Archive: August 2004
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Aug 23 04: through the cellar door
Whoa. We just had a fabulous evening with Andrew and Yuri, and now my head is all messed up.
We saw the director’s cut of Donnie Darko, which is now getting a theatrical run. I never got around to seeing the movie the first time it was released, back in 2001; but then the movie went from ‘obscurissimo cult favorite’ to ‘made $10 million in DVD sales.’ I guess they decided to take it for another spin ‘round the block, adding 20 minutes or so of footage from the DVD release that make it…well, more lucid than it was before, I guess. It’s still deeply crazy, but in a good way. Donnie Darko is a spicy purée of Charlie Kaufmann, David Lynch, and John Hughes, served over ice cubes made from frozen black-cherry soda and shredded ginger. Is Donnie losing his mind? Or is the spectral six-foot rabbit entity correct when he’s saying that the world is about to end? What is going on here?
Words fail. We got to the final credits and although I wasn’t entirely certain what I’d just seen my brain was so awhirl with questions and theories and oh-hey-wasn’t-it-great-when that I needed to see it again right away.
We didn’t go see it again, though. We went and had dinner at Otto instead. Not cheap, but very tasty. Plus I ate all sorts of actual grownup food and didn’t feel like somebody was stabbing me in the face even once.
So, yeah. A good night.
By the way, there are what amounts to Cliffs Notes on the film in an article at Salon. You have to sit through the ad to get the Salon Day Pass if you’re not a subscriber, but if you’re dying to get something like a definitive take on the film it’s worth the extra 30 seconds.
Aug 20 04: virgo’s dilemma
I finished my last project for the day twenty minutes ago. So did nearly everybody else at the office. Nonetheless, here we are, bored out of our minds and trying hard to look productive, as we wait for our minimum weekly requirement of hours to be met.
Aaargh.
Meanwhile, there is a box on my desk that arrived this afternoon. It’s from my mother. Inside it is a birthday present. It is torturing me. See, she called me yesterday to find out where she should send it. (I’m very proud of her for doing so, because it means she’s remembered that we have a teeny tiny NYC apartment-style mailbox and sending us packages at home is an exercise in frustration.) And I have this vague memory of her saying that I should ‘open it as soon as it gets there.’ I think.
But what if I’m wrong? What if she didn’t say it? The Avenging Virgo does not like breaking the rules of How Things Should Be Done. And one of said rules is that Birthday Presents Are for Birthdays. You know, like Christmas Presents Are for Christmas. If she told me to open it early, then it’s okay; I had to. But if she didn’t tell me to do it, and I do it anyway, well…that’s cheating. Bad. Simply Not Done. And my birthday isn’t actually until next week.
But what if it’s cookies? It might be cookies. It might be a batch of the family specialty: Mrs. Peppard’s Cookies. Oh what if it is? What if, inside this innocent-looking box, there is a supernova of chocolate deliciousness? All for me? Desperate to be eaten ere they go stale or get broken into crumbs?
(Well, if they get stale or broken into crumbs, you put them on ice cream. In my experience. But they never hang around long enough to get stale.)
Oh, the torture. Outside the window the window-washers go up and down on their platform, and far below them the taxis head north towards the Park. But here on this side of the glass it’s just me and a white cardboard box, and a decision as yet unmade.
POSTSCRIPT: My sister just called, not five minutes later. I told her about the box. She said, and I quote: “What if it’s cookies? What if it’s Mrs. Peppard’s Cookies? I bet it is. You have to open it.” So I did.
Oh yes.
Aug 16 04: bon appétit
I can only edit so many pages of fourth-grade mathematics tests at a throw—yeah, that’s the current project, but it may be over by the end of the week—so off and on during the day I take little breaks to give my brain something else to think about. The internet is, of course, brilliant for this.
Today, via überblogger Anil Dash, I found Julie’s thoughts on Julia. A lovely rumination on Julia Child. She didn’t know Julia any more than any other North American who’d been alive since 1961. But it was clear that Julia’s life and legacy and famous cookbook had meant a lot to her.
A couple of mouseclicks later, I began to understand why. Julie spent a year cooking her way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking and writing about her experience. I’m only a few weeks into her account, called The Julia/Julie Project. But I’m vouching for it right now anyway. It will make you smile. It will also make you hungry. Go read.
Aug 13 04: wanted: teeny tiny beads
You know that weird chewing-gum-crossed-with-wood-putty stuff that dentists use to cover up sutures et c. immediately after surgery? Well, the blob that had been spread across the roof of my mouth came off during lunch today. No, no worries: it was supposed to do that. But the scene that has been uncovered seems pretty spectacular.
Man, it is suture-tastic up there. I’m torn between wishing I could see the spot the dentist had to strip-mine for graft tissue and being really really glad I can’t. There are so many strands of thread hanging from my palate that—had I a suitably prehensile tongue—I could make one of those ’70s macramé plant-hangers out of them. But I don’t, so I’ll just go back to trying to tease the chomped-on bits of silly-putty out of my molars.
More gripping news from the front as events warrant.
Aug 12 04: I have no lower lip and I must scream
So I had gum surgery this morning. What a way to start the day. Anyway, now I’ve got a big hole in the roof of my mouth and a brand-new strip of gum tissue across the front of my lower jaw. (Long story, but it’s not because I haven’t been flossing, Mom.) I am Novocained to the gills as well, which means that, say, drinking water has suddenly become something of a challenge. I had to look in the mirror to verify that yes, my lower lip was still there.
‘Cause, you know, I’d hate for it not to be there.
Aug 6 04: famous neighbors
Huh. I found out something today that made my geekly little heart go all fluttery. Apparently I used to live right next-door to one of my big heroes—somebody who has captured my imagination since I was, oh, nine or ten—and I never had the slightest idea.
Yup. It was when John and I were living in our first NYC apartment, that long, slumlord-benighted year at 177 Bleecker Street. It turns out that right next door at 177A, shrouded from the naked eye by forces shadowy and mystical, was the Sanctum Sanctorum of Doctor Strange, Sorceror Supreme, Master of the Mystic Arts. He would have made an excellent neighbor, too: he could have banished our harridan of a landlady to the Nightmare Dimension and made all our lives soooo much more bearable. Or he could have bound her with the Crimson Bands of Cytorrak. Or sent her beyond the Purple Veil. Or something.
Until today, all I had to go on were a few fragments of fanboy trivia and fond (if vague) memories. My sweet tooth for the character dates back a long way. He may have been my first real exposure to the comics medium: as a kid I read the covers off an old pocket reprint edition of the early 1960s Lee-Ditko classics. Even now, a Dr. Strange action figure keeps watch over my office. All I remembered about the house, though, was the part that got mentioned all the time—that it was on Bleecker Street. I had no idea that a house number had ever come up. I sometimes kept a lookout for real-world analogs to his crazy-ass brownstone on my earliest wanderings through the Village. I never found it: double-width corner houses with fabulous circular skylights are few and far between these days. So if not for today’s random encounter with New York Songlines, I’d never have known. Actually, knowing the address only underscores the building’s occult nature: you can tell it was extra-magical because it had the number 177A. See, it was always pictured on a corner lot—MacDougal, as it turns out—which should have put it at number 171. Ooooh. Spooky.
Anyway, you learn something new every day.
(New York Songlines is an ingenious piece of work, and really cool besides. Virtual walking tours of various bits of the City. Worth exploring.)
Aug 3 04: let’s dance!
Put on your Red shoes and dance the Blues.
Flashmobs may be back this summer after all—and with the added bonus of vexing (or at least refocusing) the GOP hordes. John Barlow has had a fabulous idea. Shall we dance? Shall we dance? Shall we sweep up the joyless puritans in whirlwinds of spontaneous fun? Shall we encourage passers-by to boogie down for 2 minutes of creative, ecstatic abandon? I love this idea. Go read.
Angry protests are a fine American tradition, and god knows we have plenty to be angry about. But angry protestors are to be corralled into the ‘free speech zones’ miles from anywhere, the irony of which should not be lost on any of us. Furthermore, anytime the demonstrations surrounding the convention are marked by violence it will be used to discredit we, the angry: look, see? Those who oppose the President are lawless hooligans. You’re not one of them, are you? The ones who hate America?
(Actually, that should be ‘us, the angry.’ )
Let’s dance instead. If you want in, e-mail John, and spread the word. In the mean time, we can start listing good, danceable, mildly subversive tunes. Off the top of my head, I’m thinking “Hell” by the Squirrel Nut Zippers; “Rock Lobster,” of course; maybe Deeee-Lite’s “Groove is in the Heart”…oh! And some Talking Heads!
(Thanks go out to TNH for bringing this to my attention.)
Aug 2 04: salvage
—Hey, the crickets have stopped again.
—It’s because you’re making so damn much noise. What was it you wanted me to see, anyway?
—Check it out! A head!
—Human?
—Mostly. Actually, no…I think this one’s entirely human.
—Well, that should be worth a few bucks to somebody. Nicely preserved, too. Where’d you find it?
—Under the sand. I told you: for moonlit fields to give way to unstructured sand so abruptly is unnatural, even in a place like this. I think the breakdown was radiating out from the head.
—Why would the head be so vigorously entropogenic? Heads propogate structure, they don’t destabilize it. Why have a head if you don’t build stuff with it?
—I think it just…gave up.
—Eeew.
—Oh, I don’t know. It probably thought of itself as tragic.
—Well, I don’t want you bringing it onto the ship if it’s going to turn us into sand before we get back.
—Naah. It wouldn’t hurt us. Besides, we’re not bringing it back.
—What?
—I think this could be a viable space again. Wouldn’t take much. Here, give me the spanner.
—Don’t tell me you can fix that thing.
—Sure. Well, we can get it ticking over again. The cogs just need a little re-alignment…like so…then we just…there.
—Hmm. Pretty lights.
—Yeah… It should be fully online in an hour or two.
—How long will it do its job properly this time?
—Hard to say: days, weeks; maybe decades. Depends on you, doesn’t it, snookums?
—I wish you wouldn’t tickle its chin like that.
—You’re just pissed that we can’t sell it to a curiosity dealer yet.
—Hmmph. A human head! That’s two days at the Ganglion sipping fizzy liquids, that is.
—Look, let’s give it a chance. We can come back, check it again in a few days. If it’s spitting out sand again, first round at the Ganglion comes out of my share.
—Deal.
—Good. Now, shall we go?