Today's universal post title: Crikey

I was at work last night when someone sent out a group message with the news alert "Steve Irwin killed." You should've heard the gasps that went up. Everyone was distressed. When someone read aloud "Stingray barb?" I just thought it was a joke. You step on stingrays, they make your foot swell up; they don't kill you. There are so many deadly marine animals in Australia - such as the stonefish, which DOES kill you almost at once if you step on it. Stingray barb to the chest is a rare and bizarre way to die. (A "freakish death," as Australia's prime minister put it today.)

The Sydney Morning Herald has a harrowing description of Irwin's last animal encounter, which of course was caught on video:

Without warning, the ray, usually regarded as a placid creature towards humans, stops, turns and lashes out, spearing Irwin in the chest with one of the knife-like barbs at the end of its tail - an action like a paring knife creating "a terrific tearing of flesh", said Bryan Fry, of the University of Melbourne's Australian venom research unit.

I mean, good heavens.

We were all sad at the office, and I was unreasonably down after getting home. He was someone everyone knew and probably imitated at some point, and it was because he did something really cool: hung out with animals everyone was afraid of, and showed you what was nifty about them. Tavern Wench has a sweet tribute up. Cheers, Steve. I'm so sorry for Terri & the kids. The image of Terri sorting through a huge closet of pocketed khaki shirts is almost too sad to contemplate.

(If you followed the SMH link above, here's a definition of "larrikin.")

Loss

I've been holding back from posting on this at Art Boy's request, but as he's now posted over at his previously word-free site, Stella here died last week. It was his loss more than mine; we've just moved in together, and I loved Stella, but she was indisputably his cat. I'm not sure I can overstate their bond. The news was a shock and my primary reaction has been overpowering rage. I would have killed anyone who got between him and that cat. Loving someone and seeing them suffer like this is hideous. At the vet's, when we went to see her afterward, I wanted to throw myself against the walls, pull them down, do SOMETHING. It wouldn't have helped, of course, and not having a direction for the anger makes it even worse. (Mostly turns it inward, actually.) It's the helpless fury of the failed protector that has motivated so many bad-action-movie heroes. Good thing I'm a Quaker.

We do think she's still around, though. The morning we got the news, someone jumped up on the bed and started to walk up between our legs. I assumed it was one of my cats, and we looked, and no one was there. We looked at each other. "Did you feel that too?" Art Boy said. The bedroom was really her territory - if my cat Anastasia came in, Stella would run her out. Anastasia still won't go near it. If I try to carry her in, she wriggles out of my arms and runs to the other end of the house.

I miss Stella. She was a good kitty and good to Mike, to say the very least. If you have cats, please keep an eye out for the symptoms of hepatic lipidosis. There are worse things than a trip to the vet.

Real is the new fake?

I sort of ignore YouTube, being a cranky old bitch, but apparently there's an interesting drama unfolding over whether a series of intriguing footage is real, a hoax or a brilliant ad campaign. Nick Spencer has a post on it and the New York Times runs down the possible scenarios.

Sci-fi cutie William Gibson saw it coming in his only novel set in the present.

On another note, my sister has informed me that you can't wear red to a wedding. What the hell?

A pox on the empire-waist dress

A pox on all dresses, actually. Let us return to the days when dressmakers would create individual frocks to suit a lady's form, occasion and taste. Actually, I don't know that I could ever have afforded such a thing, but it's nice to think about, particularly after a day of slogging through stores looking for a dress to wear to someone's wedding. It doesn't sound hard and I'm not picky. I just want something that isn't black and doesn't make me look like I'm trying to appear ten years old. After reading Salon's review of Alan Moore's latest, "The Lost Girls," I am particularly concerned about the latter.

First celebrity sighting!

Saturday I saw Rainn Wilson in a woodworking shop. I thought it was just someone who looked like him, the way you would if you saw him in Ohio, but then the woman I was talking to said "Did you notice that's Rainn Wilson in there? God, I love The Office." Stupidly, I said "What's he doing here?" as if he's not allowed to stand around a woodworking shop if he wants to. (We'll not yet get into what I was doing there.) "He's friends with that guy," the woman said.

So take that, Art Boy! Think you're all that for seeing Ming-Na?

Back from the dead

Today's plant: My beautiful, beautiful Nepenthes have risen from the dead! One is a very large N. coccinea, obtained at Delhi Flower & Garden Center one giddy Christmas. It spent two years hanging unhappily in my Cincinnati bay window, where it got a fair amount of sunlight and enough humidity to keep it alive. One year it formed pitchers, but they shriveled immediately upon reaching mature size. The rest of the time it looked like a very unattractive hanging plant. Anyone else would have had the sense to throw it out, but it clung to life with such tenacity. I couldn't murder it. So I stuffed it in the back seat of the car with all the cats & other plants, and drove it out here, and by God it loves the new patio. I should've been putting it outside in the summers. It's crowded with new growth, and each new stem is forming a pitcher. Several are a couple inches long already. Carnivorous madness! Soon perhaps it will resemble this photo? Although its pitchers are beautifully spotted rather than solid red.

The other Nepenthes is almost more impressive. I got it at Home Depot or one of those places that had just gotten in a cheesily labeled Tray of Insect-Eating Terrors! This would be, god, about four years ago. I picked up one of each kind of plant that they had, and remember well the weary expression on my now-ex-boyfriend's face as I happily explained to him what they all were. The Darlingtonia died, the tiny Sarracenia died, even the Dionaea succumbed to scale after a couple of years and died. But somehow, the very tiny Nepenthes hung on. It's still in a tiny three-inch pot and has never done much besides look frail (at its best, it looked like this). Since being here, I think it has doubled in size. It's got about a dozen half-inch, bronze-colored pitchers. It is gorgeous.

Art Boy can only listen to me talk about the plants for so long, so you people get to hear the rest.

Today's book: "Arthur & George" by Julian Barnes, author of "Flaubert's Parrot." We continue in the English-literary-historical-fiction vein with this well-reviewed novel about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the innocent man he helped after a false conviction. I picked it up at a heavy discount, attracted by the cover (a fetching watercolor of London with beautiful typefaces), and have been putting off reading it on account of it sounded boring. Well, it is just great. I cannot recommend it highly enough. It's both a detective story and a pair of in-depth portraits of two men at the start of the 20th century. What are their morals like? How do they feel about religion and science? How well does a Scotsman of Indian descent fit into society? Oh dear, it does sound boring, but it really is quite good.

He's a rocket cat!

Well, I have not found my diamond, but much to the delight of Art Boy I have obtained us a new cat! He belongs to a friend of ours who is no longer able to care for his special needs, which mainly involve severe pooping, as we understand it. Isn't he cute?

I feel rather as thought I have swapped the family cow for a handful of beans. But didn't that turn out well in the end? So too shall this, I am confident.

She Is A Diamond

Well, bugger all. I have lost my grandmother's engagement diamond. When I graduated from high school an alarming 11 years ago, she came to the ceremony with my parents and handed me a gift bag afterward, asking me to open it later when we were all at lunch. I ran around embracing people, carelessly swinging the bag from my wrist. Mom stayed a pace behind me, grimly guarding the bag, and finally took it back from me - "You're making me too nervous," she said. When I finally opened it I saw why: They'd gotten Gran's engagement diamond reset into a new ring, flanked by sapphires (my birthstone), with a classically pretty sort of curlicue design in gold. It sounded like Mom and Gran had had a ball shopping together for settings, and Gran seemed pleased to be handing it on. "Never take it off," she said, "or you'll lose it. I always lose jewelry by just setting it down somewhere."

I remember looking at it with sort of a sinking heart; my favorite items of jewelry were woven beaded necklaces and a plastic-encased butterfly wing pendant from a nature store. This diamond solitaire was not really my thing. But I wore it every day from then on. I took it off for two trips to Europe (for the first trip it went in a safety-deposit box; the second trip I was a bachelorette living alone, and I put it in the crisper drawer of the fridge before leaving) and to swim in the ocean, and that was it. Gradually I started to feel I was growing into it. Mom's graduation gift was an antique guardian-angel pendant, and after a few semesters of college - where everyone wore beaded necklaces - my only jewelry was the pendant, the ring and silver hoops in my ears. (We will not speak of the navel-ring interlude.) It was my way of wearing three generations, the four hoops in my ears being completely my own. When Gran died two years ago, I looked at her ring a lot. I had almost stopped noticing it, and after her death it took on extra importance. She left us a little money, and Mom gave me a couple of her old calling cards she found cleaning out the house, but the main thing I had from her was the diamond. After giving it to me, she'd told me, laughing, that my grandfather actually waited to give it to her until after they were married. He'd been afraid she'd take the diamond and run off, she said. So the Valentine's Day after their wedding, he gave her a box of chocolates and a diamond ring, which she figured was costume jewelry and tossed into the trash. "He was so mad! He said 'Get that back out!'" she said. It did still look like an engagement ring, even with the new setting; I sometimes switched hands if I was going out alone and wanted to avoid being bothered. And I wondered, in the back of my mind, if I'd want any future fiances to get me a matching one. Having a diamond engagement ring has never seemed important, but then there'd always be this other one on my other hand, silently telling the diamondless ring "I'm fancier than you."

Anyway, tonight at work I glanced down at my hand and the diamond was gone. It would've looked interesting on Candid Camera. I had a moment of pretending it wasn't gone - the denial phase - and then started carefully patting my shirt and looking in my lap and on my desk, and a few moments later I was down on the floor. This attracted attention, and then several of us were on the floor. My boss was very nice about it and let me go wandering off to retrace my steps from earlier in the evening. You don't realize how many shiny, small things are on the ground until you're looking for a specific one. Nail heads, bits of mica and broken plastic, even isolated old bits of confetti. Nobody found it. The last time I remember looking at it and noticing it was before taking a long walk up the beach this afternoon. So it could be at work; it could be in my car; it could be in the apartment here; it could be on the beach. It's not big. I think it's gone.

The most annoying thing would be if it were in the ocean somewhere, or down in a pipe (the sink here, or the tub, or the sink at work), where nobody will ever find it. Because how cool would it be to just find a diamond on the street? I wouldn't mind if that happened to somebody. I loathe the idea of it just getting covered with crud and disappearing forever.

But then I think of all the people in this city. All the things they lose... today on the beach someone had dropped a T-shirt in the surf, and it kept washing up around people's ankles. Every stray corner near that beach is crammed with someone's stuff: there are lots of homeless, and lots of their stashes. The city's full of the trash people drop - T-shirts, bottles, wrappers, cans, broken glass. Why not diamonds? How many others are out there, glinting faintly in the grime? Not all detritus has to be ugly.

This notion cannot be great comfort to the spirit of my grandmother, nor to that of my notoriously cheap grandfather, who died the year I was born. I fully expect them both to rise and kick my ass for this. Oh well. At least I got to grow up with her.

One martini is all right; two are too many, and three are not enough

Last night a slight cold led me to postpone Drunken Blogging Night. Tonight I have just finished the house's first bottle of gin (Art Boy had none of it, I'm afraid) and am watching classic Muppet Show episodes. This is an excellent way to unwind after a somewhat long and stressful day. (The day was not stressful by any objective standards, but by God it made me tired so it counts as stressful. Also, the absolute best thing about working a night shift is getting sloshed alone afterward.) I have just finished the Carol Burnett and Gilda Radner episodes, and am going to round out my second martini with the Steve Martin episode. I believe this one features the vegetable choir singing "Yes, We Have No Bananas" so I am really looking forward to it. I am even more boring without martinis!

I am indebted to James Thurber for the title of this post.

Hm. What was that?

I'm not sure what has been going on that made the blog into a giant page of coding, but it seems to have fixed itself now. It probably involved yesterday's DSL Adventures of Fun that involved us trying to hook up my computer without really knowing what we were doing ... I understood the computer but not DSL, and Art Boy understood DSL but the computer was too different from his evil Mac, and it just ended with us giving up and watching "The 40 Year-Old Virgin" (Netflix correctly hyphenated it on the wrapper! They must read Copy Grrl). Somehow it righted itself while we were doing that. Perhaps it enjoyed the movie too.

So anyway, Art Boy is now flying to Detroit and I am alone in the California sunshine. I just went to the grocery and went slightly insane: Dead Guy Ale, asparagus, mushrooms, scotch... everything he doesn't like. Tonight I'm making steak with mushroom sauce and asparagus and getting absolutely sloshed. Check back for drunken blogging!

Also, we spent all morning watching this. With my old dial-up connection I could never watch video anything, so I really felt like a kid in a candy store.

We're back!

Kind of. It took longer than expected and there are still complications, but we have got DSL or DHL or whatever the hell it is all set up on Art Boy's evil Mac. At some point my tired old PC will get connected and then we can seriously update our blogs. And that will thrill everyone.

Not much going on here. We hiked around in Topanga Canyon State Park today and got all hot. It was fun. Before that we watched Flashdance while eating lunch. I loove having cable.

Today's book: "The Lambs of London" by Peter Ackroyd. Peter likes to write biographies of historical British figures, such as Shakespeare, Chaucer and architect Nicholas Hawksmoor. (I want to read the latter in October, when I'm planning another Jack the Ripper binge - btw, anyone read "White Chapel, Scarlet Tracings"?) This one's about Charles and Mary Lamb, the brother and sister superteam who wrote Tales of Shakespeare for Children. They're sort of lonely and scholarly and are about to get sucked into a famous literary hoax involving a fake Shakespeare manuscript. It's an agreeable, spare little book. Also, everyone in it behaves sensibly and reasonably, which is in very pleasant contrast to Peter Straub's "Ghost Story." I was very disappointed in that one... it sort of lurched into Stephen King territory, where a small town goes mad and many die, but nobody had very good reasons for what they did. (King is so good at getting you inside the people's heads as they start to get all crazy and murderous. Straub is more interested in describing the snow.) At the end you're supposed to be all worked up about someone slicing up a wasp. ...whatever.

Art Boy is leaving tomorrow for a trip back East. I plan to drink a lot while he's gone.

Life with Art Boy

Me: You know how the bathtub keeps clogging up? I remembered that the other day I dropped the conditioner in the shower and the lid broke and it probably went down the drain. We should probably get it out with a coat hanger. I'd do it but I have to go to work now. And I just got out of the shower where I was shaving my legs so the tub is full of gross standing water. I'm really sorry. I'm the girlfriend from hell right now.

Art Boy: Right now?

Settling in

I'm adding a couple of items to the blogroll: Defamer, because I feel obliged to feature L.A. news now; and L.A. Observed, which is very much like The Cincinnati Blog in concept, if more polished in execution. It also features more behind-the-scenes news about the media; it's where I learned, for example, that the Times managing editor gave his metro staff pony rides this week.

Today's book: "Ghost Story" by Peter Straub. Years ago, after a particularly bad week involving "'Salem's Lot," I swore off horror novels until I had a roommate. Now that Art Boy lives in my house (hi Mom!), I am diving in with this classic. It's pretty blah so far - four old men are being haunted by something nasty they did as kids. It sounds like they probably ran over a girl with their car and then buried her out in a field without making sure she was really dead. I'm just guessing. I'm about 150 pages in and realizing it's going to keep up this slow, moody pace. That's OK. There are a lot of descriptions of snow, which is satisfying to read about in Santa Monica, and the mood is effectively creepy. Art Boy is going out of town next week and I expect to terrify myself.

Today's plant: My beautiful, beautiful Sarracenia flava, which I got at the Delhi Garden Center in Tri-County (the only one now! Crazy) and which succumbed to something or other during the move from Pasadena. I brought it all the way from Ohio. It was fine in the car, but something about Pasadena disagreed with it - too much heat, too little sun or both. All of my favorite carnivorous plants are now dead. God, that's depressing. Guess I shouldn't have run over that girl and tried to bury her when I was 18.

Save Ginny Weasley!

Art Boy and I went to the central library of Los Angeles yesterday - there really is a downtown, and that downtown has a library, and I like it quite a bit - for a concert by Harry and the Potters. God, we like them! Unfortunately, the concert was in the library's rotunda, which was quite grand to look at but the acoustics were miserable. Most of the songs just sounded like a bunch of noise, and you couldn't understand anything the boys were saying, which drove us absolutely wild. Still, we enjoyed the spirit of the thing. Their enthusiasm was so unabashed, it was inspiring, and it was fun to hang out with such an interesting cross-section of fans: families, hipsters, kids, a couple of folks who looked like they might have been homeless and just wandered in. We particularly loved the opening act Draco and the Malfoys, who are in fact two other band members and not the Harrys wearing blond wigs as we had speculated. Their songs included "My Dad Is Rich, And Your Dad Is Dead," "Hippogriffs Deserve to Die," "I Have a Broomstick That's Better Than Yours" and the crowd-pleasing "Tom Felton's Kind of Hot." We wore our homemade shirts and I bought a beautiful new one that says "Save Ginny." I wore it to work today, but so far nobody's asked me about it. Hmph. Anyway, we talked about how much K-Hud would have liked it (except for the acoustics) and we've been singing "Save Ginny Weasley from the Basilisk" at home ever since. Art Boy wants to get their new album so we can hear "Save Ginny Weasley From Dean Thomas," which they did not play.

Offline

We spent our first night in the house last night and were not devoured by goblins, so we're going back for good tomorrow. It'll be a week or so of radio silence from here except for whatever time online I can snatch at work. This also goes for Art Boy who had only just started his blog back up again (albeit in a new Snarky Celebrity format). I'm sort of cranky about the whole thing because we had just gotten to know this bit of Pasadena; the library, post office and grocery are all within a few blocks, along with a decent yoga studio and some bars/ restaurants. Santa Monica seems a little more sprawly. We'll figure it out but it feels a mite exhausting to start from scratch *again* ... oh well, this is an adventure.

Be well, safe and happy, gangstas.

Moving, again

We're moving very, very slowly out of our extended-stay rooms in Pasadena, because we won't have an Internet connection in Santa Monica for a week and a half. Apparently the house has been empty so long that all the phone lines & whatnot need to be all set up again.. it's not like someone else just moved out and the company can just hit a switch. At least, this is what Art Boy has figured out. Blast! He will be rather bad off without the Internet, but I suppose we'll both appreciate it all the more once it's back up. And it's not as though we won't have plenty to do. Anyway, we're off to IKEA in a moment and then taking most of our stuff to the new house for tonight. The kitties are spending tonight in Pasadena by themselves. I think they'll be fine. *pauses to listen to hissing.*

OK, I am caught up

Apparently my beloved A Common Reader, referenced in yesterday's perhaps overlong post, has gone bankrupt. A while ago. Like, in January. Sorry, readers! I will remove it from the blogroll posthaste.

In its last months, the company angered me with some really crappy service (something about mail-order packages being sent in the most complicated and annoying way possible, without notification, which was bad because they were gifts being ordered at the last minute) and a hideous redesign of its previously beautiful catalogue. Nonetheless, I mourn its passing. It introduced me to Alice Thomas Ellis and Barbara Holland, as well as to many children's books such as Maurice Sendak's "In the Night Kitchen," which my 3-year-old nephew memorized after I gave it to him. Also to my family's favorite trashy romance novel, "Emerald," which I gave to my grandmother just as she entered a nursing home. A Church of Christ volunteer visited her shortly after her arrival to Provide Succor, and Granny, hoping to shut the volunteer up, asked her to read "Emerald" aloud. A few paragraphs in, the volunteer closed the book and excused herself for the day. Granny was pleased.

RIP, ACR.

From Lookout Joe to Trader Joe's

I brought two pounds of Lookout Joe out here with me, and they're almost gone... there are about 3 tablespoons left. It is the end of my five-year era of drinking no other type of coffee. Goodbye, Mount Lookout. Out here is the land of Trader Joe's. I had been to the one in Kenwood a couple times and found it irritating; first, you have to go to Kenwood, find the right shopping-center driveway and park by David's Bridal. Then you walk in with your grocery list and find that half the stuff you want is either not currently in stock or has never been in stock. "But try these fantastic chocolate-covered frozen strawberries!" a brightly colored sign will say. I am not that kind of grocery shopper. If the store is trying to push strawberries on me, by God I want to know what's the matter with those strawberries that they want to get rid of them so fast. What kind of sucker do they think I am? I am here to buy vinegar, dammit.

So when I got out here and was told to visit Trader Joe's, I did so with some trepidation. The one near our hotel in Pasadena - which, according to a (brightly colored) sign, was the Very First Trader Joe's Ever! - is exactly like the one in Kenwood. I suspect the "handmade" signs are the same. (This was confirmed when I spotted three identical ones with different cheese names written in, prompting me to go "AHA!" and alarm the other customers.) One day I went with a shopping list of not-quite-basic things- rice vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil - so I could make my favorite peanut sauce. Well, forget it. Trader Joe does not want you making your own peanut sauce. He wants you to buy his Special Recipe in a reasonably priced jar with an amusing label! However, the goddamn place is winning me over. I have to shop somewhere, and I can't go to Bigg's anymore. The orange juice is reasonably priced and quite good. So is the milk. And the yogurt, and the bread. And, of course, the wine. I picked up some Trader Joe's Bock intending to laugh at it and actually ended up liking it. And I've gotten a couple packages of Prepackaged Fun Exotic Foods and found them fine - not as good as I can make, but adequate for a temporary kitchen. When Art Boy left here a few weeks ago, I was complaining about the store and snarling about its jaunty little signs that reminded me of college. When he got back, he found a weird object in the dryer and said "What's this?" I told him it was a Trader Joe's Lavender Laundry Sachet, of course. He looked at me for a minute and then walked off, shaking his head and going "I leave for ten days."

Anyway, I'm sure they have some simply adorably packaged coffee, perhaps sold by "Trader Juan" or some shit. It will probably be fair-trade, organic, reasonably cheap and quite good. Goddammit.

Today's book: "Unexplained Laughter," by Alice Thomas Ellis. Two London women spend a few weeks in a Welsh cottage and are creeped out by the locals, particularly someone's mad sister who's kept in her room when she's not roaming freely around the countryside spying on everyone. Mainly the women talk between themselves about love and death, and the sister interjects italicized commentary remarking that she herself is pretty much dead. Nobody actually dies, unlike in some of Ellis' other short novels. There's not much plot to speak of, but it's worth reading for the acerbic conversations and eerie setting. It reminded me of her excellent "Fairy Tale," except without the storyline; it felt like deleted scenes from that book. I highly recommend Ellis' "Home Life" column over at commonreader.com; I'd link to it if I weren't on the coding-unfriendly Mac.

A house! My kingdom for a house!

Actually, we have a house. Or we have an agreement to rent a house for a while. Wahoo! It is on the southern side of Santa Monica - not quite walking distance to the pier or Third Street Promenade, which is actually fine with us as congestion tends to surround those places. It is, however, ten blocks from the beach and a few blocks from Santa Monica College, which supposedly has a very nice community pool. It's in a very quiet and boring neighborhood full of single-family homes. There are three apartments crammed in a sort of giant shack out back, but other than that it's a plain old house and we have it all to ourselves. The kitchen is tiny, but it has a gas stove and is bigger than my last kitchen (thank God). It comes with a fridge, which can be rare out here. The bathroom has a tub. There's closet space, hardwood floors, a fireplace and a crazy little mirror/drawer thing built into the wall.

We looked at it last week at an open house and almost immediately were looking at each other wide-eyed. "I know," Art Boy said. "Shh, there are other people here." We took an application and went to fill it out in the car, so the other viewers wouldn't think "oh shit, this place is happening, we need to fill out applications too." After everyone else had left, the landlord came out to ask what on earth we were doing, so we explained our strategy to him. Art Boy likes to think that's why he called US yesterday to offer us the place.

By the way, I am now openly referring to him as Art Boy since, as my roommate, he is no longer able to pay me calls. (My parents' opinion of this situation is yet to be determined.) He was a nice gentleman-caller, but he's an even nicer Art Boy.

By the way 2: Kelly, we both thought Superman was great. I couldn't believe how many tightropes it walked without falling: the Christ imagery; the, yes, stupidity of Lois; the voyeurism of Superman; the nastiness of the "Weren't there two of those?!" scene with the dogs, which made me laugh out loud even though it's the kind of thing I normally hate. (It's Parker Posey's delivery that does it.) Thinking it all over puts me in mind of Snake in his wallet-inspector scene: "Oho, I can't believe that worked!" But it so did. The sweetness and poignancy of the Superman legend holds the whole thing together - he'll always be lonely, and even his mom can never really be his mom (didn't it kill you that she had to wait outside at the hospital?). I love the passing-the-torch storyline that develops - the final scene in the bedroom just gave me goosebumps. Very Tattooine-esque. And the scene where he takes Lois up ("But not like this") was the sexiest completely chaste love scene ever. But poor James Marsden, always being the comic-book cuckold.

Anyway, Art Boy and I will hand out our address when we find out the zip code. Rock!

Update: Apparently we are contributing to an area-code shortage! How strange. As if figuring out the freeways here wasn't hard enough.

The triumphant return of Art Boy

As I write, Art Boy is on an aeroplane traveling from his Minnesota stop to Los Angeles. Unfortunately, his plane will land about an hour after I arrive at work, so he will have to heft his mighty travel bags aboard a bus and then a Metro train to reach our temporary home. He'll be waiting for me tonight when I get home from work. He's quit a job that he really likes, left his entire family, and come out here jobless and virtually penniless to be with me. I often pretend to be unutterably moved, but this time I really am. I cannot wait to see him again. We don't have a permanent place to live or a job for him or anything, and I have night hours now with Tuesdays and Wednesdays off, and we do not know anyone here. (Well, we know one person, and I kind of know another person, but that's it.) It's a cliche, but once we're together, I am confident we'll figure everything out. And he'll be here tonight. My heart is like a singing bird...

My Gleanings

Several mini-posts in one! It's like a bag of Halloween candy, or a rambling Victorian diary!

- I finished That Damn Book. Several plot threads came together satisfactorily at the ending, but the big twist had been obvious since about page four. It could be a good beach book if you're fond of florid prose and downright rococo subplots, or if you're very drunk. I think it is mainly a good guideline of What Not To Do for the discerning writer and translator. Tragedies are just not compelling if their principals could have stopped them by behaving reasonably.

I have been happily exorcizing this one with passages from the wonderfully astringent "Cold Comfort Farm," such as: "Flora sighed. It was curious that people who lived what the novelists call a rich emotional life always seemed to be a bit slow on the uptake." This would be a perfect epigram for "The Shadow of the Wind."

- The other night I took myself out to see "X-Men 3," the highlight of which was a preview of "Snakes on a Plane," which absolutely brought the house down. Look out! Snakes! "X-Men" was sort of a letdown after that, except for Ian McKellen's queeny purring of "I could smell your adamantine skeleton a mile away." Watch out, Boy from Oz!

The fair Kelly has already outlined the film's major pluses and minuses. We probably did need the thing with the Golden Gate Bridge, although the sequel needs to explain how it stayed in one big piece without any pilings. I have to say I was a little disappointed in Phoenix. Someone who has the power to destroy entire solar systems should get better action scenes, and not just stand around in a tacky red dress from Hot Topic. I also can't get behind the Wolverine-Jean thing. She's just never been that into him, and it's rather pathetic the way he's always nosing around her door. Making Jean into Wolverine's tragedy is hollow; she's Scott's tragedy, not to mention her own. Relationship-wise I'm much more interested in Wolverine-Rogue, but that gets pretty much no screen time here. And the Magneto-Mystique breakup, while wonderfully cold, needed some follow-through. I don't want my last shot of Raven to be an indirect one on a screen. I was expecting her to join Erich at the park in the final shot, although the way it ended up was pretty cool. And wasn't Angel supposed to be in this movie?

So my requests for number four, which I am sure we will get one day: Wolverine and Rogue are finally nicely set up to get together, so let's head that way. Better outfits, please - no more nancing around in dresses from Hot Topic. And quit giving Storm so many lines, as she has no conflicts and is not interesting. Ditto Kitty. Thank you!

- Current books: "Monster Festival: Classic Tales of the Macabre," illustrated by Edward Gorey (v. similar to "The Haunted Looking-Glass") and "The Wild Night Company: Irish Tales of Fantasy and Horror." Both most highly recommended. The latter opens with a short tale by none other than Giraldus Cambrensis, which will be a huge thrill to any of you who have read Dave Barry's Only Travel Guide You'll Ever Need ("Households Per Tricha Set: 100").

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.