More Marriage

My buddy Don got married last night in a small ceremony here in Manhattan. It was a wonderful affair. Don and I have been friends since fourth grade. His wife(!) Kristie is great. I stifled a giggle during the ceremony when the officiant talked about connubial love. Jeanhee had to explain to me later the difference between connubial love and conjugal love. Hee. (Update: Turns out there is no difference between connubial and conugal! See the comments on this entry...)

On the same sex marriage front, I stumbled across an interesting discussion about Orson Scott Card's views on the issue. I've been reading a lot of the Ender's Game books recently. With his worldview thus revealed, it makes me wonder what parts of that worldview made it into the science fiction I'm reading and how it might effect me...

And regarding my own wedding, Jeanhee's aunt did some nice calligraphy for us, and I'm going to do some work on the Wedding Website. It's a veritable requirement these days, dontchya know...

UPDATE: Our wedding website is live.

Rules for Writing

Elmore Leonard's rules for writing.... I like rule #10: "Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip."

Grey Tuesday

Do not adjust your monitor. My site looks all grey and screwy today because the way we apply intellectual property laws to our music is grey and screwy. Support Grey Tuesday.

Infield Interest

This one's for Dylan, Jeanhee, and the rest of you nutty Mets fans. There's a fun human interest piece on the Met's shortstop and second baseman in the Times today:

No one else seems to understand them. Matsui has orange hair, likes to sprint around the field barefoot and has an odd postpractice routine in which he jumps, runs and pretends to throw on the outfield grass. He is known for bowing at opposing managers when he enters the batter's box, calling youngsters out of the stands to play catch before games, and pointing in the air after making an exceptional play.

Reyes comes across as equally unusual. He has curly black hair with blond tips that stand straight up. He usually eats by himself, in the clubhouse and in restaurants. And he prefers to sit on the floor rather than in a chair. While Matsui draws Japanese characters on his bat meaning thank you, Reyes has a patch of the Dominican flag stamped on his glove with the words La Melaza, meaning sweetness.

Justly Married

Photos from San Francisco's City Hall, the love-fest central of late. (Thanks Choire!)

Carnaval Dispatch

My friend Aji is going to Mardi Gras. Don's getting married. Jessica's birthday approaches. It's definitely a hard-partying party February. Here is my teenage sister Isabella's report on Carnaval from Spain...

Hi guys!! Last night was Carnaval. It was, in a word, crazy. But,
in another word, awesome. LOL.

We went out at about 10 or so, and got back home at 5:30 in the
morning. There were lights in all the streets that said Carnaval
with musical notes. Every discoteca had its music blaring, every
person was dancing. There was outdoor music too.

There were tons of creative costumes, people really go all out for
this. Cows, clowns, M&Ms, nuns, men dressed as nuns, drag queens
(including a Snow White in drag), devils, angels, cowboys and girls,
gypsies, cleopatras, the Jackson five, hippies, shakespearean
characters complete with codpieces, cell phones, nurses, doctors,
Wheres Waldo, pirates (including one guy who looked just like Johnny
Depp with the moustache pigtails except he wasnt as cute) chickens,
Jesus etc etc. My friend max was just a weird guy in a black robe
with a scream mask and a funny hat.

So we all dressed up, went to a discoteca after walking like twenty
miles (my feet were killing me ) and danced, and danced, and danced.
The stupid discoteca people played the same cd like ten times, but we
had paid 3 euros to get in, so we stayed. All in all, it was tons of
fun and i loved it!!!!!!!!!!

I slept late this morning, which was good considering how late i'd
been up. Then I woke up, had lunch (i missed breakfast, haha!) and
we went out shopping again. I got a present for someone. OOooooh i
wonder who it is. You'll find out soon enough. ;)

Tonight i don't think we're doing anything because we're all so
tired. On Weds morning we're leaving for Barcelona!!!!!!!!!! It
seems like we've been here for a long time, and yet too short. I'm
saving all sorts of stuff to make a scrapbook, like pamphlets from
museums and stuff.

I love you all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and miss you
besos y abrazos, isa

Marriage

My own upcoming wedding has made the national controversy over same-sex marriage more poignant. The love and deep commitment that stirs a couple to marry is a gorgeous and joyful thing. Weddings, by extension, are celebrations of that joy.

Josh Marshall has some interesting posts on the issue [1, 2]. In the latter, he publishes an email from a reader who grew up in Missouri and went out-of-state to marry his Japanese-American wife. At that time, interracial marriages were prohibited by Missouri state law.

As a heterosexual white guy from Long Island, it's exceedingly rare that personally feel the pain of discrimination. (Sure, I'm Jewish, a vegetarian, and an American in the Bush years... but those don't garner much hatred in New York, thankfully...) But a prohibition on interracial marriages would hurt and anger me.

Imagine that was the reality, and the hetero-colored couples in power discussed it, had a grand old national debate. Imagine then that they deemed that Jeanhee and I could be not be permitted marriage, but could instead join in a civil union, with all the same rights as a marriage but not the name. My response... well, my response would start with "F" and end with "you".

I'm grateful I don't have to deal with that. But neither should the mother of the incredibly cute 20-month old girl who we encountered today on their Sunday afternoon walk. A loving lesbian couple bringing a curly-haired, big-eyed, bagel-munching little girl into adulthood. Why make their love and joy bring them frustration and anger over out-dated laws?

The law against same-sex marriage is wrong, like that Missouri state law was wrong 40 years ago. Now the courageous actions of a few give us a chance to fix the law. Our nation has a history of recognizing social injustice and correcting itself, I hope that we can do it again.