My personal assignment to see the same thing in different ways continues. (So I am ignoring the suggestion that Monkey Pants, aka my sister, made in comment to my previous entry. But not out of spite.) Bless Daylight Savings for making it easier.

Also, Veronica Mars was awesome last night.

If you have iTunes, for the love of god fire it up and watch the HYSTERICAL video by Simon Cowell brainchild Il Divo that's linked off the main page. It is a Toni Braxton cover, worried and reworked until the original, smarmy, soulless source material was elevated to a spectacular Baroque hideousness that almost, through inversion and sensory assault, finds its way to beauty. It is canned studio crap with a heaping dose of cheap Spanish guitar. It is a video that starts with a train and a rehearsal, ends with a concert, and somehow has a welding scene in the middle. It is crooning then booming Spanish vocals. It is the sort of marvel not seen since the Mase, Puff Daddy, and 112 collaboration "Jealous Guys". IT IS ALL THINGS.

* A quote from the estimable Endi about another topic.

I'm in the middle of a work crunch, and am consequently listening to a lot of AC/DC, Van Halen, and Joan Jett--I find that straightforward rock without a whiff of art gets me through projects with lightning speed.

As a result of this immersion, I have decided something:

The softening of Van Halen's RAWK is not the fault of Sammy Hagar.

While it is indisputable that the average rock quotient of the Roth years exceeds that of the Hagar years, this is a case of correlation without causality. "Jump", with its synth solo, already brought far less rock than "Ain't Talkin' 'bout Love", and that has one source: Eddie van Halen's increasing synth focus. I'm not saying that "When It's Love" would've happened on Roth's watch. But "Dreams" (with different words) would have. (Provided the other band members didn't eventually choke him to death on the tour bus.)

To blaspheme and give full disclosure: readers should bear in mind that in CCD, I would get angry when they said that God was Jesus' father; Joseph, after all, stuck around and raised him. So, I seem to be predisposed not to give much reverence to the ones who leave. I value fidelity over might.

I never did edit the photos for last week's walk, and may never get around to it now. But dammit, I went! And then the next day I went to the Bronx Zoo and photographed penguins and primates . . . and I haven't edited those either. Someday.

In the meantime, I did get back on track a bit by doing the bridge walk yesterday. A lovely evening, a full moon, and only one cyclist running into me in the pedestrian lane. It only hurts a little, but was not the best mood leavener; were it not for him, I probably would not have found myself yelling, "You have a red, douchebag!" later that evening at a motorist who failed to respect my crosswalk rights.

Anyway. I like my photos this week. I'm even making one of 'em BIG.

. . . of the students at my alma mater.

It's been over three days, and they're still filibustering Frist!