Of late, I’ve been watching Sex & the City (yes, I know, I’m like 40 million years *after* the fact on this one, but they’re on TBS now!) and at this point in the series Carrie is dating “the Russian,” played by Mikhail Baryshnikov.  The whole time I am watching these episodes I’m thinking to myself “he’s vaguely familiar”, but attributing that to the fact that he’s Mikhail Baryshnikov and that I’ve seen him in other things before.

…

(ok, the ellipses are [ellipsis is?] a complete cop-out as far as narrative structure goes, but I’m tired)

When I was at Duke, I worked in Tech Support to earn spending money.  Mostly I did light hangs and sound checks, but every once in a while, Mark Kitchens, the Tech Support manager would call me with an interesting opportunity, like working a show (I saw Fine Young Cannibals, amongst others, that way).

Early1 one Saturday morning, Mark called me and said he had a gig for me that he was _sure_ that I’d want to take, but he wouldn’t tell me what it was.  I trusted him though, so I got dressed and headed over to the office to see what needed doing.

There was a VCR that needed setting up.  In a guest room at the Washington Duke Inn.  In Mikhail Baryshnikov’s2 guest room at the Washington Duke Inn.

Yes, I met him.  Yes, he’s just as …mmmmm…. in person.  Yes, it took me three episodes to put the two and two together to get the four.  :-)

1 Back then, as now, “early” means anything prior to 8:30am.  That’s not to say that I get up at 8:30, oh no…in fact, I often get up much later than that.  But when I have to *do* anything before 8:30, then I consider it “early” (and try to avoid it whenever possible).

2He was on campus doing Stephen Berkoff’s “Metamorphosis,” based on the Kafka novel.