A midsummer night's dream

So I read once in a magazine, I forget which, that if you put a dozen wildflowers under your pillow on midsummer's night, you'll dream of the man you're going to marry. (It was "man" - they assume rightly this is something only a straight chick would do.) Every summer solstice I think about this and this year I decided to do it, largely because I have a lot of time on my hands. They probably weren't all wildflowers, but I strolled around Pasadena looking for flowering shrubs or plants and discreetly deadheading a dozen. The crown jewel was a fading gardenia from outside my window. All of them went under my pillow, and this morning I woke up in a sweat from a nightmare about Nicole Kidman turning out to be a serial killer and chasing me across my parents' backyard with a gun in the belief that I was a paparazzo (-a?) coming to crash her wedding. I don't think I'll try that again.

The man she's marrying does live near my parents in Leiper's Fork, TN, so it could happen.

In other news, I'm still reading this goddamn book, which I've taken to picking up with a snarl of "All right, you." (This happens when you live alone.) For a while there it was picking up. I realized I was basically reading a Spanish gothic pastiche, and I needed to lighten the fuck up. But one of the characters has just stepped into the narrative to inform the reader he has seven days to live, and I have no patience with this sort of hanky-panky. Seven days is too long for these people. I should be finished with this goddamn thing tonight and then we can all get on with our lives.

Lost in translation

Today's book: "The Shadow of the Wind" by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. I purchased this book on a high recommendation some weeks ago and am about ready to throw it into a nearby picturesque fountain. (Pasadena is full of good candidates!) It is about 450 pages long and I am on about page 175, so perhaps it will redeem itself. But first of all, it's about How Great Books Are and is full of pious passages about how awful it is that so many people watch TV. There is an entire chapter about a beautiful fountain pen. Second and much worse, it appears to be a shitty translation. The characters say things that nobody would say, such as "I am speechless," and English idioms are regularly misused. "She asked me to read her the book, and while I was at it, to begin at the beginning." What do you mean, "while I was at it"?

Perhaps I am emotionally fragile right now, but I have had it will this book. I'm about to go see if the library has any Wodehouse. I'll keep you posted.

At the end of the continent

O gentle readers, forgive my long absence. (I know you're out there, both of you.) Art Boy and I have moved to Los Angeles. My computer, which had an odd breakdown several weeks ago that may have been more of a phone-wiring issue, is packed and in storage. I am writing to you now from the Pasadena Central Library, an agreeable old wood-panelled library around the corner from our extended-stay hotel. A gentleman with manga hair has issued me a card allowing me to use their computers as much as I want! Thanks, Pasadena! However, this will be a short post as I have got to go have a sandwich and then go to work.

There are a few things I miss about Cincinnati: Zip's, Sushi Ray, the relatively short distances between places one would want to go. But on the whole, it is nice to be here. I can open my bedroom window and lean out into a courtyard full of blooming gardenias. When I walk up these library steps, mountains loom in the background. The ocean's less than an hour away. There's a yoga studio on every other corner, and down my block is a Shiatsu massage studio, which I might have to take advantage of after work.

So good luck, Cincinnati. I miss some of your denizens, but not you. Someday I might even shake the habit of religiously checking the Cincinnati Blog.

Go and see Richard III

You should go and see Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival's production of Richard III this weekend. It is a huge amount of fun. Yes, it is a history play, but its spirit hews closer to Macbeth than to, say, Henry V. There are curses, bizarre seductions, numerous executions, a really sweet battle scene in which heavy instruments are banged loudly into dented metal shields, and two child characters are put to death (offstage, alas). The company stages it in nifty period outfits so you don't have to worry about what kind of modern political spin they're trying to put on it. (Plus you can enjoy the Spotlight of Death special effect, which is used to get around all of the interesting deaths being offstage. The character being beheaded or whatever just goes and stands underneath it while appropriate sound effects play. Clarence even gets a gurgling malmsey sound!) It's a classic story of a hunchbacked villain that you can all hiss at and root against. It's like seeing a play about Count Olaf. And it's certainly much more fun than going to see The Da Vinci Code and watching Tom Hanks' brow furrow as he pretends to sort out anagrams.

For a very specific fanbase

I am continuing to sort through my books - reference, essays and lit. crit. are all packed; novels, gardening, religion, humor and art are still all over the floor - and have found one of my first favorites, "Escape to Witch Mountain" by Alexander Key. It's a nicely constructed adventure story about two foster kids with supernatural abilities on the run from evil government officials, looking for their true home with the help of a kindly priest. I read it over & over as a kid and am always amazed at how well it holds up; I just sat down and read the first and last chapters. The part where Tony makes the phone call by the gift shop, oh my God, it gets me every time. And I love the vintage sci-fi optimism of the ending (there's even someone named Rael!), firmly grounded in a comforting midcentury paternal sort of Christianity.

Anyway, my copy has an ad for the inferior 1970s film on the back listing Donald Pleasence as its star, and I was just looking it up on IMDb to make sure he plays Lucas Deranian (he does) and discovered that the child actor who played Tony went on to make "The Blair Witch Mountain Project," a short mockumentary, in 2002. Part of the reason I didn't like the movie is that it stars two children, but in the book they're teenagers, and kids once they pass a certain age are much more interested in watching teenagers than other kids. But I guess I won't hold that against Tony.

I just can't believe this exists! Very peculiar. What will people think of next.

Old stuff

Am boxing up many old objects, including my entire VHS library -- well, not entire; my copies of the Evil Dead movies are too beloved to relinquish. Everything else has gone into the Goodwill box, though. I cannot help but wonder if I will ever feel compelled to replace some of these with DVDs; is "Blame It On The Bellboy" even available on DVD? Hmm.

A moment ago I stepped outside with some recycling, only to find that my neighbors think it reasonable to "recycle" a snow shovel by placing it across both our small green recycling bins. How they think it is going to reach the sidewalk is beyond my capacity. They have clearly done it on purpose, as other "recyclables," such as pizza boxes, have been perched on top of it. The rain has rendered it all quite a mess. It is very impressive. (I think the same neighbors are at it upstairs with a stair machine right now; at least I hope it is a stair machine. The windows are shaking.)

Today's book: Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons. One of my favorite comic novels has been rereleased with a humorous new cover and an introduction by briefly-trendy author Lynne Truss. I could do without the cover but it is just good to see the book set out in a nice typeface. I bought a completely unnecessary copy of it two days ago; I already own the book, but it's an ancient yellowed paperback. The adventures of coolheaded Flora Poste, bringing order into her cousins' shambles of a Sussex farm, are a balm for the girl planning a cross-country move. This book is most highly recommended.

(Also on this rash bookstore trip I purchased a "definitive edition" of At the Mountains of Madness, with a lovely cover illustration and an introduction by China Mieville; a critical edition of both Henry IV plays with annotations by Harold Bloom; and something called The Shadow of the Wind that is written by a Spanish person and appears to be another of those book-fetish novels about Dusty Old Libraries. I thought it might be my last trip to Joseph-Beth, and I just sort of went mad. In my own defense I did manage not to buy a massive illustrated hardback edition of 'Salem's Lot.)

uprooting

In preparation for my upcoming move across the country - alarmingly, less than a month away - I have just been outside yanking up all my flower bulbs. I moved here in late November 2001 and almost immediately set about digging daffodil and tulip bulbs into the back yard. It's just a nice way to feel at home in a new place, knowing that something you planted will bloom in the spring. They came up, most gratifyingly, year after year. This year was possibly their most splendid display ever. The daffodils covered the side yard and front flower beds, and the tulips, which have hardly bloomed at all some years, came out like gangbusters. They've all been dividing under the ground, so there are more of them. And today I went around pulling them all up. Most of them came out; maybe a third of them are still in the ground for the next tenant to enjoy. I couldn't believe how crappy the soil here is, though. In the front it had hardened around the bulbs like cement, and in the back it was more like modeling clay, sucking against my careful tugs. Did I really hack into this unyielding ground four years ago and make flowers come out of it? Damn. I'm good. And now it's time to uproot and move on.

While working I was also meditating on Richard III, which I'm reading today in between chores to prepare for tonight's Canon Club discussion at the Mercantile. Was not Richard also carefully "rooting out" his enemies and "planting" conflicts where it suited him? Gardening: metaphor for the people.

Anyway, if you want some bulbs, let me know. I've got lots.

New stuff

Added a couple local blogs to the list at right, including the fair Tavern Wench (thanks, Kelly!) and Overheard in Cincinnati, which is just such a great idea. One of these days I will replace the picture of Mitterand with something a little less weird.

Today's book: Something called "Vampire Kisses" by Ellen Schreiber. I've had the proof copy in my desk for a couple of years - it was a gift from someone who knew I liked going dancing on goth nights - but had only read a couple chapters. Today in the tub I finished the whole thing. It's extremely silly and written at about a third-grade level, but I suppose if you are a third-grader interested in teen goth romance, it would be just the thing.

Other books: I just finished Sarah Vowell's "Assassination Vacation," finally, and am periodically reading bits of Steve Martin's "The Pleasure of My Company." It's excellent but I am at a bit of a ... transition right now and am not finding Martin's melancholy prose to be quite the thing. I picked up "How Right You Are, Jeeves" the other day and read it mostly in one sitting. It's all about the light reading just now (hence the teen goth romance).

Never take a stranger's advice

Herewith, a quick and overdue post on the Cincinnati Music Theatre's production of Chess. (There's still time to see it tonight - half an hour! run! run! - and Sunday afternoon. I might actually see about seeing the Sunday show. That would be my third. I am a geek.) It's certainly not perfect. The American touring book is just godawful; the ending pretty much ruins the entire show. Nobody can possibly care about Freddie, even after "Pity the Child," and that leaves the Russian as protagonist, but he's too slight of a character to carry the show. Florence can't carry it either because she's obsessed with both of these men (it's not correct to say they're obsessed with her) and we have no idea why. So the whole thing ends up feeling a little pointless. But! These are problems with the book. The songs rock, and the woman playing Florence (one Allison Collins-Elfline) is amazing. Svetlana is pretty amazing too, but unfortunately, most of her singing lines have been omitted. Freddie and Anatoly are sung quite capably (by Michael Shawn Starks and Brian Anderson), but unfortunately, someone in the orchestra has been off-key pretty much the entire show on both the nights I've been. It wrecked Anthem and Endgame. Collins-Elfline's voice carries all her songs, though. I got goosebumps during the first-act "Florence Quits" scene. Oh, nobody knows what I'm talking about. I feel so alone. Anyway, the performers get an A for effort from me, and the orchestra gets a kick in the pants.

Plus et plus de sangre. C'est magnifique!

In my ongoing channeling of the Countess of Bathory, I sat down this evening to watch Haute Tension, Alexandre Aja's 2003 French chicks-in-the-woods horror flick that preceded his American remake of The Hills Have Eyes. I am told animals are tortured and killed in THHE, so I will not see it, but damn, I must recommend Haute Tension! C'est magnifique! It is bloody, violent, extremely mean-spirited and beautifully crafted. Aja ratchets up the tension almost at once and keeps turning the screw until the tiniest squeak makes you jump ten feet. I cannot imagine what it must have been like seeing this movie in the theater. As for the big plot twist at the end, I found it very obvious and natural. So there, Roger Ebert. A dog does get killed at the beginning, but it's fairly quick. (Killer comes to door, dog barks, you've seen "Halloween" - you know what happens. I can deal with that OK.) Oh, and the soundtrack is pretty good, too.

For a serial-killer movie, this is also a charmingly French film. The killer comes seeking our protagonist in the guest room at her friend's house. As he approaches, she hides all her things, smooths the bedspread and wipes out the sink before diving under the bed. Wipes out the sink! What kind of serial killer is going to check the sink? But he walks in the room and first thing he does is put his hand on the radiator, to see if it's been used. These are things only French people would think of, I tell you. It's very cute.

Interestingly, and I did not know this, Aja appears to be working on "Halloween: Retribution." Let's hope he dedicates it to the memory of Moustapha Akkad. RIP...

Seems a waste; I just got my hair done

I'm giving myself a night off with a borrowed copy of "Suddenly, Last Summer," a 1959 film based on a Tennessee Williams play. Katharine Hepburn plays the scary widow Violet Venable, who wants to give Elizabeth Taylor's character a lobotomy. Taylor makes sarcastic remarks about having to shave her head. It is great so far. (I'm turning it off halfway through to go to bed, as my day hours have turned me into an old lady.) Violet has a carnivorous plant that she addresses as "my wicked lady" and labels a Venus flytrap, although it appears to be a fake Nepenthes. She also appears to have a giant Amorphophallus in her garden; it stands not-so-subtly behind Montgomery Clift's doctor character as they converse.

I am grateful to Barry at the marvelous Carnivorous Plant FAQ for making me aware of this film.

Rosabelle answer tell pray answer look tell

Just finished "The Prestige." Gosh it was good! Although the idea of Hugh Jackman starring in the film alarms me. I'm afraid once he gets his magician costume on, he's going to start prancing. Anyway, the novel progresses from a clunky modern opener to a long, dry flashback to a full-on goth creepshow, and it's only in the latter third that you realize how elaborate the story has been all along. It's enormously enjoyable to watch the pieces plunk into place. Nobody in the book knows as much as they think they do. So it's a mystery but the tone is very modern. And its setting in London of the 1890s-1900s is wonderfully atmospheric; the text could be easily converted into a graphic novel to accompany some Edward Gorey illustrations. Most highly recommended. And quick, read it before it gets to be summer, because this is definitely a book for the season of wind and thunderstorms.

Speaking of spring, the good lady who runs You Grow Girl has done a nice redesign. Check out her photos of black tulips.

Bloody hell

Tonight's Easter theme is ... blood! To celebrate my present condition, I have just enjoyed an extremely rare steak while watching Roger Corman's "The Pit and the Pendulum," which Stephen King recalls with palpable pleasure in his memoir "On Writing." It was pretty darn good. While not a comedy like Corman's "The Raven," it's still pretty inventive, incorporating elements of "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "The Cask of Amontillado" into what passes for the main storyline. Darling Vincent is wonderful as always. There's a nice running visual gag where his character, who is substantially taller and broader than any of the others, keeps fainting onto them.

And now, a major storm. I will retire with my hot-water bottle and tea and hope to feel more.. rejuvenated in the morning.

Calm down, my heart ... don't beat so fast

Am back from the end of the continent, richer by:

-One sunburn
-One bottle rosemary massage oil, acquired at pharmacy that sold many interesting powders with skulls on them
-One dozen or so enormous newspapers
-One really good travel mix CD made by gentleman-caller, and
-One unspeakable T-shirt.

A satisfactory haul. Last night I went dancing at The Dock with Dr. Mike, and we quite enjoyed ourselves - the DJ is mixing it up a lot more than he used to do at the Warehouse. Last night he had something off the new Covenant album and a bunch of stuff we didn't know but liked dancing to. And, of course, the classics; when he played Wolfsheim's "Once in a Lifetime," two tiny girls next to us just screamed and screamed and jumped up and down and up and down. It was adorable. "Kids!" I shouted at Dr. Mike. He gave me a look that clearly said "Were we ever that young?" Then we danced our bottoms off. Also, they were handing out CDs and stuffed Easter bunnies, which made good dancing accessories.

Anyway, today's books: Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman and The Prestige by Christopher Priest. I didn't set out to read Anansi Boys, but when I took it off the library shelf to read over lunch, of course it just sucked me in. Along the same lines as American Gods, but since he's just focusing on Anansi, the plot is much tighter. It's a very sweet family story of two feuding brothers who discover how alike they are. Plus everyone ends up with the right girl. (And it leaves one with the tendency to apply Neil Gaiman-esque chapter headings to everything that happens, such as "In which Emma sleeps twelve hours and must relearn how to walk.")

Interestingly, The Prestige (which I started last night) is also apparently about long-lost brothers who are really the same person, or something. It came highly recommended but a blurb on the back compares it to Robertson Davies, and a very long and uninteresting early segment is giving me major "Murther & Walking Spirits" flashbacks. Still, it's being made into a movie directed by Christopher Nolan, starring darling Christian Bale and (ready?) David Bowie as Nikola Tesla. So I hold out hope. Rosabel, believe.

Also, Mr. Priest appears to have written the novelization of David Cronenberg's film "eXistenZ," which is weird.

S is for Spain, our enemies across the sea

Well, my dearest nonreaders, I am off for a week's... not quite vacation, but a week nonetheless. It should be sunny, if nothing else, and it is possible I will be meeting briefly with this gentleman. So I am looking forward to next week. Take care of yourselves and each other.

Today's book: "So Yesterday," a young-adult novel by Scott Westerfield. Like the mildly successful "Feed," this is a story about teenage consumers suddenly stopping to question their buying habits. I think it's important that young people pay attention to advertising and branding, and consider why they're buying the things they are. However, this does not translate to an interesting tale of adventure and espionage. Westerfield has some good ideas but not a good story. And his device of referring to brands indirectly, like "he named a certain trilogy of movies about cyber-reality and frozen kung-fu whose title ends in an X, counts as a brand, and therefore will not grace these pages," is more distracting than anything. If this is post-consumerism, I think it's already been co-opted. (Whatever the hell that means.)

Having some Company

Colleague Jeff and I went to see the vaunted production of "Company" over at Playhouse in the Park this evening. We agreed, as did the elderly lady next to me, that it was not the most engaging of plays, although the staging was very impressive. It's sort of a proto-Bridget Jones story, with a male Singleton surrounded by Smug Marrieds. The Smug Marrieds spend most of the show sniping at each other, which became tedious to me almost immediately. The dialogue is "Everybody Loves Raymond" style, delivered with the annoying flourishes of theater: "It was THREE blocks, dahLING!" OK! Shut up! I don't care! By the end of Act I, Jeff and I were both holding up our programs to the light, trying to angle them so we could see how much longer until intermission. I went straight to the bar and downed a dry martini. This made Act II more enjoyable.

Part of the problem, we both agreed, is that the entire premise feels laughably dated to us. Who cares if a 35-year-old is uninterested in marriage? Why would this necessarily upset his three girlfriends? Who has people over for terrace parties anymore? The song "Ladies Who Lunch" is particularly anachronistic; I don't know of anyone our age who "lunches," and certainly none of us wear hats, so Sondheim's little jokey line about nobody wearing hats anymore just drew blanks from us. Maybe as a period piece this would be more effective, although I cherished the chic black-and-white costumes, particularly Marta's shredded fishnet stockings.

The staging was hugely impressive, anyway. Having the actors play the instruments is such a gamble, and they pulled it off seamlessly. I laughed out loud when one actor left his keyboard and another picked up his riff without a pause. We both enjoyed a party scene early in Act II, when the full cast marched around singing and playing. One actress calmly wheeled an upright bass around a crowded stage into place, kicking its stand into position with a high-heeled shoe before starting to play. She didn't miss a beat. Their instruments really were extensions of their bodies. They could've been extensions of their characters, too, if Sondheim had written them any. I know Stephen Sondheim is quite accomplished and beloved, and I love "Send In the Clowns" too, but his stories are nasty vicious little things, full of bitter jokes and leaving you nowhere. Tonight's performers deserved better material.

The wind doth taste of bittersweet...

Like jasper wine and sugar;
I bet it’s blown through others’ feet
Like those of Caspar Weinberger.

--Berke Breathed

RIP to a great name, if not perhaps the most admirable of defense secretaries.

A pox on this snow

I am not pleased about tonight's snow forecast or about the low temperatures in general. All weekend I have been trotting my carnivorous plants out during the day (to harden off) and back inside at night when the temperatures drop to freezing-ish. In North Carolina, where the carnivores are from, it is not this cold. I realize this desolate Northern country cannot be the fair South, but please... let us have some spring.

Today's book: "Bloodline" by someone called Kate Cary. I obtained a free copy of this young-adult vampire novel and read it in the bathrub recently. It was a pleasant surprise. The story traces the second generation after Dracula, merrily killing off Jonathan Harker and sending Mina back to Transylvania for lots of vampirish sex with Dracula's son, Count Tepes. Her kids and various vampire hunters' kids must cope with their heritage. It's all amazingly teenage-angst friendly; we can all relate to the Nice but Boring Alive Guy versus the Hot Vampire Guy struggle. I'm still reading "Tristram Shandy" but have not got much to say about it at this point.

The spirits of the Irish cannot be dampened on St. Patrick's Day

The following is a brief excerpt from an essay by James Thurber entitled "Take Her Up Tenderly." I have it in a book called "Thurber Country" which was copyrighted in 1953.

---
I have a bone to pick with the singing Andrews Sisters, known to their many friends as the Girls. A few years ago, with the assistance of a man named Hughie Prince, they made up their own version of "Sweet Molly Malone" and had it copyrighted. In this arrangement, Molly does not die or even get sick. The old ballad was public domain, and anybody can do what he wants with Molly, and almost everybody has.

As every barroom quartet knows, the authentic Molly Malone died of a fever, or "faver," and no one could save her, and that was the end of Sweet Molly Malone. It is a well-known fact in Dublin's fair city, and everywhere else, that her ghost wheels her barrow through street wide and narrow, crying "Cockles and mussels alive, alive, O!" The Girls didn't want to sing it that way. I have it on the authority of someone close to them that they don't like anything to be sad or anybody to die. Their song ends like this: "So they both wheel a barrow, through streets wide and narrow, the man that she wed and Sweet Molly Malone." It depressed me terribly when I heard the Girls sing it that way over the air one windy evening in 1950.
...
The day I heard the Andrews Sisters sing their sanguine version of the old ballad was March seventeenth, and I had thought for a while that the Girls kept Molly alive so as not to dampen the spirits of the Irish on St. Patrick's Day. I took this up with my friend John Aloysius McNulty, who said simply, "The spirits of the Irish cannot be dampened on St. Patrick's Day." I should have known that.

Erin go argh!

Happy St. Patrick's Day, my little leprechauns! Watch out for Warwick Davis.

I started out the day by drinking until 2:30 a.m. and am looking forward to drinking some more. Of course, many days are like that for me. I'm often irked by this holiday because it involves people in annoying green Mardi Gras beads, but at least it's a good opportunity to crank up the Enya and upset the neighbors.

O, Dougray Scott, where art thou?

I appear to be the only person who saw both "Ever After" and "Mission: Impossible 2," and so I am the only known fan of actor Dougray Scott. This means I'm the only person who's going to be upset by these pictures, from some TV show called "Heist." Dear God! What has happened to this pretty boy? He has suddenly aged ten years, and poorly, a la Judd Nelson. His fetching pout has become a slack jaw. His soft complexion is suddenly pitted. His hair is inexplicably standing straight up. What has happened? Dougray, do you want to talk about it? You can post a comment if you wish. I'll listen.

There's always plenty to see and do in Bulgaria!

If a mysterious, yellowed volume holding only a single woodcut sounds intrinsically exciting, “The Historian” is the novel for you. Vampire tales have always been fetishistic, from Bela Lugosi’s cape to the garlic-’n’-crucifix on back to Vlad the Impaler’s wooden stake. Now Elizabeth Kostova sets the undead to hankering after old books. Vampires spread terror by leaving volumes in library carrels, and her characters uncover Dracula’s trail in dusty old museums and monasteries. Our heroes thrill to the discovery of a couple of letters from a fifteenth-century monk about his wagon trip through Wallachia. They sneak across borders, minutely examine frescoes, and chat up fellow vampire hunters in colorful Turkish cafes, surrounded by exotic sights and smells. Action, mostly, takes a back seat to travelogue. This is Dracula for the “Da Vinci Code” set.

Once you’ve got that figured out, it’s actually a pretty engaging story. Our unnamed main character (a gimmick that always distracts me) is reading her father's records of his hunt for his mentor, who left him his own records of his hunt for Dracula. She's got her own quest, but it unfolds in snippets between old letters and diary pages. It sounds choppy, but Kostova manages to sustain the main narrative thread through all the "source material."

She's a hell of a travel writer, too. Through the generations, the various characters travel to Istanbul, Oxford, Amsterdam, Venice, Budapest, the Pyrenees and the wilds of Bulgaria. Kostova's settings are full of lyrical passages:
"…Morning light hadn’t yet reached the chasm below. Something hung and glinted in the air beneath us, and I realized even before my father pointed to it what it was: a bird of prey, hunting slowly along the pinnacle walls, suspended like a drifting flake of copper."

Kostova's characters are a bit wooden, but so was Jonathan Harker. She wants all her heroes to be perfect world citizens, so they’re very respectful of other cultures – not like that nasty Turk-slayer they’re after. And although they’re well versed in history (though not all of them are actually historians - they're always asking each other things like "How does an anthropologist know so much about medieval lore?"), they constantly express dismay at the atrocities they read about. When Paul learns some of the physical details of impalement, he has to close his book for a second. The modern reader can only think: Sissy.

Kostova’s point, however, is that to these people, the past is immediate. History is being made all around us, and the modern era knows monstrosities as savage as any that’s ever been. The vampire becomes a neat metaphor for the past: it never dies - at least, not until we make ourselves confront it.

Next up: "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman," by Laurence Sterne. I gots to read like the wind before the Steve Coogan movie opens here. My friends have accused me of attempting to improve myself with books, so let me just add that I plan to wash Tristram down (ew) with plenty of beer this week.

Today's plant: Hot crocus action in the back yard. They are purple and gold, and doomed. (This hill will be rubble by next spring; I'll try to dig them up but surely won't get them all.)

A little early, no?

This morning I was driving through Hyde Park from my doctor's office (ear infection; not serious) to the McDonald's when a gentleman in a red pickup truck decided I wasn't going fast enough. It was interesting. I had stopped for a left turn when he came up hard behind me, so fast I didn't think he was going to stop and pulled forward a bit. After we had both turned, he started leaning on his horn. I pulled over to let him pass and noticed he was an elderly gentleman with a large dog in the front seat. The truck was covered with rust spots and faded bumper stickers saying things like "Law Enforcement For Bush." He went veering off down a side street. I'm pretty sure he was drunk. So here's a hearty good morning to him. I hope he thinks to drink some water before passing out.

This time, Starbuck is a girl. So is Edward James Olmos! Just kidding.

Just a few words of praise for the new "Battlestar Galactica" - okay, I've only seen the pilot so far, and I'm very late on this. But wow! What a smart show. It's got great action, witty mythological references, sweeping destruction and searing ethical dilemmas - all the best elements of my favorite sci-fi (Star Trek, Greg Bear novels, even Starship Troopers). Yes, I get excited about ethical dilemmas. God, I'm a geek. I love this show. No cable TV in this household, but we do have an uplink to Netflix.

It's time to start a new life under the sea

Went to Alchemize for the WOXY fundraiser last night. It was quite lovely. I was impressed with the prom decorations (the lobsters were especially darling) and the gorgeous alterna-prom outfits ... everyone looked like an old "Sassy" prom fashion spread. A lot of guys were dressed up: good for you, guys! I have been accused of loving all things prom, and sadly this is probably true. Mostly though I just like events that involve costumes. *pauses to moon over unrealistic wish to attend far-away Edwardian Ball in San Francisco.* Probably the Southern girl in me.

The club was nice - I hadn't been there since it became Alchemize. I'm not sure what the big scare about going downtown is. Parking and walking there was fine, although the block had to be circled a couple times before a good spot revealed itself. The streets were well-lit and fairly well-populated; sure, we got panhandled, but that happens in the business district in broad daylight too. Not everyplace can be the Kenwood Towne Centre, people.

I'll add links when I get home to my nice PC and away from this evil Mac (sorry, gentleman-caller), which won't let me modify type in any way.

Bookshelf

Today's book has been impossible to list for a while. I keep switching around. Here's a summary:

Reefer Madness by Eric Schlosser - I've been reading on this for way too long, but it's really three long essays gathered into a book. I'm taking breaks between parts but am on the last one now. It's about obscenity and the lucrative porn trade, and alludes to such local luminaries as Charles H. Keating. This drove me to...

The Story of O by Pauline Reage, classic erotica purchased from the wonderful mail-order catalogue Good Vibrations. The combination of free speech and love slaves is always irresistible. I've only read the first 40 pages or so of "O" but it's very charming... everyone's so French and blase about everything. She has more fun describing the rooms and outfits (down to the exact thickness of the leather collars) than anything else, which is very quaint. I find all the flogging a little unsettling, but chacun a son gout.

As it happens, there's sexual flogging in Julius Caesar; in Act I Antony is instructed to take a whack at Calphurnia during his Lupercal run. Sadly, politics soon take center stage. Still, I enjoyed this reading much more than previous ones. The play is beautifully structured, with the assassination almost exactly in the center of the play, so the entire first half is buildup & the second is fallout. I had forgotten about all the ghosts and lions whelping in the streets of Rome. Great, creepy stuff.

There are also creepy things lurking in Under the Pyramids, a short story ghostwritten by H.P. Lovecraft for Harry Houdini. It's fun to read a Lovecraft story in which the protagonist is not clearly a bookish stand-in for him; he writes convincingly about the awkwardness of being recognized on a train & being made to sign autographs. I wish he'd stepped out of character more under his own name. Spoiler: The ending, in which a giant five-headed monster proves to be nothing more than the monster's merest fore-paw, is hilarious.

More creepiness lies ahead in the vaunted first novel by Elizabeth Kostova, The Historian, which has been loaned to me by two colleagues who both found it long and dull. I am against it going in because they've reissued Dracula with a matching cover, and that just irritates the hell out of me. Dracula is a classic in its own right and does not need to be cutesily matched up with a current bestseller. We shall see.

Girl! I wanna take you to a gay bah!

I am totally going to see Electric Six at the Southgate House.

Let's start a wah!

Well, I declare

Just back from a trip home to the South. My hometown is just a five-hour drive from here but it's always such a culture shock. Even driving on the interstate is noticeably different - Cincinnati drivers who want to change lanes will put on their turn signals, check and then change lanes if it's clear. Nashvilleans, always center-stage in their own dramas, lunge heedlessly across traffic, in front of tractor-trailers and along the shoulder of the road to reach their destination. And by God do they love to talk. There are no simple statements, only sweeping declarations (hence the frequent interjection "I declare"). It's such a contrast to the German efficiency of Cincinnati. I'm off to reread Florence King's classic "Southern Ladies and Gentlemen" chapter on the Southern woman: "She is required to be frigid, passionate, sweet, bitchy and scatterbrained - all at the same time. Her problems spring from the fact that she succeeds."

a blogger longs to care about stupid shit again

I had a vague idea of writing a post about my affection for Maybelline's Great Lash maascara, from its garish green-and-pink container to its outrageous clumpiness - it's perfect for when you want to look like you're wearing mascara. And I love the trashy way it immediately smudges all around your eyes. However, after logging on and reading about sectarian violence in Iraq, it is impossible to focus on mascara. The country appears to be headed for the civil war that cool heads predicted when the U.S. first invaded. We're responsible for the shattered golden dome and the 150 (and counting) deaths, just as we have been for the past three years of violence there. Nice work, us.

(The sad thing, is my writing is probably better when I just stick to the mascara.)

And if we had the time, we could see the Sphinx

Today's touring musical: Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, seen from nosebleed seats. Fortunately, the show is vividly colored. The story definitely feels padded (I was actively annoyed when several songs in Act II ended and then were immediately repeated) but it's infused with enough vigor and good cheer that you can't really be upset with it. Both my neighbors expressed dislike of it during intermission, and both were clapping heartily at the end with broad smiles on their faces. It's just catchy. The Enquirer's theater critic keeps referring to it as "lollipop rock," which is about right.

Today's bad cinematic remake: 2005's "The Fog," starring the sublime Selma Blair, along with the guy from "Smallville" and the bitchy blonde from "Lost." Gentleman-caller and I both like the original and agreed the pacing of this version was completely deranged. How can you go wrong with zombie pirate leper ghosts? Somehow, the remake did.

List of things that do not work in my apartment, as of this evening: bathtub drain, ceiling fan, a deadbolt, the spin function of the washing machine. Oh, and the front window doesn't close, and the two back ones don't open, but those aren't really new. Stupid broken house.

Dagbok

I just think this is the cutest thing I have ever seen.

For God's sake, people, don't listen to ME.

Apparently, television audiences have taken my last post too much to heart and left off watching the Olympics. Instead, they are watching something called "American Idol." For God's sake, people, this is not the way! If you must watch TV, by all means watch the Olympics. Skiing down a mountain is a much more admirable skill than singing in a sequined bodysuit, or whatever those teenagers are doing these days.

Today's book: "Reefer Madness" by Eric Schlosser, author of "Fast Food Nation." A most excellent study of the black market. I am on the chapter about strawberry farms, which is very sobering as strawberries from these exact farms start to fill the grocery. Can you buy them organic?

Today's real book: "Bridget Jones's Diary." I've been reading it only in the bathtub all week and keep taking baths so I can read more.

Apologies for the recent lack of posts. Work has more or less turned my life upside-down this past fortnight so I am readjusting. On the bright side, have just discovered one of my new colleagues is IN the upcoming local production of "Chess"! I overheard him discussing it and went all wobbly with joy. Then I got too nervous to ask him about it, partly because he does not know who I am.

Un-American girl

This week at work I made the mistake of asking a colleague, "Is it wrong that I don't give a shit about the Olympics?" He immediately replied, "Yes," and went around telling everyone that I was un-American. (This is what you get for asking stupid rhetorical questions while bored at work instead of surfing the Web like everyone else. But anyway.) My gentleman-caller is an Olympic fiend and I find his interest very cute, but I just can't get too much on board myself. It's great to see international fellowship, particularly in these troubled times, and the athletic feats are hugely impressive. But does it all have to be brought to us by Nike and McDonald's and Budweiser? Even the pasta brand I buy is all over that one skier guy, so I can't buy it now without looking like I've been subconsciously brainwashed by the Olympics. I just hate ads and I hate buying stuff and I hate that everything comes down to sales. Oh well. It probably comes down to my alleged resemblance to President Mitterand (see icon at right).

Ah, my Bogart's

Tonight I went back to Bogart's for the first time since college. It's been 8 years since I saw David Byrne there, and oh you cannot top him. He had some magnificent costume changes, particularly when he came out in a skintight glow-in-the-dark Visible Man type outfit, with drawings of organs and muscles all over it, to perform "Psycho Killer." Even his rendition of the blah "Miss America" was enlivening. Tonight I was there to see Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, which was not really worth ending an eight-year hiatus for, but I had forgotten what a great venue it is. The sound in there is amazing, and the stage is just high enough up to give the show a feeling of real majesty. And they have Leinenkugel on tap. Eight years ago I didn't even drink beer! The things one appreciates as time passes.

My gentleman-caller had to go wreck my Byrne thing by mentioning that he saw Pavement there right before they broke up. Yeah, well, I saw the Squirrel Nut Zippers there! ... [creeps back into library as crickets chirp]

Today's book: "Mama Day" by Gloria Naylor. It's a tale of magic and superstition off the coast of the Georgia-South Carolina border. I love this part of the country and am happy as a clam to be reading about it. It makes me hungry for Beaufort stew (aka low-country broil): corn, potatoes, sausage and shrimp all steamed in a pot with lots of Old Bay. Mm. Not really a dish for a single chick, though.

Postcard from the past

While home for Christmas, I found my stash of old zines from high school. Two of my good friends and I put out a monthly (or so) zine, naming ourselves after our favorite French cave painting, "Disemboweled Bison, Prostrate Man and Bird on a Stick," which we studied in art history. (If they ever find this blog, they now know my secret identity! I've lost touch with both of them, and I miss them.)

Anyway, I was just looking through them and noticed a comment Bird on a Stick wrote on one back page, way back in February 1995: "Party of Five's Matthew Fox is an animal!" And in February 2006, the "Lost"-obsessed Prostrate Man can finally agree.

"Romeo + Juliet" would be a further time travel adventure with a "Lost" connection, but gentleman-caller is hedging on me again.


Edited to add: If you Google "Disemboweled Bison, Prostrate Man and Bird on a Stick," you get some very interesting hits.

See the sun set in the hand of the man

Thanks to Linky for the tip on this beautiful Dream Anatomy gallery. The engravings, paintings etc. are exquisite and terrifying. Enjoy.

Queen Mab hath been with my son Walt

SCENE: Gentleman-caller and myself watching "Lost," two episodes ago, in which Michael goes on yet another tedious rampage and starts yelling at everyone about his son.

Me: Will you watch "Romeo + Juliet" with me?
Gentleman-caller: No.
Me: You can see Michael get shot. Fatally.
Gentleman-caller: Can we watch it next?

("Magic Street" update, circa page 190: Overwrought; full of bathroom references; evidently written by hyper twelve-year-old.)

Howard died this morning nothing to do thanks

In a sad move for lovers of arcana and "The Sound of Music" alike, Western Union has very quietly stopped its telegram service. However, you can send a Retro-Gram via email and admire telegram design of the past, as well as read a "brief" history written by cute obsessive boys who may or may not be tentacled.

Today's book: "Magic Street" by Orson Scott Card. I need to have it read by a lecture at noon tomorrow, but have not obtained a copy yet. Something just keeps telling me that this book will irritate the hell out of me; perhaps it is Mr. Card himself.

Oh dear

(courtesy piratemonkeysinc)

(from the department of "things my gentleman-caller's colleagues send to him which he sends to me which I post on my blog which is read by his colleagues so there's not much point, but here it is anyway.")

Alas, poor Gap

I don't normally enjoy shopping, but the soon-to-close Gap in Tower Place was all right today. It's nearly empty except for a few racks of clothes, and a huddle of naked mannequins in one corner. Apparently they're for sale, at $85 each - does that seem reasonable? If the Gap is in financial trouble everywhere (as I've heard), will we have to explain to our kids what this ubiquitous store was? A mannequin could be a useful historical artifact. Also, you could paint it.

Rosie & I saw a disconsolate-looking Nick Spencer walking out as we walked in. Sorry, Nick.

Snotty biographer alert

Today's book: "A Dreamer And A Visionary: H.P. Lovecraft in His Time" by S.T. Joshi. This is a hugely entertaining mix of biography, commentary and literary theory. Being a total girl, I am mainly interested in Lovecraft's brief marriage to Sonia Haft Greene, who left him after eight months of cohabitation for a job in Cincinnati. There's not much about Cincinnati in the book and there's not much about love either. Lovecraft evidently never even said the word to Sonia, although he'd say things like "I appreciate you, my dear." His big sign of affection was to hook his pinky around hers and say "Umph," which Joshi notes with a snide "Move over, Casanova!" I think that sounds rather sweet. I would hook pinkies with Lovecraft any day.

Today's other books: "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream" for ongoing lecture series at library. The theme is Magic which should pair interestingly with all these Lovecraft books. Today's lecture on Gawain talked almost exclusively about magic as a test of Gawain's chivalric code. I thought there would be stuff about the Celtic Green Man and early Christian imagery but that didn't come up.

Finally: Dolly Parton turns 60 this week. Shakespeare's Sister and Salon's Broadsheet have nice appreciations for a great lady. Happy birthday, sweetpea.

Arr! I got nothing against ye, squiddy

Finally managed to see "The Squid and the Whale" yesterday at Mariemont. It's an acutely observed miniature of a family going through divorce, told mostly from the kids' point of view. You watch the two boys (Owen Kline and the increasingly hot Jesse Eisenberg) shift allegiances between their parents and deal with all the weirdness of adolescence. Jeff Daniels has gotten a lot of praise for his performance as the asshole English-professor dad ("'A Tale of Two Cities'? One of Dickens' minor works. Why do teachers always assign an author's worst books?"), and it's richly deserved. He's awful but you never stop feeling for him, even at his slimiest. The film manages to be stylized and emotionally honest at the same time. It was co-produced by Wes Anderson (the writer and director, Noah Baumbach, cowrote Anderson's "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou") and there are some similarities to "The Royal Tenenbaums" - the houses of the two parents are almost characters in their own right, for example. But this movie is laced with more bitterness, right from the opening scene when the family is playing tennis and Jeff Daniels tells his son to aim for his mother's weak backhand. Still, you never lose affection for any of them, even as the film makes you see how they can devastate each other.

Behind me in the theater, a lady was telling her companion that her cat had recently run away - they opened the front door and it just bolted out. Oddly, that happens in the closing scene of the movie. I could hear the lady gasp.

the quick comedians extemporally will stage us

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety: other women cloy
The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry
Where most she satisfies.

Mrrrow! Have to read "Antony and Cleopatra" by Wednesday. Am looking forward to it but having trouble putting down my S.T. Joshi biography of Lovecraft. Life is extremely difficult here at the Blackwood residence.

In other news, meet my new favorite show. (okay, it's just on DVD.)

My new planter gives me nightmares

When life sends you a broken Miskatonic University mug in the mail, reassemble it with rubber skin, green food coloring and fake blood into a planter for your bromeliad. Words to live by.

He was a friend of mine

Saw "Brokeback Mountain" today. Normally I avoid the long weepy pictures that generate Oscar talk (no interest ever in seeing "Mystic River" or "Million Dollar Baby"), but I like Heath Ledger, Larry McMurtry and Ang Lee. None of them let me down. It was great and very sad. Ledger's character was particularly heartbreaking, trying desperately to keep his private feelings private while Jake Gyllenhaal follows him around with his huge needy eyes. I loved the understated performances of the women (Anne Hathaway & Michelle Williams), and the striking closing shot of a prairie framed in a trailer window. I did, however, once again sort of miss the moment when they fell in love. The early scenes of camaraderie & physical passion make sense, but when they get back together a few years later, I was surprised. I may be too picky in re. love scenes.

Tekeli-li to you, too

Today's book: "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym" by Edgar Allan Poe. How could I never have heard of this before my brother gave me that Poe collection? It's hugely influential. I immediately recognized Richard Parker from "Life of Pi" (I also liked that the dog was named Tiger), and Lovecraft's polar monsters in "Mountains of Madness" shout "tekeli-li" in homage to Poe's savages. It's a bizarre story, though: A boy stows away on board ship, nearly smothering in the hold (very "Premature Burial") before coming up to find a bloody mutiny in progress. Violence and cannibalism ensue before he ends up on another ship bound for the South Pole. Rosie helpfully filled me in on some polar exploration history. This book was written in the 1830s, when nobody had a clue what was down there, so Poe is free to make stuff up - including savages with black teeth (very Peter Jackson) and antarctic polar bears. The narrative is frequently stalled by Arthur's swooning fits, but this is Poe so that's probably to be expected.

Cute!

My gentleman-caller, who amazes me every day, sent me a link from Craftster (what was he doing there?) to "Dawn of the Knitted Dead." I am dazzled. So are many people at Craftster, who apparently are having their second Zombie Swap.

Zombies, man. They creep me out

Can Land of the Dead accurately be described as a horror movie? I found it utterly lacking in scares. This from someone who can't even watch "Shaun of the Dead" without having nightmares. I am extremely susceptible to zombie fright and this movie offered absolutely none. That said, it was a lot of fun. The conceit of intelligent, sympathetic zombies actually works, as stupid as it sounds. I loved Big Daddy's increasingly outraged howls (or "ululations," as the closed-captioning would have it) as the living use his fellow zombies for target practice. The setting also seems idiotic on paper - how do the people in Fiddler's Green make money? Do they not find their name at all sinister? Why doesn't the Irish guy just lead a revolt instead of talking about it? But I loved the medieval street scenes with puppet shows, sickly beggars and general filth. Dennis Hopper and John Leguizamo are both having a great time, which helps you swallow the heavy social commentary. Still, it really wasn't scary, although it was plenty violent. Maybe a social drama with gore? Can that be a Netflix category?

Ah yes, the gore. In George A. Romero's lively mind, human bodies pop apart as easily as jigsaw puzzles; a zombie has only to tug on a head or an arm and it comes right off, spewing dark blood in every direction. There are some lovely decapitations, a painful-looking lengthwise bisection of an arm, and the removal of a tongue. It all happens so swiftly and cartoonishly, though, it's not even all that unsettling. (Perhaps in a theater it would be different.)

The most peculiar sequence to me came as the zombies are overrunning the wealthy Fiddler's Green, and the elite are shrieking and running in terror. Zombie after zombie is filmed snatching a woman and tumbling over on top of her, and one (notoriously) rips out a belly-button ring with his teeth as his victim screams. (Closed captioning: "[women screaming].") Romero's no misogynist - the female protagonists in this movie kick ass right along with the men, and his own daughter has a cameo as a zombie-blasting soldier. So what gives with the rape imagery? The best I can come up with is that he means the zombie invasion as a metaphor for any revolt of the disenfranchised, whether peasants, African-Americans or modern Hispanic immigrants; and part of the myth of oppression is often "if we let them loose, they'll run wild through our streets and make free with our women." Romero's already shown us the vicious misogyny underlying Fiddler's Green with the gladiator sequence that introduces Asia Argento. His identifying the zombies with minorities is still a little unsettling, but in Romero's world, there are definitely worse things than being a zombie.

Don't say that...that Z word

Watching "Land of the Dead" tonight and v. excited! Braaains!

This is for the fingers. This is for the nails.

Case in point with the horror thing is the upcoming Hostel. I could not adore "Cabin Fever" more, from the sadistic violence and misanthropy to the "Evil Dead" references to every special moment with Dennis. And I really want to support Eli Roth. But I don't think I can sit through a whole movie about people being chained to chairs and tortured. Is this contradictory?

Meanwhile, have been rocking out to Brian Eno and had that song in my head all evening while reading early "Hostel" reviews. Am so conflicted.

*pluf*

"Pluf" is apparently Spanish for "plop," as in "to plop over in shock." When I lived in Spain, I had my head shaved, and my Spanish host mother told me (in Spanish): "Your mother is going to go 'pluf.'"

Well, I have just gone pluf: My gentleman-caller has alerted me to an upcoming local performance of "Chess," the classic musical tale of Cold War romance and international intrigue, by Benny Anderson, Tim Rice and Bjorn Ulvaeus. It's extremely weird and smashingly wonderful. The songs are catchy thanks to the ABBA boys, with lyrics by Rice at his most bitingly cynical. Wikipedia has a nicely thorough entry here. If anyone wants to borrow the original cast album, I'd be happy to loan it to you! Anyone?

Mad cat

My friend Robin is shown giving her long-haired, ill-tempered cat a bath. She insists the cat smelled and the bath was sorely needed. Everyone was diminished by the experience.

Ow.

You know why women tend to dislike horror movies? Because we have periods. There's nothing novel about blood and pain to us. Of course, you could also argue that female horror fans are more devoted because the imagery really resonates. I'm sort of middle-of-the-road myself. Mostly I love comedy, and if a great comedy happens to involve shemps in the woods (Evil Dead) or skin-eating terror (Cabin Fever), so be it. Then you have Lovecraft's work, which isn't comedy but is still hugely enjoyable in a campy way - especially "Herbert West - Reanimator," which I read last night and scared myself to death with. I love that it's funny *and* genuinely unsettling.

Today's books: The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories by H.P. Lovecraft, and Absolute Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. The former is a splendid Penguin edition with comprehensive, erudite footnotes. The latter was a fabulous Christmas gift from my gentleman-caller.

Retiring to fainting-couch now. Ow. Stupid womanhood.

A culinary note

If you are making steak and Guinness pie, and you get creative and decide to add potatoes (although the pie crust provides plenty of starch on its own), it really comes to resemble hash. And if you opened the fridge to realize your gentleman-caller drank the last of your Guinness and all you have left is Dead Guy Ale, the end result is hash and Dead Guy Ale pie. Which may not have been the dish you set out to make four hours ago.

Today's book: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, a Christmas gift from my brother, who also gave me short-story collections by Lovecraft and Poe. I dislike short stories for the most part but may have to change my mind. Who could have predicted the outcome of the Adventure of the Beryl Coronet? (Hm.)

I have spent most of the day reading in the kitchen while the hash and Dead Guy Ale pie bakes. A short break was taken to repair a broken Miskatonic University mug. Its handle and an adjacent chunk are hopelessly gone, so I coated the rim in fake blood and green rubber skin; it should make an excellent container for a bromeliad.

I have a reservation. What do you mean, it's not in the computer?

Resolutions:

1. Attend fewer yoga classes. I cannot find a good plain yoga class with a down-to-earth teacher who talks instead of reciting a script, and I am tired of Yoga Studios that have Offices and Receptionists. Find a good dance class instead.
2. See one movie every week. I tend to see large films on weekends with my gentleman-caller and have neglected foreign and arty films. This year I will spend a free afternoon or evening at the theater every week.
3. Move out of my apartment. It is scheduled to become a heap of rubble in October anyway, so this should be an easy one. (Yellow.)
4. Renew my Mercantile Library membership and join one of its societies - hmm, the Shakespeare one or the poetry one?
5. Get "Like a Prayer" on CD.

Piggy pudding?!

Another Christmas with John Denver and the Muppets. I love this time of year. The orange tree is merrily decorated (with one extra-large red globe ornament contributing to the overall Charlie Brown effect), the Christmas candy has been made and distributed, and houseguests have come through from far climes. As a sign of my age, I have begun to enjoy the sappier songs on the John Denver album, but fortunately still love the "No, figgy pudding. It's made with figs" exchange.
Merry Christmas, you guys.

Hooray!

The wonderful Gina Fattore also has no patience with Jane Austen characters who nance across meadows at dawn. (You may have to look at an ad, if you're not a Salon subscriber.)

What happened last night?

There are probably good movies to watch while you're busy making magnets for your friends, a process that doesn't give you many opportunities to glance up at the TV. "The Doors" is not one of them. A well-intentioned coworker loaned it to me for no real reason the other week, and my plan was to just have it on so I could say "Thanks, it was interesting," even though I'm indifferent to the band and loathe Oliver Stone. As near as I can tell, they did a lot of drugs, Val Kilmer recited many lengthy bad poems, and many objects were smashed. I'm sure it was visually interesting, but I was focusing on not gluing myself to the couch.

I Saw Mommy Kissing Yog-Sothoth

I just love this.

Have been in the kitchen engaging in baking frenzy. An entire pan of shortbread was dropped on the floor. I am so discouraged and do not wish to do anything ever again. Except perhaps sample the eggnog.

No more ghost. No more notes!

Couple more things and then I'm through with this topic. During intermission, my gentleman-caller quoted someone (he couldn't remember who) as saying the Phantom of the Opera is by far the gayest of villains. I had to agree. Then after the show, we learned that we could buy in the lobby a CD called "Broadway's Fabulous Phantoms," featuring all the Phantom actors singing different songs. It just killed me. (And oh dear, I shouldn't make fun, as it features the late Steve Barton. He was the original Raoul. RIP.)

Also, the New York Times has a nice review summarizing the Broadway show's appeal: "For those sentimental souls looking for a popular entertainment to transport them to a baroque, romantic new world with a powerful smoke machine, 'Phantom,' I'm happy to report, still delivers the goods." It's posted over at thephantomoftheopera.com, which seems to have a healthy sense of its own ridiculousness.

You'd never get away with all this in a play

Saw "The Phantom of the Opera" last night. Swoon! I almost didn't go, and then gentleman-caller said "Why don't we?" and so we did. I saw it in high school and was obsessed with it around seventh grade. The soundtrack album is permanently burnt into my brain, and at home I have "The Complete Phantom of the Opera" coffee-table book, along with another giant book on Lloyd Webber. I studied and studied and studied the libretto and pictures, mentally filling the spaces in the soundtrack. Generally I could work out the tune of the unrecorded bits of music by reading the lyrics - once you know the musical themes, it's easy to match the rhythms up. And, of course, I read the novel several times. I should've tackled it in the original French when I could, but by that point of high school I had sort of lost interest in The Phantom. Seeing it then was great, but it also felt like a bit of a letdown; emotionally, a live show couldn't match the heights I'd attained with the music and my imagination. So I went to see it last night as more of a curiosity (like the film).

It still holds up as a spectacle. Nothing can beat the opening chandelier ascent (even the big descent, which is a shame, but that's a fault of Harold Prince's original direction). The dressing-room/labyrinth run is campy fun - candles, electric guitar & all; "Masquerade" still has fab costumes; even the chintzy fireballs in the Peros scene are kind of cool. ("More deception? More violence?") My favorite surprise, from the first time I saw it, was the ballet rehearsal during "Angel of Music." It's a tedious little song so I love the distraction, particularly since it's the highly stylized ballet girls, with their stiff little skirts and massive wigs. More importantly, the juxtaposition shows you that something's always going on in the opera house - people are always rehearsing, or singing, or changing, or running around in the shadows. It's like a giant haunted house. ("Your face, Christine, it's white!")

Last night's singing was magnificent, too. The wonderfully named Marie Danvers was a sweet Christine, and that's a tough role - she's onstage 90 percent of the time. I always want Christine to get a little angrier at the Phantom toward the end, though. Raoul was fine with his big white scarf. I like my Phantom a little less gaspy and blustery than last night's guy (someone Mauer?), but when he chose to sing quietly, he was hypnotic. And his big emotional moments ("all that the Phantom asked of you") were properly gripping.

My problems were mostly with pacing and staging. This may be Prince's fault too, but both death scenes happen too quickly. There needs to be more light and more focus on the bodies of Buquet and Piangi, because you have GOT to react to them with horror. It's great on the soundtrack, because you hear the music and the screams. Onstage, by the time the screams start, the corpses have flashed out of sight. My gentleman-caller didn't even realize someone had been hanged at the end of Act I. Buquet looks like a sandbag. I mean, that's not good. You need to see why Christine's afraid.

I had major issues with The Point of No Return. I have never seen this staged the way I like, which makes me mad, because it's logical, obvious and not hard. The Phantom quietly murders the star tenor just offstage, and takes his place in a scene with Christine. At the first sound of his voice, Christine needs to freeze. The song's first half requires her to do nothing but sit and listen. She should be thinking about what to do and be horrified at the intensity of his words (yet, of course, hypnotized by his magnetic voice). By her half of the duet, she's decided the best strategy is to play along for now. When they sing together, you should be in an agony of suspense - what is she going to do? Are the police going to open fire or what? Last night, they had the Phantom come out with a hood over his face, and when he pulls it back after the duet, THEN everyone acts all surprised. When the characters all know him by his voice, Christine most of all, that just doesn't work. It's idiotic.

Oh well. It was still fine. I loved the staging of "All I Ask of You"; it's a welcome moment of repose, and the Phantom's sorrow and rage were both properly overwhelming. And the ending was nice. His disappearance is well done - I like him vanishing from under the cape as you watch. (The first one I saw had him just sit in the chair, and then the lights in that corner went out - you could almost see him jump offstage. It didn't work.) Carlotta and Piangi were good, and David (?) Cryer was a fab Firmin. He sang clearly and gave his good lines ("Written!") the perfect touch of dryness. I loved when he held his hand up to his mouth during the "chorus girl who's gone and slept with the patron" bit. Even though nobody can understand that line.

Longest post ever?

Winter

Hallmark of winter: Personal-care products that are extremely cold, particularly after spending a day in the car and being deployed before a post-work assignation. Spermicidal jelly can get very, very, very cold. It's like an ice-cream headache for your cervix.

Lady Catherine proposed that I post this evening

... and so I shall. My gentleman-caller kindly took me to see "Pride and Prejudice" this evening, with some excellent sushi beforehand. I cannot say it compares to the BBC version. Keira Knightley plays Elizabeth as one of a giggly band of sisters - she's supposed to be the pensive one because she occasionally nances through fields with a book in her hand, but there's not enough intelligence behind her merriment. I missed the wry, understated work of Jennifer Ehle. And why is she constantly seen staring at the wall (or a mirror, I couldn't tell)? Elizabeth is an observer and likes to watch other people; she does not navel-gaze. There's a lot of nancing around with shawls and braids and candles while the music roars and people stare into the distance (indeed, it seems calculated to annoy gentlemen-callers), and there's not enough dialogue. Even Judi Dench & Donald Sutherland don't get enough lines. I did love Brenda Blethyn's performance, and whoever plays Mr. Collins is perfect. He elicits a wonderful look of pure hate from Sutherland with the line "I shall read to you all for an hour or two after dinner." But on the whole, not nearly enough talking. My gentleman-caller was the only man in the theater; as we left, he quietly called to the remaining audience: "Good night, ladies."

I summoned him! Agggh! Ia!

So I finish my last post, make some coffee and wander over to Walk In Brain. The very top post is the Lovecraft Family Circus! Did I foolishly chant the invocation that will awaken dreaming Cthulhu in his nameless depths? Are the Old Ones upon us at last? Well, a hearty Cthulhu fthagn to you all.

Of "faeries" and A.I.

Today's plant: My long-suffering orange tree, now producing both flower buds and tiny oranges. I plan to use it as my Christmas tree this year if it proves completely free of mealybugs. (Tho if you could genetically engineer silver mealybugs, think how festive that could be.)

I finished Tithe yesterday in an "I have to finish this before work" reading frenzy that got me to the office late. Possibly as a result of this, its resolution seemed unclear to me. The romance ended nicely, but the secondary characters' narrative threads seem to just trail off. Still, the point of reading Tithe is not so much the plot as the exquisitely constructed atmosphere. Holly Black's characters wander through set pieces that are beautiful, creepy and eerily familiar. I think anyone who played alone in the woods as a kid will recognize Black's realm of Faerie. Her creatures live in tiny suburban creeks and patches of trees - you don't have to go to England or way out in the country. (Normally it gives me fits when people insist on writing "faerie" rather than "fairy," but I'll make allowance here, partly because she's really done her research (her faeries' motives are never clear, and many of them are cruel) and partly because of her excellent subplot involving a lonely gay character.)

Idoru got finished last week and sent me directly to its sequel, All Tomorrow's Parties, which I read last year. All I remembered was what happened at the end to the idoru, an artificial-intelligence celebrity who takes on a life of her own in the datasphere. Both books concern her struggle for material existence, while questioning what sets her apart from a human society increasingly dependent on data for survival. They're the second two books in a trilogy. I was telling a work friend that one can't read a great deal of William Gibson all together, as he tends to put the reader in a sort of depressive trance. But it is winter now, so maybe it's time to take another shot at the Neuromancer trilogy in its entirety. Still, it was a relief to reach for the relatively light-n'-fluffy Tithe. Both books deal, in vastly different ways, with secret worlds that operate under our noses and affect us all. Can we give Lovecraft credit for this? I don't know. It's time to have some coffee.

A ban on Butter Buds

I have had it with fake butter flavoring and wish to issue an immediate moratorium on it. This weekend it has turned up in the bread part of a breakfast sandwich, which already featured the taste sensations of sausage & cheese; in some otherwise excellent biscuits; and in off-brand Rice Krispies treats. It's distinct from the delightful fake-butter product used in microwave popcorn. This flavor is dryer, but still coats your mouth and lingers for hours, defying Altoids. Please, giant food-making corporations, stop this at once.

P.S. I spent all of today reading "Tithe." So good! Squee! A copy of "Valiant" is likely to fall into my holiday-shopping basket next week.

Dramatization may not have happened

Finally saw "Walk the Line" this weekend. I wanted to lie down afterward.
I love Johnny & June. I love singing along to "Jackson" on the Folsom Prison album, I love their voices and I love their story. But this movie was just unpleasant. When the final credits came up I just crumpled with relief; one more close-up of a sweaty face or big hollow eyes would've done me in.
It's not that it was too gritty. I've no doubt Johnny and June went through a lot of bad times, with the divorces and the drug addiction and the moral qualms. The movie happily outlines it all: John's hardscrabble childhood with a distant dad; his rocky first marriage; his drug-fueled smashing up of rooms; his screaming children. Meanwhile, June gets yelled at in a five-and-dime for getting divorced. It left me wondering what parts they left out.
What's missing is them FALLING IN LOVE. What do they like about each other? The movie gives you almost no moments of peace. Johnny is just suddenly obsessed with her and starts chasing her around, yelling at her offstage and being a jerk to her onstage. By the time he proposes, in what's supposed to be a lavishly romantic scene, I just couldn't stand it. Why should she say yes? What does she see in him? Obviously some biographical facts were edited out; why couldn't their story have been arranged to indicate some kind of progression? Neither of them seems to have matured or changed at all. Reese and Joaquin get so into working up the proper mannerisms that they abandon characterizations. They play Johnny and June as two sets of costumes. And their outfits are great, but you need more than that to hang a movie on.
Verdict: Blech. And that's without even mentioning Joaquin's singing voice, which sounds like a buzzsaw.

Today's book: Tithe, by Holly Black. I've been looking forward to this so much, and the first three chapters don't disappoint. It's both a sweet coming-of-age story and a fairy tale.

On the closet floor

When you live in an apartment for four years and never clean out the closet, what can accumulate on the floor? Here is a short catalogue of the things I have just found.
- Cough drop
- Cat toy
- Two Hershey's bars, miniature size
- Mashed Cadbury egg
- Cigar cutter
- Wrapping paper
- One pair lacy unmentionables (blue)
- One lipstick
- Sparkly purse
- Approx. 30 pairs assorted shoes, including platform high-heeled sandals worn by attendants at long-ago wedding of former colleague. At the reception, I complimented the matron of honor on them. She looked at me for a moment, then said, "Here," and handed them to me. "I never want to see these again," she said.

Still life with praying hands

Construction hat, praying hands and tiny snowman figurine, as seen in rear window of car parked on Covington street.

Good clean narcissistic fun

Over at myheritage.com's Face Recognition site, you can upload a photo and find out what celebrity you most closely resemble. I apparently look like Francois Mitterand, and my gentleman-caller resembles Maria Montessori. (There's a fun pair!) Be warned: This is somewhat addictive. Also, it doesn't seem to work on pictures where you're wearing glasses.

The Earl of Moray

I'm putting off the weekly call to my parents, because my sister is already home for Thanksgiving and I don't quite want to hear about how they're all lolling around stuffing their faces with homemade ricotta or whatever they had for brunch today. Yes, it's simple petty jealousy. It'll be gone in a few minutes. To procrastinate, am reading "Home Life." I've never heard this song but now want to learn it.

Neville/me

The Harry Potter movie was pretty good. My gentleman-caller and I agreed that while it was fun to sit through, it rather fell apart under discussion afterward, largely due to its exhausting pace. So many subplots could have been excised, particularly Rita Skeeter's. I wanted more Cho, and more Draco (I thought wistfully of the paper crane from "Azkaban"), and just some breathing room. The movie just barrels forward like it's got to cram everything in.

I did appreciate the space allotted to Neville, beginning with his anguish in the classroom as he watches the Cruciatus Curse torture a spider. And he's suddenly into plants! (Which permits the excision of Dobby, a wonderful gift in itself.) And he loves to dance! I loved him coming in from the Yule Ball with his shoes slung around his neck. Darling Neville. I'm happy they're setting him up for his important role later in the books. However, I do wish they'd paused just a moment in the Pensieve scene to emphasize what happened to his parents. Their names are mentioned so quickly, it just feels careless. Oh, and I'm also besotted with the Weasley twins. So cute and lanky.

The theater complex was an utter zoo. We met up with some friends, admired each other's homemade shirts, took pictures and temporarily disabled an usher. Boys dressed as Harry & Draco pretended to cast spells on each other under the screen while the gathering audience cheered. The kid next to me snorted and yelled "Expecto Patronum is for Dementors! It won't work on Draco! Read the books, idiots!" It was all very festive.

the day is full of herbs

With the temperatures suddenly freezing, it's way past time to put the garden to bed. All the Sarracenia have been moved to a basement window. Do you know how cold a glazed clay pot can get? Very, very cold, it turns out. It was like carrying the inverse of a hot potato.
I also cut back the sage, orange mint, thyme, oregano and lemon balm. I'm going to take a bath and then decide what to do with it. Right now the kitchen is overflowing with fragrant leaves.
Meanwhile, am being sorely tempted by $10 sale over at Threadless. Does my pastor sister-in-law need the "Best Friends Forever" T-shirt for Christmas? Hmmm.

Today's book: To my embarrassment, am still reading Idoru. Put it down for a bit to read The Provincial Lady in Wartime by E.M. Delafield, which was hilarious.

joy/melancholy

A touch of melancholia stains the Blackwood residence this week. I chalk it up to illness and the weather. I could also be drained from the euphoria of hearing Kate Bush's first album in twelve years. The day after it came out, I just lay on the floor listening to it and spiritually taking off. Hearing her voice again was wonderful beyond all expectations. And her music is magnificent. I can't believe she let us contemplate "The Red Shoes" for twelve years. At last we can all forget "Rubberband Girl."
I'm trying to hang on to her energy and generosity this week, but it's a little hard. The holidays are always a time of professional reckoning. I was hired around this time & have to survive my yearly review; I also have to weigh whether it's worth staying in a job that gets increasingly static and mediocre. Obviously this year I'm leaning toward "not." I can't remember my last really good night at work. On the other hand, what else could I do? I'm not very disciplined and have a limited skill set. I feel stuck. What would Kate Bush do? She would probably sit down at the piano, and I do have that option...
At least there's a midnight "Goblet of Fire" show to look forward to. As "research," I am going to make a martini and read some fanfic. Outside, you can actually hear winter blowing in. It's supposed to drop something like 30 degrees tonight.

Vote

Don't forget to vote today, chickens. You don't need an ID or a registration card or anything. If you're registered, they know where you live. And if you don't vote, you'll contribute to low voter turnout, which will in turn contribute to tiresome editorials in the news-paper about low voter turnout. Nobody wants that. So vote.

Kidnap Mister Sandy Claws?

Today's book: "Idoru" by William Gibson. One day I will sit down and read these books in order. Meanwhile, cherish fanciful notion of eventually tying together my diverse interests into series of genius novels, futuristic or otherwise. *pauses to moon over bespectacled author photo*

Today's film: "The Nightmare Before Christmas." My gentleman-caller thoughtfully Netflixed this for me, although it was not available until just after Halloween. I had not seen it since high school and was particularly keen to see Tim Burton's early short "Vincent," narrated by the late Mr. Price. He is something of a hero of mine (and a time-travel sex object besides). So last night I watched "Vincent" and the first half of the main film. The short looked and sounded marvelous, and it would be a rare treat to come across unexpectedly. Unfortunately, its tiny narrative simply trails off, as Mr. Burton's stories tend to do. Vincent's conflict - be Vincent Price or a normal boy? - is so nicely set up, I wanted him to do something besides fall on the floor at the end. Oh well. It still looked nice, and it was a shivery pleasure to hear Mr. Price whisper "Nevermore" without having to sit through Roger Corman's "The Raven." (Which has its campy merits. "Go to the graveyard at this time of night? Despoil the dead?") As for the main film, it's less impressive on the small screen, and the story feels pretty half-assed. But the idea of Santa Claus being kidnapped and tortured by the denizens of Halloween-town is pretty great. I will always love the "Kidnap the Sandy Claws! Chop him into bits!" song.

Ia! Ia!

Sorry, I never did write about "At the Mountains of Madness." I may have OD'd on Lovecraft by the time I got to it. The timing was also bad in that we experienced a great cold snap here the week I read it. Yes, it took me a week to read a hundred-page book; I kept picking up other things. It was sort of like watching "Dr. Zhivago" - it's just going to make you cold. And after reading a pile of Lovecraft, you know they're going to stumble upon unnameable secrets, and be chased by something they can't quite see, and it won't catch them for some vague reason & they'll end up gibbering wrecks. That's pretty much what happens in this book. I loved the six-foot albino penguins, however.

Gentleman-caller and I threw our Halloween party this weekend. It was a success, I think. Some of my friends (including the lovely Ardenstone) drove a long distance to attend, which I deeply appreciate.

Today a former colleague called, with whom I haven't spoken for about two years. She's in town for a Bengals game, and we're having lunch tomorrow. Woot! I really, really have missed her.

Are you lost, sweetheart?

This is for my gentleman-caller, whom I love very deeply.

Have you read Watership Down?

A coworker asked me that last night as we discussed this story. It was hard to answer - yes, I've read it, not recently, but it's one of the oldest building blocks in my mind. The first time I read it was in second grade after watching the cartoon. One of our teachers actually read it to the class, and I read it on my own either beforehand or concurrently. I remember the blank look on a classmate's face as the teacher defined the lapin term "hraka" as "droppings"; I already knew what it meant, and remember watching the blank face break up into second-grade merriment once he realized what "droppings" were. I've reread it once or twice but associate it the most with second grade. It was my favorite book for a long time, until I got to fifth grade or so and tackled "Gone with the Wind." (I always enjoyed giving withering looks to adults who said "That's a mighty big book you've got.")

I think I liked the survivalist aspect of the plot, and the rabbit mythology laid out in the book. I loved the idea that just a rabbit hopping across the lawn is part of its own epic struggle. It seems odd to label the book "fantasy" but it really is, in an agreeably down-to-earth way. You certainly also learn a lot about real-life rabbits. I didn't know females were called does, or that pregnant ones could reabsorb their litters from stress. Adams puts you in your place a couple times when the rabbits' world intersects with the human - I guess that's his call to respectful stewardship. It would be interesting to reread it as an adult, but it almost seems unnecessary. All the names and details are pretty deep down in my brain - as a deteriorating nonagenarian I fully expect to rant about Fiver and General Woundwort.

I'd never heard of this island before yesterday, though, and was interested to learn it's notable for its sea birds. That explains the oddly (I always thought) prominent role of Keehar.

Finally, while the cartoon appears to have spawned many annoying DVD spinoffs, I was hugely gratified to hear the "Bright Eyes" reference in the Wallace and Gromit movie.

I keep hoping for you, Pumpkin

Yesterday I baked pumpkin cookies, largely because I wanted the smell in the apartment. The smell of baking pumpkin is supposed to enhance erections in men, so I figured it might not do me any harm either. I don't actually like sweets, so I took the cookies to work. Well. By the end of the night I had messages from every guy in the office about how good they smelled and tasted. I could not stop laughing. The erection thing strikes me as bullshit - honestly, do erections need a whole lot of help, generally? - but the idea was amusing.

Here's the recipe, you darling nonexistent reader:

1 c. sugar
1 c. pumpkin
1/2 c. cooking oil
1 egg, beaten
2 c. flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. milk
1 tsp. vanilla
1 c. chocolate chips
1/2 c. nuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine sugar, pumpkin, cooking oil and beaten egg. Sift flour, salt, cinnamon and baking powder; add to pumpkin mixture. Dissolve baking soda in milk and vanilla and add to mixture. Then add chocolate chips and nuts. Drop on lightly greased cookie sheet. Bake approximately 10-12 minutes. Do not over bake. Cookies will be soft and moist.

found on the risky but indispensible cooks.com.

Dispatches from the Tower

Today's book: Finally finished "Arbella: England's Lost Queen" by Sarah Gristwood. I ended up sympathizing more with the author than the subject, because Arbella's character and motives are pretty obscure. She was the niece of Mary, Queen of Scots, and stood a good chance of inheriting the throne from Elizabeth I. Instead, Mary's son James acceded, and Arbella was thrust to the side, eventually to marry without the king's consent and spend the rest of her life in the Tower as punishment. Gristwood obviously loves her and wants her to be a strong, self-motivated woman, but the author's historical discipline keeps having to rein in her imagination. Certainly Arbella wasn't given the opportunity to accomplish much. I would probably have enjoyed this book more if I'd been more knowledgeable about the Elizabethan era going in; I'd never even heard of Arbella. It's always satisfying to finish a big nonfiction book, though.

Next: "At the Mountains of Madness," which has finally been located at the library. Today it is quite dismal out, so I expect to spend the afternoon baking and reading.

Elizabeth, Beth, Betsy and Bess

This book was fabulous. I highly recommend it to any Shirley Jackson fan. Certainly it's a minor work, like The Sundial, and mostly interesting to me for the perspective it gives her better-known books. Both The Haunting and We Have Always Lived In The Castle are told from the perspective of variously tormented heroines. You only gradually realize how people are reacting to them and how genuinely terrifying they are, and by that point they've pulled you in & won your sympathy. The Bird's Nest switches between a third-person description of its main character, Elizabeth, and a first-person account from her psychiatrist. The story is pretty much "Sybil": Elizabeth battles her multiple personalities, and eventually resolves the conflicts she feels about her childhood. Like Eleanor and Merricat, she lives mostly in her own mind, rejecting the uncaring outside world. Jackson's detached narration means you don't worry or care for Elizabeth. But you can't escape a steadily growing dread, beginning in an early scene when Elizabeth raises her face to her psychiatrist and, instead of his patient, he sees what he calls a "grinning fiend." A subplot involves Elizabeth's aunt and something awful that may have happened long ago; it doesn't hold together, but it does stick with Jackson's favorite theme that horror begins at home. Not as good as The Sundial, but much better than Hangsaman.

Our poor Hepzibah

Today's book: "The House of the Seven Gables" by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

I had so been looking forward to this book. Hawthorne's story "Young Goodman Brown" is an October classic, and I also love "The Birth-Mark." I guess he's more palatable in short form. In theory, there's nothing wrong with this book: It's got ghosts, a haunted house, and a protagonist named Hepzibah. But I was driven mad by the infinite descriptive passages and the utterly immobile plot. Of course, the plot is all about immobility, so Hawthorne probably is a literary genius. The climactic chapter, in fact, traces the course of a day in which a dead man sits in a chair, listing all the things he's NOT doing, and all the things that are NOT happening in the house. I'm talking myself into admiring the book, but finishing it last night was a huge relief. I guess I'm just a sad product of my action-driven generation.

Next: Shirley Jackson's "The Bird's Nest," about a woman with multiple personalities! I think. Hard to find but obtained from the marvelous Mercantile Library.

Cthulhu fhtagn!

As the merry season of Halloween approaches, I cannot stop humming this catchy song. It is certainly Lovecraft's time of year. I am very pleased about this.

Gentleman-caller and I are planning a Halloween party. He has forbidden me to "go insane" and make cookies shaped like severed fingers. Fortunately, he is not the boss.

Harvest time approaches. I will be putting basil blended with olive oil in the freezer, and drying lots of mint & lemon balm. Sadly for the cats, the great harvester Death has already claimed their favorite catnip plant. I spoke somberly to them about how the time will come for us all, but they merely blinked and vigorously bathed themselves.

Today's book: At the Mountains of Madness, by Howard Phillips Lovecraft. Have not actually read it, but intend to.

Wasn't that a mighty storm

Holy living fuck.
We've lost the city. Looks like the Times-Picayune is still down. I feel very helpless as the first 72 hours run out. I have no money, canned goods or medical expertise to donate. All I can do is watch the news with my hand over my mouth. (I don't normally do this.)
Fuck.