strange radiation: the pool of radiance archive
Adventures with an unreliable narrator.
Apr 27 08: infernal machines
I had a dreadful beard-trimming accident this morning, and as a result I have a better idea of what my chin looks like today than I have had for — what, a couple years at least. It’s very short. The beard, that is; the chin is still suitably chin-shaped.
To take my mind off the aarghness of it all, here’s another damn YouTube video. This time, a proper use for Cadbury’s Creme Eggs. Which are not food. As opposed to, say, Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs, which are divine. (Thank you, Faustus, M.D.)
Apr 25 08: yes, another geeky youtube thing
If you don’t get this, well, you won’t get this. But if you do: Well. It is — how you say? Bwah.
(Ten thousand thanks to stealthmuffin.)
Apr 20 08: notes on a 4am return
Dear self:
That was fun, again. Here, in no particular order, are some songs from Greg’s repertoire for which I think it’s time to start learning the words — no, I mean really learn the words, so they can be sung without listening to the original recording — if you’re going to continue to hang out in piano bars with disreputable types until much too late in the evening:
- “Alison”
- “Every Day I Write the Book”
- “I Don’t Know What it Is”
- “Wuthering Heights,” because this is a prime demonstration that singing along in the car etc. for 20 years doesn’t mean that you’re not faking bits here and there
- “Rocket Man”
- “Wicked Little Town”
- “Back on the Chain Gang,” maybe
- “Ask,” because how fun would that be?
- “And Dream of Sheep” into “Under Ice” is still a totally brilliant idea, seriously
And of course, see if you can find the music for “Guilty,” that Randy Newman song, in the arrangement (or at least the key) that Bonnie Raitt used.
Apr 16 08: further adventures in encephalophagy
For those who need a break from whatever they’re doing: an exercise in lateral thinking, best undertaken in short bursts: Funny Farm.
Here’s what you need to know: it’s a concept map. Start with the kicker on the first square: “On the Farm.” As you identify the first set of associated terms (things you would see on a farm, i.e.), branches of associated terms appear. Keep filling in. Eventually, I am told, you will end up at four words in the corners of the map that are the clues to the puzzle’s ultimate single-word solution. Be prepared to think laterally. Be prepared to bump into whole chunks that you know right off the bat will probably require Googling.
Don’t forget to eat and sleep. (Via Dr. Virago at Quod She.)
Apr 7 08: get me rewrite!
I saw the [-Clark Gable]-Cary Grant1-Rosalind Russell screwball classic His Girl Friday last night for the first time, in the company of a friend who has been after me for months that my old-movie exposure is so low as to risk revocation of my Gay Card. (He’s threatening megadoses of Joan Crawford. I am uneasy.) Anyway, I need to get this out there, in the hopes that someone will enlighten me: was that intended to read as a happy ending?
Because GableGrant spends the whole movie in repeated attempts to scuttle his ex-wife’s impending marriage — by having her fiancé arrested on bogus charges three times and also arranging for the kidnapping of her intended mother-in-law by his friend the local thug — and generally refusing to take “we’re divorced” for an answer, doing everything in his power to take Russell’s stated dream of leaving the newspaper business for a quiet life of domesticity in Albany away from her. Hijinks ensue, Gable’sGrant’s efforts pay off, and Russell agrees to marry him again.
To recap: The manipulative asshole wins, the nice guy gets sent home to Albany, and Russell remarries the guy who has shown no signs of being any different than he was when she divorced him. And we’re supposed to… cheer? Laugh? What?
I don’t know why I found myself as outraged by this as I did. The film has obvious merits: snappy rapid-fire dialogue, a plot that moves along at a zillion miles an hour, strong performances. But I couldn’t get past that fundamental aspect of the plot. I guess it should be chalked up to 1930s sexism; but as much as I could dismiss a couple of moments of casual racism as being a product of the movie’s day, I just couldn’t do it where GableGrant was concerned.
Am I the only one here? And was this kind of plot a standard screwball device? Because if so I may be in trouble.
1 D’oh! Thanks, pixelfish.