Electricity in my neighborhood went out at 3:03 in the afternoon and came back on at 3:06 — just long enough for all my clocks to need resetting. Then it went out again at 3:46 and stayed out until 8:08. I am showing great optimism to begin typing this but not enough to start going around, resetting clocks.
During this second outage, there was still a good amount of sunlight out but there were still two separate automotive collisions outside my house, one of which went like this: I heard the thump of metal followed by a barrage of shouted language that would have offended Larry Flynt. Then came police sirens and a fire engine and paramedics, though from my window, I didn't see anyone look seriously injured.
I wish people would learn to drive slower and more cautiously when the traffic lights are out. And why don't those things all have backup batteries that are constantly recharged by solar panels?
During the 4+ hours, I read stuff on my iPad and listened to the latest episode of Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast, which has as its guest, the oft-mentioned-on-this-blog Frank Ferrante. It's a very good conversation and I'll try to embed a link to it below this paragraph. If it doesn't work, there are a half-dozen other places on the Internet where you can hear it like here and here and here.
Yesterday here, I told the story of going to see the Broadway show 42nd Street in New York in 1983 with my friends Len Wein and Marv Wolfman. I said we saw it at the Winter Garden Theatre and this morning, I awoke to an e-mail from Joe Miller telling me that by '83, the show had moved from the Winter Garden (where The Music Man is currently ensconced) to the Majestic Theater (where The Phantom of the Opera has been playing since the Crimean War and where it's expected to remain until you, I and any children or grandchildren you may have are dead and buried.)
Joe is right and I have corrected the post accordingly.
Meanwhile, Marv Wolfman wrote to tell me he recalled a slightly different scenario…and having nothing better to do with no power here, I called him and we discussed it and decided it really doesn't matter. So we agreed to disagree and if you care in the slightest, you're free to believe him or to believe me, except that you should believe me because I'm right.
And now it's 8:40 and the power's still on so I think it's safe to go start resetting clocks.