1987

Richmond—This column is a tweener, as we like to say in the sports business, a column in between a pure news one and one I can devote to entertaining you with my "thoughts." So hold on folks, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

I'll begin by saying I'm writing this column to the sounds of Brave Combo's Kick-Ass Polkas. Sadly, they did not pick up their second Grammy last night but they happily do kick serious polka butt. Two Grammy winners I am listening to are Bob Dylan's Love and Theft (I really like it probably because it's not so much like Bob Dylan, kind of old jazz and bluesy) and the O Brother Where Art-Thou. I really like "Man of Constant Sorrow," which I taught my 3-year-old cousin Nat to sing, but there's plenty else to like as well.

Speaking of entertainment, Mark C. Henrie, a senior editor atModern Age, recently published a book on Whit Stillman, director of Barcelona,Last Days of Disco and Metropolitan, called DoomedBourgeois in Love: Essays on thefilms of Whit Stillman. I've read it, and if you're fan of the director, by all means go out and get it—it's very good. Of Stillman's three movies, Barcelona is my favorite—according to my brother, who is married to a Spanish woman, it's a "documentary of Spanish-American relations.

By the way, have you all (Texas accent) heard about this thing called the Internet? Seems like the dang thing has so much information that it wouldn't fit in a library. Unless of course, your library has a computer. Anyway, I'm "surfing' it these days, and there's a whole lot of information on Dartmouth. For one, The D is on-line; it s been a good way of keeping track of campus news, including the murders of the Zantops, whose killers come up for trial this spring.

Of course it covers sports too—I'm following this seasons men's and women's hockey, who are both doing well. Funny I didn't care about hockey until I moved two blocks away from a minor league hockey team in Glens Falls, New York, and then when I moved to Austin, seeing the Austin Ice Bats play.

Speaking of upstate New York, Jennifer Holcombe was married to Erik Soykan in Clayton, New York, in the Antique Boat Museum last summer. I went on the Internet and the museum looks a cool place to get married; its Web site calls it "a very inviting destination,' and who am I to argue?

Also sounding inviting is Jonathan Bigelow s new job at Burr and Burton Academy in Manchester, Vermont, teaching English and social studies.

If you're looking for books, I highly recommend Richard Russo's latest book, Empire Falls, or if you're looking for a paperback, The Risk Pool has been a favorite of most everyone I've given it to. Ifyou're a fan of the local library or the hardcover, Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections is worth a read, as is Calvin Trillans Tepper Isn't GoingOut. (And if you've never read Trillans RememberingDenny, a tragic story of his college friend, by all means, read it.)

And finally, some real Internet news, Tom Stockham is now the CEO of myfamily.com, a site devoted to providing an Internet home for your family.

Finally, by the time you see this, we'll have some choices for the book group up on the Web under "Class Talk." Please check it out or e-mail me at jtsnyk@yahoo.com to say hello or provide some news.

2814 KensingtonAve.,Apt.16, Richmond, VA 23284; jtsnyk@yahoo.com