after much dallying, i finally drove up and got a flat in providence. it is a 1BR, in a basement, is exactly 12 minutes from the CS building, and, rather auspiciously, is street-numbered 212 (also my mobile phone's area code, btw). i suppose all these are good things, including the basement bit -- i currently live with a restriction against pounding on the keyboard in the late hours (even with headphones, from the bedroom below the percussive tapping itself "sounds like drums," i'm told). add to this the floor-shaking vibrations from the cheap upright bass i purchased last thursday, and you have one noisy upstairs tenant.
fortuitously, rhode island was also hosting the newport jazz festival, and so we brought a tent, camped out and made a weekend out of it: the hard day of flat-hunting was rewarded by good music, the new england shore, smores by the campfire, and, err, rain. it was around 4am saturday night when the last drops of tropical storm charley made a mini-lake underneath the tent; after emerging from the car in the morning, we found the sleeping bags bobbing happily in their new pool.
but newport was pretty rockin! the only complaint i guess i have is that many of the acts were too preservationist -- e.g., "Jon Faddis Jazz Orchestra Salutes Dizzy Gillespie & Charlie Parker, Benny Goodman, and Count Basie", "Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra Salutes Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk & Louis Armstrong" -- or in a style frozen in time for fourty years; there weren't many artists bringin' the new (Ornette Coleman, and the Herbie Hancock / Wayne Shorter final show were notable exceptions), and very few young artists. much fuss was made about it being the 50th anniversary of the festival, and for most of it (even Ornette!) you could close your eyes and basically find yourself back in the 1950's or 60's.
but the real lesson of the weekend is that there is another verrazano bridge, and it is in rhode island. poseurs!
Posted by cce at August 16, 2004 03:24 PM | TrackBackyou just missed megs and curto...they are in newport as we speak. they didn't go for the jazz...they went for the cute.
Posted by: mike's mom at August 17, 2004 08:56 PMthey don't call the flats in the states, chris. it's an apartment. or, crack-house.
Posted by: poiesz at August 21, 2004 10:44 PMi call them flats. that's because it's the correct term.
Posted by: sophie at August 23, 2004 02:40 AMActually (I learned this while flat-hunting in SF) apartments and flats are different things. Just ask craigslist.
Apparently an apartment is a... well... apartment with a shared entryway (i.e. you open one outside door and there's a hallway with a bunch of apartments off of it like a hotel). A flat is where you have your own door, own street address, and usually have an entire floor to yourself.
I'm thinking the latter is more common in the UK and that's why they just call everything a flat, and the former is more common here and so they just call everything apartments. In SF there's a pretty even mix, which is the only reason I bothered to learn the distinction at all.
P.S. Flats rock.
Posted by: Mike at August 23, 2004 12:44 PMah. thanks for the clarification.
Brits tend to call any shoddy, mildewed cardboard box a flat. because it collapses into a flat piece of cardboard. but they don't mind living in it, since it's better than things were "during the war".
Posted by: sophie at August 24, 2004 09:09 AMIt's still not a flat.
Posted by: cnj at November 7, 2004 01:56 AM