GREG DOWNS Spit Baths

Stupid things I love to do:

1) Memorize poems, especially sonnets. If I'm at a car dealership or sitting on a train and am too restless to actually work, I'll pull out a poem (likely from John Hollander's Committed to Memory) and start to memorize it. Not necessarily my favorite poems--some I don't even particularly like--but poems that I can commit to memory fairly quickly. Last four poems memorized: "Ozymadias" by Shelley, "Sonnet" (I am in need of music that would flow) by Elizabeth Bishop, "On His Blindness" by John Milton," and "Composed upon Westminster Bridge" by Wordsworth. Stupid long-term goal: To memorize all of Shakespeare's sonnets. What makes it stupid: I don't particularly like Shakespeare's sonnets. At best, it gives me a little more sense of poetic rhythm and word play. At worst, it does no harm (which is not always true of my behavior in long lines.)

2) Obsessively check for updates about teenage basketball players the University of Kentucky is recruiting. Stupid short-term goal: To be the one to e-mail my friends and family about the commitment of the next Jamal Mashburn. What makes it stupid: Usually, recently, there is no news and what news there is is bad.

3) Rank live versions of unrecorded songs by the Philadelphia-turned Brooklyn indie rock band Marah. Stupid long-term goal: To help some other, even more obsessive and knowledgeable folks, put together a definitive best live tracks list. What makes it stupid: Marah play on the road all the time, are constantly pulling old songs from out of the archives, and so any list would be out of date by 10 p.m. on the day we created it.

4) Taste the best roast pork sandwich in the city of Philadelphia. The roast pork with sharp provolone and broccoli rabe is the true Philly speciality, not the better-known cheese steak. Stupid long-term goal: To resolve the talmudic debate about John's vs. Tony Luke's vs... What it's stupid: Resolving the debate would eliminate my rationale for eating roast pork sandwiches (to my cardiologist's joy) and who wants to stop eating roast pork sandwiches, even from the 11th best place in the city?

5) Read every word of the Philadelphia Daily News. Stupid long-term goal: To compile the best obituaries, tabloid headlines, and crime story zingers into a scrapbook large enough to represent the strangeness and fury and filth and funk and fire of Philadelphia. Among recent submissions: the in-depth profile of "Rituals of Grief" that follow a teenager's murder, the description of a woman who killed someone in a hit-and-run as a "portly, drunken, home-wrecking Queen Village restaurateur." Why it's stupid: Every morning, when the paper slaps on my doorstep, my list is out of date (as is the list of Daily News copyediting errors, but that's another story.

6) Argue convincingly (to no one) that JFK's assassination wasn't even one of the 5 most significant assassinations in American history in terms of its impact. #1 is easily Lincoln, #2 is Martin Luther King, #3 is Huey Long, #4 has to be McKinley, #5 would be Bobby (since his killing helped propel Nixon to office.) Where does JFK fall in terms of historical signficance? In a fight with Garfield for #6, I'd guess. Farther down the list are two others I too often ponder: William Goebel in Kentucky in 1899 and George Wallace while on the presidential campaign trail in 1972. Stupid short-term goal: To write a story that touches upon, even lightly, Wallace's assassination. Why it's stupid: No one really cares about George Wallace any more, even to hate him. But I've written stories that touch on the assassination of Huey Long and William Goebel, already.