Avast

So a few weeks ago my friend Tricia and I took a whale watching cruise out of Long Beach Harbor. She had seen on the LA Times website that multiple blue whales were being sighted in the area daily due to an unusually high concentration of krill, and indeed, we saw four. It was hard to make out more than is visible in the photo above, but no photo can convey how impressive it is to be within sight of something so huge. They would roll across the water, their bodies just going on and on and on, then dive, then resurface with a spout. Just as our boat was getting to them they'd take a long dive (they were either playing with us or annoyed by us), and the boat would drift over the massive imprint each had left on the water's surface.

We didn't go far out to sea at all; we were right off Palos Verdes the whole time. On the way back the boat was mobbed by a pod of common dolphins. Quite exhilarating.

The real surprise for me was how much fun it was just to be on the water, especially once we left the harbor and hit the open sea with some real waves. I like having my feet on the ground: I don't even like riding a bike, and I definitely do not like flying, and I'm not even all that crazy about driving; I like to walk. So I wasn't sure how the boat would be, but it was fantastic. Tricia said it felt like we were riding on Santa's sleigh, and she was absolutely right. Another boat ride, please.

I have not also died

OK, it's time to quit sitting shiva for Estelle Getty. But I have to go to bed so just a quick hello.

All's well here. Upcoming posts will include photos from whale watching and my trip to Denver. Work has decided to turn my schedule upside down for a couple of months. It's testing my fortitude. I'm working for a very cheerful gentleman and am snarling at him a lot.

I did however just restore the tissues with my annual viewing of "Last of the Mohicans." I now think the original theatrical release is better. It's not about the Clannad or lack thereof -- it's really the edited-out wisecracks that bug me on the U.S. DVD. When Duncan roars "I'll have you beaten from this fort!" it really doesn't make sense for Nathaniel to just stand there and gaze at him. Still, the sound/image quality are magnificent, and Chingachgook (pronounced "Chicago")'s bonus monologue leaves me completely verklempt every time. "Once we were here." I may watch it again tomorrow. I still can't fucking find Colm Meaney. I'm upping the reward to a beer and a shot of whisky.

On top of everything else...

Buy the T-shirt at the lovely Bust Boobtique

Estelle Getty goes and dies on us. She was 84 and had been ill for some time.

The kinds of nostalgic family associations that most people have for old TV shows -- I pretty much only have that for "The Golden Girls." I don't watch much TV but I will always watch that if it's on. And all the actresses have done such noble work elsewhere -- Betty White in "Lake Placid," Rue McClanahan in "Starship Troopers," and of course, Bea Arthur in the Star Wars Holiday Special. As for Ms. Getty, you will of course remember her as the owner of the crucial department store in "Mannequin."

I didn't want to wear your tacky green dress anyhow, stingy!

Will Benteen is a widower: Actress Evelyn Keyes, who did many interesting things but was best known for playing Scarlett O'Hara's bitchy sister Suellen in "Gone with the Wind," has died at 91. I think this leaves us with Cammie King and Olivia de Havilland as surviving cast members. Keyes was otherwise notable for having been married to Artie Shaw and John Huston; she acted and starred in many films -- including, apparently, a lot of noir B pictures -- but left Hollywood in 1955. She wrote a column for several years for the Los Angeles Times, which, I note with slightly clenched teeth, has yet to post her obituary.

RIP, dear.

Happy Fourth of July, Daddy!

That would be then-child star Mae Whitman's big closing line from Independence Day.

Art Boy and I didn't recognize her while re-watching the film tonight, but I saw her name in the closing credits and blurted "It's Mayonnegg! It's Egg!"

Art Boy said, "Her?"

I tell you, I find something new to love about that movie every July 4.

This had better not be about your cat, Ralph

Yeah, I know. But they are naperrific this morning. Check them out:

Anastasia guards the window in my room

Isis is watching for stray cats so she can growl at them through the screen door

The boy's job is to lie around looking pretty

She's back, and with a warning

We know how they feel

I return from my long silence to just make sure and warn off any of you who might have been thinking of seeing The Happening. Yeah, I know; the only two people who saw Lady in the Water should really know better. I thought it might at least be an interesting genre exercise, but unfortunately it's just too heavyhanded to be enjoyable. It's not even tense; the "shocking" moments fail to shock. If you go, bring a book. (Or, as Art Boy learned from the Guardian this morning, we could just be screaming racists.)

I can, however, vigorously recommend Scott Smith's The Ruins if anyone is looking for a summer thriller. Outstanding character-based horror. I didn't see the movie, but critics uniformly recommended the book (as did Stephen King), and by gum they were right.

Update: Had a lovely email from Jamie this evening to say she's been drinking the Blogger Kool-Aid. Check out her lovely new site, Spare Candy. Jamie's a fab writer so I'm very glad to have her out from behind the MySpace curtain. Not that there's anything wrong with MySpace... please, kids, don't all come and beat me up. I'm old and tired.

Orange

Thanks to the Democrats (who need to just quit arguing and kiss already), I had one day off this week, so I spent it at Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve. It's peak bloom season! Check it out!

Here's how it looks from far away:


Here is how it looks closer up:


And here is how it looks very close up:


Yes, kiss me, you foolish poppies!!!

Such a gorgeous and needed getaway. The colors were amazing. I should have a decent Flickr set up in the next day or two (Flickr's being bitchy right now).

Another reason to love Rex Morgan, M.D.

(Besides that he has the prescription for the daily blues): He pops up in the most delightfully unexpected places. Such as the bunch of lilac I got at the farmers market today. See?





Sure gives me pause as I inhale the lovely fragrance of my lilac. Could I have staph bacteria growing in my nose? Thanks, Rex!

Kitten?

I just emailed Art Boy and asked if we can get a kitten. (The actual threat level of this is low; some colleagues rescued a litter of kittens from an abandoned car in the garage at work, and they're cute enough I imagine they will all get homes.) This is mainly an experiment to see what he says. I'll let you guys know.

UPDATE, ART BOY RESPONSE, 5:15 p.m.:

"Oh, lordy."

(I think someone wants a kitten!!!)

UPDATE 2:

I admitted to Art Boy that there were probably plenty of potential homes for these particular kittens. He replied:

"if they get no takers then we should step in. If they have plenty of admirers we can pass and save that spot for a kitty that needs our help. Like the boy! (please God not like the boy!)"

He so so so wants a kitten.

At the zoo

Art Boy and I went to the LA Zoo on Tuesday. It was a hot afternoon and most of the animals were napping:



The sea lions, however, seemed comfortable:


By the time we got to the tigers, it was practically evening and they were feeling mildly frisky:

In the meerkat exhibit, only one deigned to come out of the nap pile in the shade; it just sat with its back to everyone. Meerkat divas.

I went through frowning at inappropriate signage. Couldn't they have tailored a "Do not feed" sign for the reptile area? Sigh. Copy editors belong in zoos.

Art Boy has more photos.

Variety is the staff of -- ouch! no hitting!

Well, tonight I decided it had been altogether too long since my last dance outing -- that was Feb. 14, which was an utterly delightful night to spend at Perversion at the Ruby -- so I layered my dancing shoes and dress under my work clothes and set out after hours to Hollywood. Traffic along Hollywood Blvd was just zany tonight. The weather's really warmed up in the last month, so lots of scenesters were out walking around and lining up outside clubs. Apparently the hot new thing to wear is a flimsy little dress that's sort of like a cross between a baby-doll dress and a bubble dress -- it essentially resembles a slip, but the hem is tucked under so it balloons out very slightly. It doesn't look like much of anything, but everyone was wearing one of those with platform shoes. Outside the El Capitan, there appeared to have been some kind of opening for the film "College Road Trip" -- lots of signs and lights were set up, and some platinum-blond fellow was having his picture taken by professionals with a young platinum-blonde lady on each arm. Perhaps they were the Hiltons. I don't know. I made it through all the kerfuffle and got a very nice parking spot directly across from the Ruby. But when I got to the door, the bouncer, who knows me, paused and said "You're here for Perversion, right? It's moved. It's at Boardners now." He very kindly gave me directions ("three blocks") and shortly thereafter I was off on foot, heading back toward the center of Hollywood and into all the traffic. Damn. I hate that it's moved, although it's been at the Ruby for at least a year now and that's a good long while as these things go. Still, I will miss the bartender who resembled Gaius Baltar, and who poured me the most sublimely ridiculous gin and tonics with, like, a teaspoon of tonic apiece. And I will miss Consuela the housekeeper, who always walked through collecting used cups with her stoically set face indicating that her mind was safely elsewhere. And the bouncers were friendly. Farewell, The Ruby.

Anyway, I walked to Boardners on foot, which took about ten minutes, which was ten minutes along a street I did not want to have to walk alone in a couple of hours; so after making sure of the club's location I walked back. It was pretty fun to walk along Hollywood Blvd. alone late at night, watching the skateboarders and the crowds and the dissipating El Capitan paparazzi (the Hiltons having left). I walked back along the north end and happened to glance down just as I was stepping across Ritchie Valens' star. Hee hee. It felt like a little benediction, a feeling that stuck with me as I retrieved the car and circled the block a couple of times until a street spot opened up around the corner. Unlike the Ruby, this place is very in the middle of things, which in Hollywood can be a little ridiculous. I was very lucky to find a spot. That's unlikely to happen every Thursday; Boardners is the longtime home of Bar Sinister, a Saturday goth night that I've been avoiding on the grounds that it looks way too crowded. It felt pretty damn crowded tonight, and I realize it was nowhere near full.

The club itself is lovely, though. It's a two-story complex, semi-outdoors: you walk in through this sort of alley and the first dance room is in a covered courtyard, with a fountain at the center. There was a bar at one end and a raised dance floor at the other, but the only dancers were writhing on the flagstones next to the fountain; the floor itself was empty. I realized with tremendous regret that this was my usual room at the Ruby, the 80s room. Inside is a longer, narrow space with a bar along one side, running parallel to a very narrow dance floor; this space was full of people dancing. I approached the bar and got a gin and tonic from a female bartender. I hate to perpetuate stereotypes, but the pour was terrible. Grumpily sipping my glass of tonic, I wandered up a flight of stairs and was mildly startled to find myself in an S&M play area. There was a bar up here too, specializing in absinthe drinks, with its own menu (most drinks are $20 apiece, a fact they're kind enough to note on the menu for you). I watched a ringmaster type in striped trousers flog a blonde lady against a wheel-type setup, and watched a couple of bosomy brunettes go at each other with paddles. The vibe in the upstairs room was hard to get a handle on. Some people were blase, some people were total frat boys ("Woo! Turn her around!"), and some people were very participatory and into it; one frat-boy type in camouflage shorts was smiling as a girl in platform shoes bound his wrists with pink tape. I watched for a bit, hoping to see someone cross some sort of line and be asked to leave, but it was difficult to determine where the line was.

Back downstairs, I returned to the 80s area and got a second drink from a male bartender, who poured me an outlandishly generous gin and tonic. I was so pathetically grateful I left him a ridiculous tip. The DJ played Kathy's Song, Destroy Everything You Touch, Wreath of Barbs and (randomly) Carolyn's Fingers, all in a lovely long set. I danced on the stage with a delightful young man who resembled Jesse Eisenberg, then took one more long, slow walk through the club before heading out to my car. Short visit, and I don't know that I'll be back. A nice place to go once, but not really large enough for me to feel really comfortable, and a lot of bubble-dressed tourists wandering in from other clubs. It might be time to find a new place to dance.

I make a very dry martini....

I make a very wet souffle
Don't be so mean, you mean old meanie....
(Come, my dear!)

In honor of National Grammar Day (albeit a few minutes into National Grammar Boxing Day), I am hoisting a nice dry Grammartini, as intelligently suggested by You Don't Say. After tonight's election tedium, it is hitting the spot. I miss drinking with my fellow ink-stained wretches, although martinis taste equally good in front of the computer, I am pleased to note.

Anyway, to grammar! And to our lovely messy always-evolving language -- in my case, the founder of the feast. And, just for the hell of it, to Miss Hannigan.

Desert trip

Art Boy and I took advantage of a rare overlapping day off to drive into the desert together. (More accurately, Art Boy drove, which proved to be an adventure in itself due to the high wind advisory in effect over much of our drive.) We headed to the town of Mojave, looked at the map, and decided to make for Red Rock Canyon State Park a few miles north. Oh my, it was lovely. Very dry and very windy, but dramatically beautiful.

We stopped at a visitors center and chatted with a friendly ranger, who said she drives to Ventura to surf and reminisced about the days of her youth, when it was safe to sleep on the beach. "Now you can't even afford to live anywhere near the water," she said. "It's sad, it really is. But I've got the desert." She directed us to nearby Nightmare Gulch, where "The Mummy" was filmed, and to a nearby spot where, she said happily, "Waterhole 3" was filmed. "You know, James Coburn," she said. We nodded; we knew James Coburn. We were unable to find the exact "Waterhole 3" site but walked around near there, and also near the entrance to Nightmare Gulch, before the howling, chilly wind drove us back to the car.

I was disappointed, upon our return, to find that the film is actually called "Waterhole #3" and is not the third in a sequence of "Waterhole" films. It does, however, apparently feature a joke in which rape is described as "assault with a friendly weapon." Yes, it was an educational day.

Anyway, you can see Art Boy's pictures here. He was gentlemanly enough not to include the photo he took of me in the high wind, in which I appear to have spent three weeks in the desert smoking peyote (or eating it or whatever one does with peyote... we'll learn that on the next trip I guess).

Jane, Jane, Jane

Art Boy is out of town, leaving me all alone (come and get me, brigands!), so last night I kicked back with an enormous [vice redacted] and watched "Northanger Abbey" on Masterpiece Theatre -- or "Masterpiece," as it is now apparently called. Once Gillian Anderson's unbearably awkward introduction was out of the way, I rather enjoyed it. It's short (2 hours) and so necessarily a bit broad in its insights, but that's appropriate for Jane Austen's most melodramatic book. And I found it charmingly modern -- lots of sexual overtones and gothic-fantasy sequences.

This morning I dropped by the applicable Republic of Pemberley discussion board to see what people thought and found largely positive responses, although there are some detours to discuss grammatical issues raised by the dialogue and share a link to the somewhat inevitable Very Secret Diary of Henry Tilney. I am torn between being annoyed at the ongoing trendiness of Jane Austen, and charmed at the ongoing geekiness of the Internet.

Sebastian has interrupted me with a series of hideous sounds before I am able to bring this post to any kind of conclusion. Sorry, gang.

Circle of life

To complete the circle of life, I took myself to see "Juno" this afternoon. Once more, expectations were low -- it's been compared to "Little Miss Sunshine," which Art Boy and I roundly loathed, and Slate is already doing articles about the Juno backlash. But the cast is just so fab, and Art Boy recently learned that Ellen Page was in the first season of "Trailer Park Boys," and Kelly loved it. So I took advantage of a cloudy day off and went, figuring now was the time in case that backlash thing gets any worse.

Well, it is quite nice. Pretty much all I can say about it is to compare it favorably to LMS: the characters are developed, not overly precious, and the story gives everyone the space to change and be complicated. It's always the characters in charge of the story, not the other way around, so it really works. I don't know that it is the Best Picture of the Year, but really, more people should be making movies like this. And I am in favor of anything that involves a dump truck full of money pulling up to Michael Cera's door. (Imagine him answering the doorbell and being all bashful. Aww!)

Yeah, there is Rainn Wilson at the beginning saying things like "homeskillet," and the hamburger phone gave me a moment of terror that this was going to be Napoleon Dynamite. (Although I remain fond of Napoleon Dynamite.) But it gets better. Kelly is correct that the worst moment is a character saying "Honest to blog?" but it's gotten out of the way quickly. I was reminded of Molly Ringwald getting on the bus in "Sixteen Candles" and going "I loathe the bus": it's just a new generation of largely invented teenspeak. I was going to focus this post on that, but discovered that screenwriter Diablo Cody's phrasings have already been examined and analyzed. It's nice to see the teen movie successfully moving forward. In your face, YouTube!

Dear "Diary of the Dead"....

[I should now apostrophize the movie, but cannot bring myself to.]

I can't believe it but I really didn't mind "Diary of the Dead" one bit. After reading a slew of poor-to-middling reviews, I was prepared to hate it. (Final Girl loathed it; there's a surprisingly charitable review on Slate.) It certainly isn't scary, and most of the characters are insufferable, and it hammers its point home to the point of ridiculousness -- but it's never quite boring. A group of film students are making a low-budget mummy movie in the woods, pausing for some "Scream"-esque commentary about horror movie tropes: "How come the girl being chased always falls down?" and "The monster needs to shamble, not run." They hear news broadcasts about the dead returning to life to attack the living, and decide to go check on their friends and families. Eventually, most of them are piled in a Winnebago, heading for the home of heroine Debra, who is apparently the only one interested in making sure her parents are all right.

Along the way they have many zombie-related adventures, all of which are filmed by Debra's boyfriend Jason (or possibly Josh -- I forget), because he's very insistent that everything needs to be captured for posterity: He says some Cloverfieldesque things like "People need to know what's going on." His stubbornness leads to some pretty goofy scenes: Jason won't stop filming to help his friends when they're attacked by zombies, he never expresses a whole lot of surprise at the sight of one, and at one point he risks great physical danger by refusing to move away from the wall plug where his camera is charging. Ostensibly because they're film students, the footage never looks very raw, and that combines with the ridiculousness of Jason's behavior to really, really strain the premise of this film. And it takes some doing to strain the premise of a zombie film. You never quite buy that all this is going on, which is very unfortunate.

Still... there are some good zombie set pieces. I would sit through the whole thing again just for the marvelous Amish sequence. And the zombies look fantastic: we're a long way from Romero's "Dawn of the Dead" with the blue Play-Doh makeup. (We're also a long way from the ridiculously elaborate special effects of "Land of the Dead," with the carefully exposed teeth and the spinal-column removal and all that. These are just good, plain zombies.) I'm on the fence about the zombie-clown sequence, and a fragment toward the end involving an elderly couple is just pointlessly vicious.

Romero breaks up what little action and narrative he has with social commentary, and it's exhausting. I like his point, though: Unlike in "Cloverfield," he refuses to let the cameraman off the hook; if there's a villain in his story, it's Jason (or Josh). He's saying, I think, that the privileged youth of today are so used to absorbing information secondhand that when confronted with something challenging, they can only cope with it secondhand. They're incapable of getting off their asses and dealing with it. The kids in this movie are more doomed than the families in "Night of the Living Dead" or the cops & news crew in "Dawn of the Dead," because at least those people were capable of boarding up windows or flying a helicopter. All these kids can do is film, look for a place with an Internet connection, and upload to YouTube. When the zombies come, please, give me FlyBoy and his helicopter any day.

Art Boy on Gojira

Art Boy and I watched Gojira the other week, largely thanks to Cloverfield. It's pretty good! Of course, we decided to turn it into an Event and watch it over gyoza and sake bombs, and because we've gotten old and gentle, the sake bombs pretty much had us sacked out on the couch before we'd even seen an hour of the movie. (Art Boy: "If this were Cloverfield, we'd have passed out during the party scene.") Anyway, the next night we watched the whole thing and it was pretty damn cool. I've been trying to formulate something intelligent to say about it but Art Boy beat me to it. So go read his thoughts. He's smart and funny.

Vote, lambkins

If you live in California or another Super Tuesday state, remember to stop by your polling place today. (In CA, you can call (800) 345-VOTE or go here to find out where.) Whether you fancy Obama or the lady, or one of the Republicans, this is a big day and every vote counts. Now scoot!

Doggies

The NYT has a nice story on the pit bulls rescued from Michael Vick's dogfighting kennels, the majority of whom ended up at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Utah. Art Boy sponsors a kitty there named Ruby and we have been getting their magazine for about a year. They seem to do really good work. It's just a giant sanctuary with space for lots of animals, many of whom are unadoptable -- Ruby has feline leukemia and can only live with other cats if they have it too. Their website has a section on the Michael Vick dogs, including video, here. It's not too sad, in case you're a softie like me and doesn't want to see animals being sad. They are in pretty good hands now. From the NYT story:

Here, they live in a 3,700-acre sanctuary that is covered by juniper trees and sagebrush, and surrounded by canyons and red-rock formations. They have food called Canine Caviar, squeaky toys, fluffy beds and four full-time caregivers. The caregiver on the night shift curls up with the dogs for naps.

...

Because the dogs are still adjusting to their surroundings, it is difficult to predict how many of them will become adoptable. They arrived Jan. 2 from Richmond, Va., on a chartered airplane, stressed after eight months in shelters. In initial evaluations last September, many lay flat and looked frightened. Now, many respond to caregivers by wagging their tails and giving sloppy kisses.

So see, this blog isn't all death and stuff. Fluffy animals saved! Hooray!