What became interesting about it was trying to understand the structure of the fictional moment and then represent that structure. Of course, if you are just using PowerPoint slide templates, the kinds of structures that you can convey are limited. They are divided into categories—relationship structures, process structures, hierarchies—

That's Jennifer Egan, author of A Visit from the Goon Squad, which, as you know, Elizabeth wants me to read, talking to The Morning News about how she outlined her book in PowerPoint. Seriously. The entire thing. With complex slides and all. It's absolutely fascinating to hear in the interview and to see in action, on her site and embedded below.

Looking back, I do wonder why I was determined to write in PowerPoint. It’s hard for me to even fully recapture the urgency of that goal. But I think, really, in the end, the answer was thematic. The book was so much about pauses, and it’s so constructed around pauses—as you say, there are gaps and leaps. This is all different ways of saying there are things that are missing in the book—and in a way PowerPoint is a program that’s built around giving us little snapshots without the connective tissue. It’s all pauses.

"You should tell girls you played soccer in school."
"Only from second to eighth grade!"
"Don't tell them that part."

That was of course friend Crash Ramos as friend Amy led she, myself and new friend Amanda into the wonderful world of United soccer.

Above is not a soccer game. Above is tailgating. Turns out United fans throw fine tailgates. My four hot dogs and two beers disappeared.

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The elevator situation at the Marriott Marquis hotel in Times Square is much better than it was. Or so I've read places. I've ridden in the new elevators, and they're fast. I have no idea how slow they were before.

But in a way, I can compare them. For instance, from a press release, here's a pleasant description of how the new elevator system works:

The Miconic 10 satisfies the needs of the fast-paced Times Square hotel by improving overall traffic efficiencies. The system uses keypads in the hallways where users can input their destination, eliminating traditional pushbuttons in elevator cars. It then assigns the elevator that will transport the passengers to their destinations most efficiently. The Miconic 10 also tracks frequency of input requests on the keypad and factors in the capacity of the car based upon its weight, allowing full cars to run in an express mode and avoid unnecessary stops.

Express mode mostly, no unnecessary stops, input tracking, capacity handling, efficient transport, all the decisions made before boarding.

The old elevators, by contrast, I imagine must've run similarly to how my brain runs in the elevators at my new job: in troublesome fashion.

You see…

Reaching the elevator, I run into people I know. They vary. Many are new colleagues. Other I've known now for years. We exchange hellos and make small talk. They may ask me a question. And my brain stops.

If you listen closely, you can hear gears in my head slip, wheels crash rather than catch, the hammer in their giant clock tower let off a lone, mistaken GONG, and all of London look up from their newspapers and mobiles and bowlers to wonder why their tax monies at, say, 2:17 on a weekday afternoon have failed them and their once proud empire.

In the elevator, people ask simple questions. I have no answers. Not about the day, not about our weather, not about my lunch, not about where I'm coming or going, and certainly not about where they might be coming or going. The questions require no sparking comebacks or broadcast-ready bon mots. As a French usage gets you to wondering, no, these exchanges aren't of the flirting variety either. The questions are literally about the weather, my lunch and the like. I have failed to answer specific questions now about both my socks and my sleeves.

Why? How? If I had a dollar for every time I asked myself as much, I could hire an intern to ride elevators with me and answer questions. Then have lots of dollars left over because, really, who pays interns.

I have a few theories, though. First, for the past seven years, I have been riding elevators with windows. Those windows have looked onto a great lawn and mutant-fish pond with a few miles of visible distance in the sky. A view like that one provides answers. Or maybe questions with which to answer questions. Or new topics, ones collected looking outside or far away. Or a shared experience. Together, you and I, we who share an office and Outlook, we briefly lose ourselves in nature.

Second, for not seven years but still many, I've been riding elevators with screens. Glowing digital screens hung above all our heads, ready with news and facts, refreshing just when you ran out of wording and grew in peril of having to look down and around. Our company owned this. The elevator-screen makers were probably my favorite corporate division, beyond my own. Their screens glowed so we didn't have to.

Third, I'm thinking too hard about work. Bosses, if you read this post, go with this theory. I am always thinking, even in the elevator, about the hard work ahead. That must be it. What a worker that Cooper is!

Fourth, I'm growing dumber with age.

You can be sure the truth is some mix of these things. Like a stopped clock, an introvert in an elevator has issues most of the time. You can make him ride an elevator, but you can't make him think. And so on. I don't have your answer right now, but give me another three floors.

Once and only once, I bought a VHS movie over eBay. I can't tell you how happy I am to see that movie turn up in last week's Tribune.

Oftentimes our relationship to a character actor is a matter of where we are in our lives at the time of introduction. In director Joan Micklin Silver's "Between the Lines" (1977), which is hard to find but worth the trouble, Goldblum played the lazy, generally stoned music writer of an alternative Boston weekly threatened by corporate takeover. (If they only knew.)

I saw that movie on a date in high school, and it's sort of remarkable that this loosely plotted, bittersweet ensemble piece even played a theater in Racine, Wis. That film probably had a lot to do with solidifying my romantic impression of journalism and its discontents and slackers and dreamers.

The movie is "an unabashedly Hollywoodian paean to journalism and the free drink," says Time Out.  "We'll rate it as the number-one film in the subgenre Films About Alternative Newsweeklies," says Baltimore's City Paper. The journos — shock — date each other. What distinguishes it "is the gently perceptive way it captures the emotional confusions of its characters," says the Times. "They are young, talented, ambitious people who once had the great good fortune to be enthusiastically committed and to have had professional lives that were the same as their private lives." The movie also features Southside Johnny music and for some reason has a subplot about bootlegging his releases.

It's basically my life's story had I lived the '70s. Or how I wish it were. Here's a scene that could basically happen, for better or worse… now.

Friend Matt, last seen mini-golfing, was deep in a New Mexico forest.

There, in the wilderness, he saw a tree carving reminding him of me.

He took a picture of it and, getting home, e-mailed me right away.

Thanks, Matt!

New Newsweek owner, Sidney Harman, age 92, to the WSJ:

"The challenge at a time like this in the world of journalism… man, that's inescapable. That's better than a good-looking woman. Well, maybe not."

Harsh, WaPo Local. Where's Remy when we need him? And who runs errands in Clarendon, except neighbors on foot and people (likely from away) foolish enough to try and park in the Whole Foods Parking lot?

Of the list, I'll agree with Screwtop, Artisan Confections, Iota, Boccato, and Earl's. I'll add 11th Street Lounge, Sette Bello, Silver Diner, Mexicali Blues, Eat Bar, and Eventide. Whitlow's, you're on the fence. La Tasca, same thing. American Flatbreads, I need more experience to decide.

Not on my list? The British store. Foreigners come here, attack our city and then want to gather here? Let's be sensitive to the War of 1812.

(Note: In all seriousness, the British are great. Good people. This blog is about half-English and had ancestors on the Mayflower. One may or may not have caused trouble in Plymouth for kissing his wife in public.)

(That's right. That's how we do it. Also, another ancestor may or may not have sided with the British during the War of 1812 on the family's farm in Canada. But they were just battling to stop the United States from trying to take over Canada, which, when you think about it, was in the USA's best interests. In related news, I wonder how the British store seems to do so well in Clarendon and the trophy store seems to struggle. The trophy store should give itself a big trophy for effort.)

Possible soundtrack for this post: Death, the band.

I've been struggling with what to write about Passing Strange, which friend Annie and I saw recently at the Studio Theatre. How I felt about the musical was obvious. It was terrific. It was unorthodox and legit in rocking, and it took my breath away at one point. But I haven't figured out what to write here that doesn't give away the plot or its impact.

But with the show extended, again, for the last time, I have to write something that may cause you to go see it. So, I want you to look at the power above. You see that guy in the poster? That's how Passing Strange feels. Now, look at the picture below. That's the upper lounge at the Studio Theatre. Color, metal, ease, and vents mixing the room.

The basic plot of the musical is an early '70s black kid who desperately wants to be a punk rocker. The journey goes from there. Many of the coming-of-age steps you've seen before. How the passion and wisdom arrive fresh are where the show's greatness lies. The success salutes its Broadway creator, Stew, and the current cast and crew, who take Stew's hyper-personal story and tell it well without him. No easy task.

Jahi Kearse is in Stew's shoes as narrator, and he grows on you as he works. The strength of a narrator is underrated. Seeing Our Town last year taught me as much. Beyond him, the players showcase our city's dramatic talent pool like nothing I've seen. And the band in the house is tight and loud. The gerund here — the i-n-g of the title — is earned. Strange are our identities, mixing rooms, but we still work with them.

Update between writing and publishing: Stew loves the production too. About Kearse: "All the back-handed compliments about how it could only work with that guy in the red shirt as Narrator have been put to rest by the dynamic Mr. Kearse. Because he is an artist, he knew it was all about making the experience real for HIM and only by doing that could he make it real for us. And now it’s up to the next brother (or sister!) to make it real again. The baton has been passed… but hold tight cuz it’s sweaty." More here, on the band and production.

Elvis Week, you know, is a week on, not a week off. This year, in a true Elvis Week miracle, friend Colleen and I learned a reason we've never been enemies is that we both love the King. God bless us, everyone!

So, it was also nice to come across a No Depression essay, "The Top 30 Recordings of Elvis Presley." The essay, the author explained, "would have been better titled '30 Great Elvis Songs that Have Mostly Been Forgotten' but that doesn't have quite the same ring to it and wouldn't apply to some of the material here." Half the songs I'd somehow never heard before. To catch up, I ran to YouTube, an underrated Elvis spot.

Song I never truly appreciated until now: Long Black Limousine.

Song I'd loved but hadn't thought of in years: Baby, Let's Play House.

Song you possibly haven't heard and may like the most: Don't.

Song totally new to me and could've been a classic James Bond theme song if they had pumped it up and worked on it more: Edge of Reality.

Song that makes you want an Elvis and Glen duet: Gentle on My Mind.

Song that's fun in its released form, but between that version and its stripped demo, you know it could've been all kinds of bluesy awesome.

I had to leave town for a little while,
You said you'd be good while I'm gone,
But the look in your eye done told me you told a lie,
I know there's been some carryin' on

Baby (baby), you wearin' that loved-on look
Shoop, shoop, shoop shoop,
Baby (baby), you wearin' that loved-on look

Pancake balls! Met Meghan at her neighborhood's Domku for brunch Saturday, and it met good expectations. Sure, the juice man was late, but we got to see him wheel in his hand-truck of fruit. Meghan talked plans for an iPhone-based book club. Not books on iPhones, no. The people who'd read would be on their iPhones. Meanwhile, I theorized pancake balls were how pancakes initially fell from the pancake tree.

And Eddy! Evanston almighty. Across the restaurant was a guy who looked like CRC's favorite Rhode Islander, and indeed he was, having just moved to Petworth a month ago. Eddy: "We're smiling like dorks."

I know what you're thinking. Pancake balls, not so special. The migrant workers pick a farm's seasonal crop of pancake balls from the pancake trees and carry the bushels to the pancake plant, where the pancake press turns the balls into the flat pancakes we see know and love. The bigger pancake balls are stuffed with fruit or chocolate chips, and the smaller ones become short stacks. Sitting here, a day later, with just my Tropicana and my Cheerios, I don't know how you find that boring.