NP: Muse, Showbiz

So I'm over at Washington Monthly yesterday, and Kevin Drum is talking about this four-year old and apparently very good book on the conversvative movement. Written by a guy name Rick Perlstein. "Hmmmm," I think to myself, "could this be the same Rick Perlstein that was my freshman year college roommate?"

After a little digging, indeed, it is. Turns out Rick is living in Brooklyn, contributing to the Village Voice, writing books, still playing some piano, and generally being the kind of intellectual voice that the U of C loves turning out, I think. Good for him.

There's been a weird confluence of the University of Chicago in the air lately, I guess. Not just virtual, either. I saw an old college friend crossing the street outside my office a couple of weeks back, saw a guy who lived on my floor in my dorm Wednesday on the train, and a guy who lived somewhere else in said dorm -- which is apparently being phased out as a dorm and turned into condos -- on the street today.

It's not that I'm surprised to see people I know on the streets of Chicago. I do that all the time -- it's one of the reasons I love living here so much. But to see so many people from one era of my life in such a small time period is sort of odd.