuning in, over the weekend I posted pretty steadily about my trip to New York City last Thursday for the Drum Major Institute's benefit honoring Kos, Anna Burger, and Wynton Marsalis. One or two of the posts have even been about what happened at the benefit. The others are about the good time I had just being in New York. I was writing as memories sorted themselves out so the posts went up out of sequence. I've rearranged a few since and I'll be reposting the rest in their proper places later. Rather than making you scroll down and then back up, I thought maybe a table of contents would be helpful. I've also included links to posts by others who were at this soiree and have different takes on the events.
Chapter One. My New York City. In which a very young Lance Mannion is made to feel at home in the big city by a tough waitress in a diner near Madison Square Garden.
Chapter Two. Courtesy, Professionalism, Respect, and no more jelly donuts. An older, wiser, but still wide-eyed Mannion arrives in New York for the benefit and observes that cops aren't what they once were.
Meanwhile: Blue Girl, getting ready for the event, is given hair like glass while surrounded by beautiful men.
Chapter Three. "Absolutely!" Mannion finds out there's a limit to good service in an Irish pub.
Chapter Four. Anna Burger. At the benefit, labor activist and DMI honoree Anna Burger talks of meat processing and human beings as machines.
Lindsay Beyerstein reports on the speeches and takes pictures.
Chapter Five. Andrew Young. Jimmy Carter's ambassador to the UN remembers his service and Carter's Presidency with pride.
At the DMIBlog, Mark Winston Griffith looks at another incongruous moment in Young's speech---Young, responding to Anna Burger's criticisms of Wal-Mart at one point in her speech, decided to warn progressives that attacks on Wal-Mart can sound like attacks on Wal-Mart shoppers.
Blue Girl calls home and gets a lecture on safety in the big city from her teenaged son.
Chapter Six. Wynton Marsalis. In which the jazz great defines partisanship in a way guaranteed not please the highly partisan bloggers in the room.
The ceremonies over, bloggers gather in the basement to plot, conspire, conform to stereotypes, show-off, swill more free booze, and commit other nefarious acts. Tom Watson and Maha Barbara give the official version. Blue Girl reveals what actually went on.
Chapter Seven. The Hog Pit. In which a group of liberal bloggers prove they can't agree on where to go to get a bite to eat, let alone on any agenda handed down to them by their master, Markos.
Chapter Eight. Florent. Mannion gets to eat blueberry pie.
Chapter Nine. A determined little blonde. Mannion and company are saved from taxi cab limbo by an unlikely heroine.
Chapter Ten. Next time we'll wear sneakers. The evening ends happily and contentedly, but with blisters.
Epilogue: Blue Girl finds it's hard to leave New York behind.
Thanks for all of your vingettes, sounds like a good weekend.
Posted by: Claire | Monday, June 26, 2006 at 10:29 AM
I have been back-reading, and am very sorry the computer wasn't hooked up to let me know you were in town. We're unpacking here in Brooklyn, and indulging in the old couples game known as "why do you have so many g@#$^%n books, C.?" Anyway, good to be back in your comments section. Cheers!
Posted by: Campaspe | Monday, June 26, 2006 at 10:39 AM
C,
I thought you were still in Paris or I'd have gotten in touch. Now that I know how easy it is to get to the City from here I'll be back more often. Let's make plans!
Good to hear you're finally getting settled in your new place, neighbor.
Posted by: Lance | Monday, June 26, 2006 at 11:36 AM
Timothy Leary once remarked that people take drugs because drugs are the only way to feel the way people in television commercials look like they feel.
Which reminds me that from time to time I wish that New York could effect a cultural exchange with Los Angeles, or Tokyo, and consign to that place some portion of the visitors and residents who seek in New York to feel the way people in The Thin Man or Top Hat or the works of John O'Hara look like they feel, and in trade receive a few containers full of pierced, tattooed seekers of the Gibsonian hyperpresent.
Posted by: Rasselas | Monday, June 26, 2006 at 04:59 PM