oh, tannenbaum.

the borough of brooklyn has finally done it: its PR has outstripped its delivered product. we found this out the hard way last night, when a handful of us kicked against the driving wind to check out the great brooklyn christmas tree on atlantic avenue whose red-letter lighting we'd only barely missed. we were promised carolers, and cookies, and bright lights and baton twirlers (well, no. but i was really hoping we'd get some anyway). what we got was a stooped ten-foot tall specimen lurking sadly in a church courtyard and some overturned chairs in a dumpster. fortunately, we were feeling warm and well-fortified, having just made our way from a nearby cafe where we enjoyed the best hot chocolate ever (i am not kidding) and tried really hard not to be overtly rude in the face of the abominable poetry slam going on concurrently.

sample lyric: "my heart. my art. i choke. artichoke."

right. it reminded me not-so-fondly of my college years, wherein there was a constant stream of these events, full of equally abominable verse delivered in that terrifying, cracked-cadence, dynamic shifting poetry voice that never fails to make me want to dash my head against the nearest telephone pole. "i am NAKED BUT i am still BORING."

despite the disappointment of the poetry and the tree, however, we managed to call upon our super secret urban ninja skills salvage the evening with that time-tested elixir, booze. so off to the brooklyn inn with we, for wine, pool, and many laughter-filled discussions of magnetic parenting ("miz b? your kids are stuck to the fence again)", young dashiell (ladykiller, ubergeek, or homosexual. one of these fates is certain to be his) and other assorted scraps of amusement.

as i'm sure you'll be unsurprised to hear, a good time was had by all.