several attempts scrabble games i played last night ended in my connection screwing up and me being booted out. i tried my hand at tanglewords, playsite's version of boggle, and discovered i thouroughly suck at it, watching my rating drop each round even as my point yield increased. so tonight's game, with a garrulous purple-level from pa named "babes4" ('babe is a nickname and i have four children,' she explained in response to a question that she thought was about "title" when i actually said "tile") - we used chat far more than i have in previous games. i opened with sMELTED, traded in my next rack of all consonants, keeping the j for JAR, which enabled me to make AJAR and ZEAL through a triple next turn. then QUITE on a triple-letter. and another bingo, MATINGS, forming ANODE over her NODE. my final score was 439, an online best, and maybe personal best overall. it helped that she left several triples open for me, but more that i was just drawing like crazy (although i did trade in twice.) and once again, i was stuck with a bingo (SAVINGS) at endgame and nowhere to play it. whooo.

as promised: briefly: sunday morning's hannukat bayit (mezuzzah-hanging ceremony), on less sleep than usual, had me sneezing and tired. but a lovely chance to see their lovely apartment, and meet josh's amusing family, and the fantastic Goose.

the crew, plus Barb and Ben, went to jamba juice and ordered five mango agogos, and then went to staples and met a man named turtle (first and last name.) oh yeah - a hilarious conversation in the car on the way over, in response to a report from abby that coffee stimulate's production of the "death hormone." Barb was indignant: "SHE'S the death hormone." aah, ha ha ha.

i fell asleep when we got home. more stuff happened, i'm sure, but i can't remember it.

yesterday (monday) afternoon, we had a recording session for [L], a sabar player from Dakar. sabar is a senegalese drum, virtually unknown in the states, which is played with one hand and one stick. this guy was a freaking incredible player. we had him overdub tracks over his own playing so that by the end it sounded like 7 or 8 drummers going, a complex but funky 12-8 rhythm which is apparently exclusively used as entrance music for this particular senegalese wrestler. the plan is for this drumming to be the intro to the album, overlaid with an 808 beat and snatches from the rappers. cool.

[L] stayed for thai takeout, from tantawan (awesome, probably the best thai i've ever had,) and an illuminating discussion of the local world music scene and the perplexing absence of sabar in america.

benny left last night, after a prolonged discussion of URL choices (they have secured africanrecords.com) and packaging ideas.

more stuff to talk about - a final romp through cambridge today - but it's late, once again. you know.

i'm not who you think i am
i'm the king of siam
i've got a shaved head
my name is yul brynner
and i am a famous movie star