monday was my last day at IBM; brown on monday. but i can't blog now, i'm about to push a canoe into the hudson!
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!