Tuesday night's Law & Order: SVU ruled. In fact, it ruled so hard that it may have compromised my immune system, making me too ill yesterday to post about its awesomeness.

Why was it so incredible?

1. Matthew Modine. He has been my favorite since the one-two punch of Full Metal Jacket and Married to the Mob. Age 10 and I was DONE.

2. Chris Meloni.

3. Matthew Modine and Chris Meloni. Mrrreow.

4. The dialogue-driven nature of the episode. I commented to my sister that it was like, for one magic night, Homicide was back on the air. Only, it wasn't Frank who had somebody in the box, it was Stabler. But that same dynamic was in play--the interrogation as mental duel, with sympathies, antagonism, and electricity running in both directions. And then, of course, the final shot showing the toll it all takes on the cop--in this case, Stabler holding his head in his bloody-knuckled hands.

This episode was so good, I'm willing to suspend judgment on the casting of Martin Short as next week's villain.

What do you get when you take one of the worst songs ever and cross it with one of the most odious musical genres ever? Why, it's the Wynonna Judd House Remix of "I Want to Know What Love Is"!

The fuckers at the Virgin Megastore were, in their typical, customer-hostile way, BLASTING this crap. In fact, it would probably have been better if they had been literally blasting crap, both sonically and in terms of creating a hospitable customer environment.

This is, of course, what I deserve for visiting those douchebags in the first place.

No real point here. I just had to share.

At least once a week, I will walk home over the Brooklyn Bridge from at least the City Hall stop (I don't think I can make myself go past Canal Street and remain sane). Sure, the photos I take will be shaky, since I haven't mastered setting the shutter speed on my (recently acquired) digital camera, there are cars rumbling beneath, and, for now at least, it's fucking freezing without gloves. But it's one of the few places to be thoroughly in the city without a full-blown crowd around, and with proper timing, I'm there as the sky changes colors. Even on rather crappy weather days, as below, it's beautiful and keeps the psychosis at bay.

Though my previous entry is dated the 13th, the photos were taken walking home on the 11th. Thus my walking over the bridge today constitutes adherence to my recently announced policy; I'm good until at least next Friday. Considering the sad fate of other resolutions I have made--I will only read books that challenge me! I will be a better correspondent! I will not plot coups!--this is remarkable progress indeed.

Fewer photos, though, and only one worth posting. It was cold, dammit.

Pardon the ripped-off Adrienne Kennedy quotation. Especially since its only applicability is that all of the photos I took on today's Brooklyn Bridge walk were black and white compositions.

We've got yer basic moon through the cables shot:

And yer folks walking over the bridge with Brooklyn behind them and the Manhattan Bridge to the north:

Aaaaand we've got the first album cover for The Adairdevils. (Album forthcoming once musical talent attained.)

Ah, the moon over Brooklyn. It is like the moon over any other place--beautiful--only you can't get a photo of it without cars wrecking the shot. It continues to surprise me how much I edit out of my perception when I'm looking without a camera; I know the cars are there, of course, but I see the brownstones, trees, and moon. Put a lens on it and BAM! It's crapass Corollas for miles.

Anyway, following DeGraw from Fourth to Fifth Aves. on my way home Friday, I made a valiant, traffic-defying attempt to capture the lovely evening.

Mixed results.

Martha Wainwright: "When the Day Is Short" (iTunes link)
Various Artists: Hard Headed Woman: A Celebration of Wanda Jackson (cd here; iTunes here)
Esp. Laura Cantrell doing "Wasted."

Full disclosure: I get a few cents if people buy songs after following my iTunes links.

If you've seen her new columns on Salon, her recent piece in the NYTimes, or anything else she's written, then you know too much about Ayelet Waldman. More seriously, you know way too much about the kids who are going to hate her with an unrivalled passion in juuuust a few years.

The invaluable Paige directed me to this dead-on parody of Waldman's writing. It's the perfect way to fuel the hate towards her without taking part in her campaign to completely wreck her children.

. . . of ways to take photos of the same place without taking the same photo. Good thing I hit this week's walk around sunset instead of when it was already dark.

This had the added benefit of getting me home in time to see the contestants on America's Next Top Model lose their shit after erroneously assuming that one woman's rash was--what else?--flesh-eating, pneumonia-causing bacteria. That was some great TV. Thank you, Tyra Banks. May you go from strength to strength.

Anyway, before I settled down to bask in ANTM's awesomeness, I did my weekly walk home over the bridge. Stay tuned for next week, when my increasingly desperate bids for photo variation will probably have me taking photos of angry, oncoming cyclists in the bike lane.