La grosse Pomme, vu du comté de la Reine. (Le nord à droite.)

¶ Matins: A look at this week’s Book Review.

¶ Tierce: Within a little more than a week — Eliot Spitzer’s scandal erupted in public only last Monday — the complexion of American politics seems to have changed, and the change is marked by two speeches, delivered, respectively, by Barack Obama and David Paterson.

And don’t miss a Great American Car Story by the Ganome.

¶ Sext: Women of the world (not to be confused with Women of the World — although most of them probably are both) discuss Eliot Spitzer’s lapses. “Bad manners,” says Nancy Lee Andrews, at one point Ringo Starr’s fiancée.

¶ Nones: Confused about which way is up in FreeMarketLand? This report in the Times, which, for all I know, may be a daily feature, does a fine job of connected all the dots with a remarkably clear coherence.

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In beautiful downtown Niantic, the splendid Morton Hotel.

¶ Matins: It was great to get out of town, and I really must get out more often — especially to New England. On Friday night, though, I was very glad to be in town. Listening to the Philadelphia Orchestra at Carnegie Hall.

¶ Tierce: So, there’s a Gold’s Gym in Haiti. It’s not for everyone, though. Why does this example of global free-market capitalism seem so totally unprogressive?

¶ Sext: Rah! Rah! Rah! My prep school’s latest claim to fame! Go Cecil! (Blair’s development office must be thrilled by this — development.)

¶ Vespers: How cool is that: your cell phone is your boarding pass! (The airline sends you a message containing a two-dimensional bar code that’s very hard to counterfeit.)

¶ Compline: Souvenir of the Weekend Past: a song that I had never heard in my life. I even thought that Riann was making it up. But Kathleen sang it lustily when I asked her about it last night. In her day, “boppin'” was replaced by “bashin’.”

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Happy Saint Paddy’s
 
¶ Matins: Today’s Book on Monday, Crazy For God, at Portico.

¶ Sext: Bailout or Smackdown? You decide. Meanwhile, I’m back in New York, sauntering down 86th Street minutes before the St Patrick’s Day Parade.

¶ Compline: One reason for not posting a bit more this afternoon was having to watch a rental before it was due back, to wit, Sexy Beast.

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¶ Matins: This week’s Friday Front, at Portico. It may be that the question is not: how important are newspapers? But rather: how else can their vital functions, if any, be performed?

¶ Nones: I wonder if we’ve gotten any better at forecasting. Here’s an amenity that New York surely ought to have boasted by now…

¶ Vespers: He came in wanting to be the new McKinley, but he’s going to go out as a second Hoover. Oh, let’s hope not — no matter how hard he doesn’t try.

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¶ Matins: I’m going to the country this weekend….

¶ Sext: What a coinkydink! There I was, chatting with the ganome about Jane Austen, when an advance-fee scam letter, as crabbedly composed as if the writer had been sweating over Mansfield Park, popped into my mailbox.

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¶ Matins: A look at this week’s Book Review, at Portico.

¶ Tierce: Spitzer still governor; Albany paralyzed. Aw, shucks. “Albany Paralyzed” is about the happiest headline that I’ve read since I moved back to New York in 1980. Can we think of something stronger and more permanent than “paralyzed”? “Nuked,” maybe? No; “nuked” is politically incorrect. How about “razed and salted,” like Carthage?

¶ Sext: Well, that’s that. All hail Governor Paterson…

¶ Vespers: Oy, the (no) pressure! Look for the Leisure Economy.

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Jolly Bowery chef

¶ Matins: What a lot I’ve got to do today! Two pages to write, and at least five other significant items on the To Do list (kept in my head — and here, too, I guess), including making a recording of Mig’s text. I wonder if I still know how to use the equipment.

¶ Tierce: Mr Spitzer is still the governor; I may be losing friends faster than he is.

¶ Sext: A word or two about Lieutenant Governor David A Paterson, soon to be New York’s first African-American (and legally blind?) chief executive.

¶ Nones: Henrik Hertzberg leads off this week’s Talk with a surprising propostion.

¶ Vespers: William Inge’s Come Back, Little Sheba, at MTC — with the amazing Ms Merkerson.

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¶ Matins: Looking forward to getting my reading chair back from Mr Solo, refinisher and reupholsterer to stars like me. You can see his shop for yourself if you know where to look, on East 85th Street. Otherwise, content yourself with the fabric.

¶ Lauds: We watched Death at a Funeral. I was so pleased with myself for finding it at the Video Room. Ha.

¶ Sext: At the Huff Post, Jane Smileys says of the Clintons: “They are, indeed, now part of the ‘vast right wing conspiracy’.”

¶ Vespers: Here in New York, we are all waiting to see what Governor Spitzer, having been snared in a “prostitution ring,” does next.

¶ Compline: Books on Monday: J M Coetzee’s Diary of a Bad Year, at Portico.

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¶ Matins: This morning’s Friday Front, at Portico.

¶ Sext: Come Back, Little Sheba, for all its antiquity, was as fresh as paint and as strong as smelling salts. (Report on Tuesday) Now I’m off to the Angelika for In Bruges, and my first trip downtown since before the holidays. For the movies, at least.

¶ Vespers: After the movie, which was great, and lunch at Jacques Downtown, I screwed up my courage to Do Something New. Instead of heading home, I headed east — one block, to the new New Museum. It opened late last year, but was much too hot for the likes of me.

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Intimations of le printemps

¶ Matins: Finally, our tickets for Come Back, Little Sheba. Sooner or later, all the Off-Broadway supporting actors appear on Law & Order. In a twist, one of the Law & Order stars sppears on Broadway!

¶ Tierce: The lesson of 142,000 free parking passes: understanding the difference between a perquisite and a privilege.

¶ Sext: A new reader of Portico just wrote to me to comment on The Devils of Loudun, which is very nice indeed, but I mention it here because the writer happens to have a site that shares many of my ambitions, The Pequod.

¶ Vespers: At long last, a disgrace in the Bronx will be cleared up. The Bronx Borough Courthouse, a beaux-arts jewel that sits at the end of a long vista, will become a charter school in the fall. Read Timonthy Williams’s story in the Times, but be sure to click on the photo, the better to see the building and how it has been defaced over the years. 

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On 57th Street

¶ Matins: I’ve got my physical at 9:30 this morning. I remember when a “physical” was something that you got when you were drafted.

¶ Prime: This just in: The Earth is round, and, also, by the way, putting a television set in your child’s bedroom is not a great idea. (They might pick up the wrong values from Real Housewives of New York City.) 

¶ Nones: Today, on Ew! Factor: Koran Flushing. What’s with the community service? They ought to throw the bum out of school!

¶ Vespers: A few words about Tom Meglioranza’s cabaret recital at Weill Recital Hall last week.

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Descending to Eli’s — many of Manhattan’s best food markets are in basements.

¶ Matins: JR has been writing bits and pieces about one of his favorite brasseries, the Nord-Sud in the 18^ième; now he has posted a couple of photographs.

¶ Tierce: Morning Hash: In Bob Tedeschi’s story, “After Suicide, Blog Insults Are Debated,” the Times aims for excitement but winds up stripping the story of much-needed perspective.

¶ Vespers: “Ribaldry and lightheadedness” — what’s that in Hebrew? Yiddish? Somehow, these terms of art didn’t make it into the King James Version. But then Hasidism hadn’t been invented yet, had it.

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¶ Matins: Poème trouvé: “To the Uptight Guy on the 6 Train at 77th St. Station.”

¶ Tierce: An initial decision, against going to the movies today — I’ve got lots to do in preparation for tomorrow’s luncheon, after all, and I don’t want to be running around at the last minute — was overturned when I discovered that The Other Boleyn Girl is showing around the corner at 10:30.

¶ Compline: The most incredibly occupied day. Read all about it below.

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¶ Matins: William F Buckley dies, at 82.

¶ Nones:  And we’re back. Something about corrupted update code knocked out the server. While The Daily Blague was down, I went ahead and posted today’s Morning Read in the Vestibule at Portico. Think I’ll do that as a matter of course. Directive from the Department of Redundancy Department. (more…)

¶ Matins: Vantage Point at ten-twenty, at the Orpheum. In the evening, a MMArtists in Residence recital at Grace Rainey Rogers.

¶ Tierce: Perhaps I want to reconsider the movie? Nah, I always disagree with Manohla Dargis.

¶ Sext: The Manohla-meter worked! I had a super time. In fact, I watched the last fifteen minutes standing up. Ack-shunnn!

¶ Vespers: I’ve decided to stay home. I wouldn’t want to be looking for a slip-and-fall attorney.

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High tide or low? Only the wind ripples the surface of the East River.

¶ Matins: Lunch with Nom de Plume!

¶ Tierce. The threat of Alzheimer’s is on the wane, according to a paragraph in the Times. “Older Americans are having less trouble with their memories,” and it’s all tied to schooling.

¶ Nones. Happy to be in for the day. Just before I went out, I came across some cool names for Ollie Kottke’s dinosaur.

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¶ Matins: Due at Westphalia at eleven.

¶ Lauds. Unable to sleep, I read most of what’s left of Breakable You. Lights out who knows when.

¶ Tierce. In the Times, Letters to the Editor grapple with the meaning of The Great Gatsby.

¶ Sext. Mission accomplished at Westphalia, despite heavy traffic.

¶ Nones. Gotham ugliness is not confined to Queens.

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Red or What?

¶ Matins: Tomorrow’s dates: 11:15: Rue des Médecins. Six to eight in the evening: the Poussin preview at the Museum. (Details below the jump.)

¶ Tierce. Kathleen rejects proposal to move to the Boat Basin.

¶ Nones. It’s getting colder out there — at least for shrinks.

¶ Compline. Et in Arcadia ego [!]

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