Jennifer tells me that, once, while in bed with Tim, he sat bolt upright, clutching his face in both his hands.
He cried out: "My face is too SMALL! I feel like I have a DOLL'S FACE!"
I asked Tim what happened. He said the feeling just went away eventually.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Through the Gates of Ivory
In my dream, I was the camera, floating just in front of Ziggy-Era David Bowie while he sang (and played guitar) during some concert that never happened. His teeth were still the ragged lizard teeth of the early seventies, his hair the blond mop. He wore an electric blue one piece that clung to him without being painted on. The neckline plunged nearly to his navel.
And he is singing this SONG; a song that does not exist, but really ought to. It was a big glam ballad like those found on his earlier albums, full of melodic changes and that trick of his where his voice can suddenly swoop down into the baritone after yelping up in that higher register for half the song.
It was like 'The Bewlay Brothers', but crossed with 'Five Years' and even 'Moonage Daydream.'
I lamented not long ago that I never dreamt anything useful, that I never dreamt a plot for a novel or a pop song. This was my moment. Imagine if I could have carried that song through the Gates of Horn and it had turned out to be actually as great as it seemed in my dream.
Instead, during the bridge of the song, I was awoken with a shock as my phone rang; a telemarketer.
I didn't answer it even, but, by the time the ringing stopped I was too far in the world to get back to sleep and, worse yet, the song was gone. I lay in bed a long while this morning, trying desperately to summon the melody or the words of the song I'd seen and heard David Bowie sing to me in my dream, to no avail.
This is an inauspicious beginning to the day.
And he is singing this SONG; a song that does not exist, but really ought to. It was a big glam ballad like those found on his earlier albums, full of melodic changes and that trick of his where his voice can suddenly swoop down into the baritone after yelping up in that higher register for half the song.
It was like 'The Bewlay Brothers', but crossed with 'Five Years' and even 'Moonage Daydream.'
I lamented not long ago that I never dreamt anything useful, that I never dreamt a plot for a novel or a pop song. This was my moment. Imagine if I could have carried that song through the Gates of Horn and it had turned out to be actually as great as it seemed in my dream.
Instead, during the bridge of the song, I was awoken with a shock as my phone rang; a telemarketer.
I didn't answer it even, but, by the time the ringing stopped I was too far in the world to get back to sleep and, worse yet, the song was gone. I lay in bed a long while this morning, trying desperately to summon the melody or the words of the song I'd seen and heard David Bowie sing to me in my dream, to no avail.
This is an inauspicious beginning to the day.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Friday, February 18, 2011
Thursday, February 17, 2011
A Fistful of Agency Law
This came up in class today as we were discussing the duty of loyalty that agents owe to their principals. The breaching of that duty was never cooler.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Monday, February 14, 2011
I Am a Double Agent for Love
Went to my pal Doug's birthday party the other night. He has (and many of his friends have) kids and the kids were invited.
Because of how I am, I spent most of my evening with the vodkas and tonics and the kids.
At one point, I was invited upstairs to see the Lego "drop ships" Doug's son had constructed. We were quickly followed by the three other boys at the party, who had factionalized against the girls and were determined to find weapons and armor.
"What team are you on?" I was asked.
"I'm on the girls team," said I "I'm not a moron."
"What team are you on?" and a Nerf brand machine gun was pointed at my face.
"Boys team. Boys team," said I.
I asked what the plan was. The tallest of them said it was to write a Valentine to Doug's daughter. I told him it seemed like a good plan. He had construction paper and a pencil. I looked over his shoulder while he composed his message. The other boys were busy strapping whatever plastic items they could find to their chests and arms.
Here, with his name changed to protect his dignity, is the entirety of what the tall boy wrote in his Valentine:
Kevin Like Pie
Kevin Like Pie
Kevin Like Pie
Kevin Like Pie
Kevin Like Pie
Kevin Like Pie
I mentioned to him about a job I thought he would be well suited for as the winter custodian of the Overlook Hotel, but he was too engrossed by the elaborate folding and packaging his Valentine then required.
Later, after refilling my vodka tonic and rejoining the girl's team (as I said - not a moron), I asked Doug's daughter how the Valentine had played. She pitched her head forward, slumped her shoulders, dropped the tip of the sword she was carrying to the ground, rolled her eyes as hard as she possible could and said in her most exasperated tone:
"I just threw it away."
I told her that it was probably for the best, as he seemed rather disturbed. I suggested the possibility to her that "Pie" was a cipher for her and that he was wooing her with metaphor. She cocked her head at me and gave me an expression of impatience and disbelief.
"He's an idiot," she said.
"You realize that this is like a microcosm of the next fifteen years of his life, right?"
"I don't care. All he wrote was 'I Like Pie'. Ugh."
"Yeah, you're right I suppose," I conceded, "but go easy on him, okay?"
She just rolled her eyes again and went back to the living room to collect the Nerf gun that someone had carelessly left unattended on the sofa.
Because of how I am, I spent most of my evening with the vodkas and tonics and the kids.
At one point, I was invited upstairs to see the Lego "drop ships" Doug's son had constructed. We were quickly followed by the three other boys at the party, who had factionalized against the girls and were determined to find weapons and armor.
"What team are you on?" I was asked.
"I'm on the girls team," said I "I'm not a moron."
"What team are you on?" and a Nerf brand machine gun was pointed at my face.
"Boys team. Boys team," said I.
I asked what the plan was. The tallest of them said it was to write a Valentine to Doug's daughter. I told him it seemed like a good plan. He had construction paper and a pencil. I looked over his shoulder while he composed his message. The other boys were busy strapping whatever plastic items they could find to their chests and arms.
Here, with his name changed to protect his dignity, is the entirety of what the tall boy wrote in his Valentine:
Kevin Like Pie
Kevin Like Pie
Kevin Like Pie
Kevin Like Pie
Kevin Like Pie
Kevin Like Pie
I mentioned to him about a job I thought he would be well suited for as the winter custodian of the Overlook Hotel, but he was too engrossed by the elaborate folding and packaging his Valentine then required.
Later, after refilling my vodka tonic and rejoining the girl's team (as I said - not a moron), I asked Doug's daughter how the Valentine had played. She pitched her head forward, slumped her shoulders, dropped the tip of the sword she was carrying to the ground, rolled her eyes as hard as she possible could and said in her most exasperated tone:
"I just threw it away."
I told her that it was probably for the best, as he seemed rather disturbed. I suggested the possibility to her that "Pie" was a cipher for her and that he was wooing her with metaphor. She cocked her head at me and gave me an expression of impatience and disbelief.
"He's an idiot," she said.
"You realize that this is like a microcosm of the next fifteen years of his life, right?"
"I don't care. All he wrote was 'I Like Pie'. Ugh."
"Yeah, you're right I suppose," I conceded, "but go easy on him, okay?"
She just rolled her eyes again and went back to the living room to collect the Nerf gun that someone had carelessly left unattended on the sofa.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
The Rear Window (of Section 17, Row 21)
At the Jazz game the other night, the guy sitting next to Tim (middle aged, ugly like a bridge troll) has binoculars around his neck.
But he never used them except when the cheerleaders came out to do a routine.
The guy's wife didn't seem to care at all.
But he never used them except when the cheerleaders came out to do a routine.
The guy's wife didn't seem to care at all.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Everybody's Doing It
Every year around this time you hear a lot of fatuousness about Valentine's Day and how it is a phony holiday created by the greeting card industry or other rot like that.
But, a quick primer:
What we call Valentine's Day is really an amalgam of several ancient and modern festivals celebrated at this time of year, many of them half remembered and gutless after a couple thousand years of watering down, but even so.
For the ancient Athenians, who had different months, the period of time between what we call the middle of January and the middle of February was set aside to celebrate the marriage of Zeus, king of the gods and Hera, his sister and bride. Being ancient Greece, one can assume this was mostly celebrated by having sex with young boys.
For the Celts, Imbolc fell in the first week of Febraury, a kind of Fertility festival celebrating rebirth ('Imbolc' means, roughly, "in the belly" and referred to the ewes and other animals who became pregnant at around this time and would birth in the Spring). As this was the time of year when winter's grip began to loosen, people would gather together to have sex. Lots of sex. Pagan sex. You know, the good kind, with ram's horns and wicker.
And, oh yeah, I suppose there was a kind of veneration of the feminine about Imbolc as well, and we've hung on to that part also. After all, I have very seldom been wined or dined or presented with degrading articles of underwear on this day. Because I'm a man. I get it.
Sexists.
For the Romans, the early part of February was the Lupercalia, where, again, fertility and sex were venerated, along with Juno, the goddess associated with marriage. They would also venerate the she-wolf who suckled Romulus and Remus. Men would run through the street wearing bloody wolf pelts and this would get them invited to parties where girls became very drunk.
I mean, really. They would sacrifice a wolf in the main square and these young men would come up to the altar naked where the priest or priestess would tie these long thongs of flesh cut from the wolf's pelt around their arms and legs. The boys would run through the streets, lashing at the women who gathered on the sidewalks in white gowns. If you were the women, you hoped to be lashed by the bloody thong because it would bring you love in the year to come, or fertility, or ease in childbirth.
The bloody thongs were called "Februa." Ahem.
In fact, the Lupercalia was such an orgiastic free-for-all that the early popes spent centuries trying to do away with it. Eventually, under the "if you can't beat 'em, change the name of the thing they like so much and pretend they've just been doing it wrong for a thousand years" school of management that had worked so well with Christmas, the popes started associating the Lupercalia with an otherwise not especially noteworthy couple of dudes called Valentine, who were early Christian martyrs. That they were chubby toddlers with wings and a mastery of archery is less well known, but makes their martyrdom all the more poignant.
In the Medieval period, the mythologization, poeticization, and refinement of romantic love really got off the ground. The idea of "courtly love," of a code of honor relating to the pursuit of a paramour, became the major topic of art and literature, especially among the upper class. In Hamlet, Ophelia is even shown to be thinking about Valentine's Day, and we know well things turned out for her. Take heart, single ladies!
But, as with so many of our great traditions and holidays, the real architects of the way in which we celebrate Valentine's Day today are the Victorians. They get a bad wrap for being prudes, but they invented porn! (not sexy pictures, as such, but the idea of sexy pictures being something illicit that you hid in your sock drawer because your wife doesn't ever have any reason to look in your sock drawer - not even if someone mentions this blog to her. Look it up!)
Yes, the Victorians gave us the greeting cards and the chocolates and the obsession with the images of those chubby little gremlins called putti. (No idea if they were also responsible the everpopular tradition of the Valentine's Day lingerie purchase and the ceremonial refusal to wear.)
So quit bitching. Cranks and conservatives and curmudgeons have tried to whine and moan their way out of our remarkably festive civilization, turning up their noses at the redolent smell of paganism in everything we hold dear. Some people won't be happy until we have nothing to celebrate at all and just spend all our time in church or at work. SNORE.
Humans have been celebrating this time (and, indeed, in many cases, this exact day) for centuries and millennia as a time to think of erotic love and overpriced, underwhelming prix fixe dinners.
Embrace it.
Monday, February 7, 2011
The Goonies "R" NOT Good Enough
Me: How come Troy was so surprised when he finally got the bucket up and found that it contained only the sweater? Did he believe that Andy weighed only as much as a sweater? I don't understand Troy at all.
Eric: I want to know why Troy and his friends are hanging around a wishing well in the first place.
Me: Do wishing wells even exist? I mean, why would there be a well - with a bucket - as if for hauling water - on the grounds of the country club or whatever? I'm beginning to question the believability of this film.
Eric: And Chester Cobblepot DIED before he got to the wishing well?
Me: Right. I mean, either this wishing well is of preposterously recent vintage or somehow you have to get through a warren of tunnels and a gauntlet of deadly traps BEFORE you come to a spot barely beneath the surface where there is already an entrance into the tunnels? This wishing well is worse than the giant octopus and the unexplained BREAKAWAY MOUNTAIN SIDE.
Eric: Chester Cobblepot didn't think to see if there was another entrance to the lagoon where Willie's pirate ship might be located? Maybe check the giant caves right off the beach first? I'll accept that The Goonies are born explorers that need absolutely no training, because they have childlike innocence guiding their way, but The Fratellis made it there faster than the kids, and they were pretty dumb villains. I would like to go on record and say that Mr. Cobblepot was the worst explorer of all time.
Me: So he was crushed by one of the big falling stones, right?
Eric: Yeah - by one of the hanging rocks.
Me: But he was crushed by only one of them. When the Goonies tripped that booby trap, all the stones fell. Why?
Eric: Hahaha. Because One Eyed Willie, see, he had this plan. He was like "Look, guys, I know we have a problem with the hanging rock trap; it rumbles and it takes a while for the stones to fall or whatever, so what we'll do is, we'll have a second tripwire that makes them all fall and the first trip wire will just make the one fall, okay?"
Me: But how come he didn't get out of the way in time? Maybe he was hard of hearing?
Eric: He was just the WORST explore. The WORST.
Me: Did they know all along they were looking for a ship? I don't remember. But if they did, then why did they have to start looking so far inland for a SHIP?
Eric: The Goonies is the worst movie I love.
Me: Also, was it SUPPOSED to be in Oregon? I mean, what pirate would sail all the way around Cape Horn and up the entire Pacific Coast of what was a barely colonized America and STILL feel like he needed to kill all of his men and hide his treasure behind an elaborate series of traps. They didn't even have anywhere to spend the gold. What was the point of all of this? I mean, OREGON?
Eric: I know we almost fell to our deaths at the bone piano, but QUICK, jump into this fast moving water chute! I have no idea where it leads, but I am sure it must be safe.
Me: Ugh.
Eric: Plus, what's up with Data's dad's camera invention? It does nothing except extend the camera in front of you at waist level so that you can't look in the viewfinder? But then the film falls out when he tries to take a picture? How did he screw that invention up?
Me: Not to mention the rather insidious suggestion that all children are just smaller versions of their parents. Do any of them have personalities or body types in any way distinct from their parents when we finally get a look at the families? Including Troy?
Eric: How long did Chunk's parents drive around with that Domino's pizza in their car just in case they found their son?
Me: Pinchers of Power always bothered me. No way does that invention have the strength to hold the weight of a falling kid.
Eric: Pinchers of PERIL. Data has engineered his inventions that way. Those chattering teeth are much stronger than your average chattering teeth.
Me: Pinchers of PERIL? Huh? I always thought he was saying "Pinchers of POWER." Does this make me a racist? Anyway, it isn't the chomping strength of the teeth I take issue with, it is the tensile strength of the slinky (and its attachment to the teeth). They should do a Mythbusters.
Eric: The slinky was dipped in titanium. Also, was Troy's dad just following around the parents as they desperately looked for their missing children, just waiting for the opportunity to have them sign away their home the very moment they actually managed to find them?
Me: Exactly. And how hard would it really have been to get a speedboat or something to, you know, pull up alongside the 300 YEAR OLD PIRATE SHIP SLOWLY FLOATING AWAY and collect all the gold they are so sad to have missed out on carrying away?
Eric: Yeah, are they just going to let that boat float away?
Me: And why was it so well lit inside all those caves? Shouldn't it have been very very dark? Inside the CAVES?
Eric: There were holes at the top of the cave that no one had ever thought to look into, Jeff.
Me: Oh, and somehow Troy's dad is buying the WHOLE TOWN? Or all of these families just happened to get their mortgages from Troy's dad for some reason? And they all live right next to one another? Because if they live kind of scattered over the whole town, how is Troy's dad gonna build whatever he is building simply by getting rid of these five houses?
Eric: He is building a golf course.
Me: But, I mean, unless every single house that now sits on the proposed golf course grounds got their mortgage from Troy's dad AND are in default AT THE SAME TIME, how can he build a golf course by foreclosing on the Goonies' houses? And why can't they refinance with a bank? They seem to have jobs, all of them.
Eric: And they have money enough to hire help.
Me: And a handful of jewels is enough to pay off ALL OF THE MORTGAGES? I think this movie is significantly overvaluing precious stones. I dunno.
Eric: . . .
Me: And it was sure nice of One Eyed Willie to, you know, grow old and die alone in an unlit and unheated cave in OREGON after killing all of his men, and then, all those years later, have the wherewithal to - right at the moment he felt he would die - climb into that chair and affix the last booby trap to himself and then manage to not move during his actual death. DEDICATION: YOU HAS IT!
Eric: . . .
Me: And why were his pirate minions so willing to spend YEARS of their lives in OREGON, away from liquor and women and pirating, surrounded by gold they couldn't spend on anything and working REALLY HARD every day, you know, carving giant rocks and suspending them from the ceilings of caves, designing and perfecting bone pianos, and carving BY HAND water chutes? Why weren't they like "FUCK THIS, let's go be pirates somewhere"?
Eric: They believed that Willie had a plan that made sense, Jeff.
Me: Look, I get that Willie has a Midas complex or whatever, but all of his men were okay with moving permanently to the uninhabited coast of Oregon? They heard his plan to wall in the ship behind a TOTALLY INDISTINGUISHABLE FROM NATURE breakaway rock wall and they went "Yup. What else would we do? Just normal pirate stuff, this."
Eric: He was very charismatic, was Willie.
Me: And why even make the traps survivable at all? If no one is ever supposed to get and spend this money, why make the piano function at all? Why not make every note you play drop you to your death? Did Willie have to go back and forth to the cave using the bone piano? Where was he going? Did he have to go through ALL of these booby traps every time? Including crawling UP the water chutes?
Eric: No, he just walked out one of the holes in the top of the cave. Or he climbed out of the wishing well.
Me: Ugh.
Eric: Remember when they glued the David's penis on upside down? That was funny.
Me: Because boners.
Eric: Why does Mikey know that it is his mother's "favorite part"? That's kinda creepy.
Me: How do you think we are supposed to feel about Rosalita?
Eric: We aren't. She is just the housekeeper. the Goonies are losing their homes. Rosalita's job is to make sure they are clean before they are knocked down. Who cares about Rosalita?
Me: I just mean that she is clearly portrayed as stupid for believing the things Mouth tells her, so are we laughing AT her when Mouth lies to her? Because why? I thought that scene was supposed to set up the fact that Mouth knows Spanish and that he is an ass. So why does it seem to be about how stupid Rosalita is?
Eric: Right. Mouth is supposedly translating what Mikey's mother is saying, yet Rosalita doesn't quit even after she hears the terms of her employment. I think Rosalita is in a very desperate situation.
Me: Right? But I think the movie wants you to laugh AT HER. That's awful. Like, Mouth is an ass, but you are also an ass, The Goonies. And Mikey's mom is so rude to her, too. Let's make a movie where Rosalita is the only one smart enough to hire a speedboat to go out to the pirate ship.
Eric: Why is Rosalita so quick to stop Mikey's dad (who she, presumably, believes has a torture room) from signing away his house? She only worked for them for one day and they threatened to beat her.
Me: AND, look, I don't know much about salvage rights or the rights of those who find historical treasure, but I am pretty sure that the State of Oregon owns those jewels. I feel sure, at least, that Troy's dad and his lawyers would fight about that in court and that the Goonies' parents would go broke from lawyers bills before they eventually lost that case. I don't think these saps are keeping their homes after all.
Eric: This movie has more holes than Blackburn, Lancashire.
Eric: I want to know why Troy and his friends are hanging around a wishing well in the first place.
Me: Do wishing wells even exist? I mean, why would there be a well - with a bucket - as if for hauling water - on the grounds of the country club or whatever? I'm beginning to question the believability of this film.
Eric: And Chester Cobblepot DIED before he got to the wishing well?
Me: Right. I mean, either this wishing well is of preposterously recent vintage or somehow you have to get through a warren of tunnels and a gauntlet of deadly traps BEFORE you come to a spot barely beneath the surface where there is already an entrance into the tunnels? This wishing well is worse than the giant octopus and the unexplained BREAKAWAY MOUNTAIN SIDE.
Eric: Chester Cobblepot didn't think to see if there was another entrance to the lagoon where Willie's pirate ship might be located? Maybe check the giant caves right off the beach first? I'll accept that The Goonies are born explorers that need absolutely no training, because they have childlike innocence guiding their way, but The Fratellis made it there faster than the kids, and they were pretty dumb villains. I would like to go on record and say that Mr. Cobblepot was the worst explorer of all time.
Me: So he was crushed by one of the big falling stones, right?
Eric: Yeah - by one of the hanging rocks.
Me: But he was crushed by only one of them. When the Goonies tripped that booby trap, all the stones fell. Why?
Eric: Hahaha. Because One Eyed Willie, see, he had this plan. He was like "Look, guys, I know we have a problem with the hanging rock trap; it rumbles and it takes a while for the stones to fall or whatever, so what we'll do is, we'll have a second tripwire that makes them all fall and the first trip wire will just make the one fall, okay?"
Me: But how come he didn't get out of the way in time? Maybe he was hard of hearing?
Eric: He was just the WORST explore. The WORST.
Me: Did they know all along they were looking for a ship? I don't remember. But if they did, then why did they have to start looking so far inland for a SHIP?
Eric: The Goonies is the worst movie I love.
Me: Also, was it SUPPOSED to be in Oregon? I mean, what pirate would sail all the way around Cape Horn and up the entire Pacific Coast of what was a barely colonized America and STILL feel like he needed to kill all of his men and hide his treasure behind an elaborate series of traps. They didn't even have anywhere to spend the gold. What was the point of all of this? I mean, OREGON?
Eric: I know we almost fell to our deaths at the bone piano, but QUICK, jump into this fast moving water chute! I have no idea where it leads, but I am sure it must be safe.
Me: Ugh.
Eric: Plus, what's up with Data's dad's camera invention? It does nothing except extend the camera in front of you at waist level so that you can't look in the viewfinder? But then the film falls out when he tries to take a picture? How did he screw that invention up?
Me: Not to mention the rather insidious suggestion that all children are just smaller versions of their parents. Do any of them have personalities or body types in any way distinct from their parents when we finally get a look at the families? Including Troy?
Eric: How long did Chunk's parents drive around with that Domino's pizza in their car just in case they found their son?
Me: Pinchers of Power always bothered me. No way does that invention have the strength to hold the weight of a falling kid.
Eric: Pinchers of PERIL. Data has engineered his inventions that way. Those chattering teeth are much stronger than your average chattering teeth.
Me: Pinchers of PERIL? Huh? I always thought he was saying "Pinchers of POWER." Does this make me a racist? Anyway, it isn't the chomping strength of the teeth I take issue with, it is the tensile strength of the slinky (and its attachment to the teeth). They should do a Mythbusters.
Eric: The slinky was dipped in titanium. Also, was Troy's dad just following around the parents as they desperately looked for their missing children, just waiting for the opportunity to have them sign away their home the very moment they actually managed to find them?
Me: Exactly. And how hard would it really have been to get a speedboat or something to, you know, pull up alongside the 300 YEAR OLD PIRATE SHIP SLOWLY FLOATING AWAY and collect all the gold they are so sad to have missed out on carrying away?
Eric: Yeah, are they just going to let that boat float away?
Me: And why was it so well lit inside all those caves? Shouldn't it have been very very dark? Inside the CAVES?
Eric: There were holes at the top of the cave that no one had ever thought to look into, Jeff.
Me: Oh, and somehow Troy's dad is buying the WHOLE TOWN? Or all of these families just happened to get their mortgages from Troy's dad for some reason? And they all live right next to one another? Because if they live kind of scattered over the whole town, how is Troy's dad gonna build whatever he is building simply by getting rid of these five houses?
Eric: He is building a golf course.
Me: But, I mean, unless every single house that now sits on the proposed golf course grounds got their mortgage from Troy's dad AND are in default AT THE SAME TIME, how can he build a golf course by foreclosing on the Goonies' houses? And why can't they refinance with a bank? They seem to have jobs, all of them.
Eric: And they have money enough to hire help.
Me: And a handful of jewels is enough to pay off ALL OF THE MORTGAGES? I think this movie is significantly overvaluing precious stones. I dunno.
Eric: . . .
Me: And it was sure nice of One Eyed Willie to, you know, grow old and die alone in an unlit and unheated cave in OREGON after killing all of his men, and then, all those years later, have the wherewithal to - right at the moment he felt he would die - climb into that chair and affix the last booby trap to himself and then manage to not move during his actual death. DEDICATION: YOU HAS IT!
Eric: . . .
Me: And why were his pirate minions so willing to spend YEARS of their lives in OREGON, away from liquor and women and pirating, surrounded by gold they couldn't spend on anything and working REALLY HARD every day, you know, carving giant rocks and suspending them from the ceilings of caves, designing and perfecting bone pianos, and carving BY HAND water chutes? Why weren't they like "FUCK THIS, let's go be pirates somewhere"?
Eric: They believed that Willie had a plan that made sense, Jeff.
Me: Look, I get that Willie has a Midas complex or whatever, but all of his men were okay with moving permanently to the uninhabited coast of Oregon? They heard his plan to wall in the ship behind a TOTALLY INDISTINGUISHABLE FROM NATURE breakaway rock wall and they went "Yup. What else would we do? Just normal pirate stuff, this."
Eric: He was very charismatic, was Willie.
Me: And why even make the traps survivable at all? If no one is ever supposed to get and spend this money, why make the piano function at all? Why not make every note you play drop you to your death? Did Willie have to go back and forth to the cave using the bone piano? Where was he going? Did he have to go through ALL of these booby traps every time? Including crawling UP the water chutes?
Eric: No, he just walked out one of the holes in the top of the cave. Or he climbed out of the wishing well.
Me: Ugh.
Eric: Remember when they glued the David's penis on upside down? That was funny.
Me: Because boners.
Eric: Why does Mikey know that it is his mother's "favorite part"? That's kinda creepy.
Me: How do you think we are supposed to feel about Rosalita?
Eric: We aren't. She is just the housekeeper. the Goonies are losing their homes. Rosalita's job is to make sure they are clean before they are knocked down. Who cares about Rosalita?
Me: I just mean that she is clearly portrayed as stupid for believing the things Mouth tells her, so are we laughing AT her when Mouth lies to her? Because why? I thought that scene was supposed to set up the fact that Mouth knows Spanish and that he is an ass. So why does it seem to be about how stupid Rosalita is?
Eric: Right. Mouth is supposedly translating what Mikey's mother is saying, yet Rosalita doesn't quit even after she hears the terms of her employment. I think Rosalita is in a very desperate situation.
Me: Right? But I think the movie wants you to laugh AT HER. That's awful. Like, Mouth is an ass, but you are also an ass, The Goonies. And Mikey's mom is so rude to her, too. Let's make a movie where Rosalita is the only one smart enough to hire a speedboat to go out to the pirate ship.
Eric: Why is Rosalita so quick to stop Mikey's dad (who she, presumably, believes has a torture room) from signing away his house? She only worked for them for one day and they threatened to beat her.
Me: AND, look, I don't know much about salvage rights or the rights of those who find historical treasure, but I am pretty sure that the State of Oregon owns those jewels. I feel sure, at least, that Troy's dad and his lawyers would fight about that in court and that the Goonies' parents would go broke from lawyers bills before they eventually lost that case. I don't think these saps are keeping their homes after all.
Eric: This movie has more holes than Blackburn, Lancashire.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Chiara, Insult Comic
Chiara: Did you ever have a falling out with a friend?
Me: Not since eighth grade.
Chiara: What happened in eighth grade?
Me: I stopped being friends with this kid because I thought he was too nerdy. I wanted to be more popular.
Chiara: That's terrible!
Me: No, it totally worked. He went on to become one of those kids who wears all black and a trenchcoat. He used to play dungeons and dragons at lunch while I had girls for friends. My plan was a great success.
Chiara: Girls for friends? That's no success.
Me: Not since eighth grade.
Chiara: What happened in eighth grade?
Me: I stopped being friends with this kid because I thought he was too nerdy. I wanted to be more popular.
Chiara: That's terrible!
Me: No, it totally worked. He went on to become one of those kids who wears all black and a trenchcoat. He used to play dungeons and dragons at lunch while I had girls for friends. My plan was a great success.
Chiara: Girls for friends? That's no success.
Friday, February 4, 2011
Dæmonomania
Finished Dæmonomania the other day and it floored me.
Languorous and layered, humane and hermetic, erudite and often page-kissingly lovely, Dæmonomania is the third part (of four) of Ægypt, John Crowley's cycle about the secret history of the world and the perhaps even more closely guarded secrets of the human heart.
In it, the seeds of the things that were planted in its immediate predecessor, Love & Sleep, flower and ripen and everything manages to go right and then wrong. The pages are crammed full of esoterica and writerly paragraphs and passages, but the focus is so close and so delicately are the characters handled (despite the sometimes crushing turns they are subjected to), that it never feels dry or forced or artificial.
What's more, Crowley has managed to refigure and recontextualize many of the ideas and characters and plotlines from the previous two books in ways that seem organic and real and yet completely change the meaning of what has come before. And, of course, that's sort of the theme of the book within the book (and of the books themselves). When it works (as it nearly always does) it is like witnessing a perfectly crafted magic trick or, perhaps, like alchemy; you have to lay the open book against your breast and give your head (heart?) time to stop spinning.
There is a lot going on.
But I dunno. It is the sort of novel you have a hard time describing because so much and so little happens. Or, anyway, it is the sort of novel you have a hard time describing without pretentiousness.
Certainly, I've already failed.
I can't gain much ground by rambling on and on. Suffice it to say that I have loved no books more than I've loved these four comprising the Ægypt cycle and I've loved few as much.
Go and pick up the first one, The Solitudes.
It is the book you should be reading as we roll into Spring.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
We Are the Guy Fieri We've Been Waiting For
Me: Why is there so much Guy Fieri?
Tim: Every generation gets the Guy Fieri they deserve, Jeff.
Me: But the bleached blond blowout and the bowling shirts. He is the sort of person who has a mancave - and calls it that.
Tim: Don't forget about his Ritz cracker cheesesteak sliders.
Me: Is that a real thing?
Tim:
Me: Jeeeeeeeeeeeesus.
Tim: You're going to eat those and watch old Superbowls in your mancave, Jeff
Me: Have you seen the thing he does with his sunglasses?
Tim: You mean where they are on the back of his head?
Me: Yeah. They should put him on Mount RushBro.
Tim: Every generation gets the Guy Fieri they deserve, Jeff.
Me: But the bleached blond blowout and the bowling shirts. He is the sort of person who has a mancave - and calls it that.
Tim: Don't forget about his Ritz cracker cheesesteak sliders.
Me: Is that a real thing?
Tim:
Me: Jeeeeeeeeeeeesus.
Tim: You're going to eat those and watch old Superbowls in your mancave, Jeff
Me: Have you seen the thing he does with his sunglasses?
Tim: You mean where they are on the back of his head?
Me: Yeah. They should put him on Mount RushBro.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Through the Gates of Horn
I've never had a useful dream before.
Or, anyway, I've never had a practical dream.
Robert Louis Stevenson dreamed the entire plot of The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde. Elias Howe dreamt the invention of the mechanical sewing machine. Prince woke up and was able to write out the entirety of "Little Red Corvette". Samuel Taylor Coleridge dreamed the poem Kubla Khan and, when he was transcribing it, was disturbed by a knock at the door which caused him to forget the rest of it.
Paul McCartney and "Yesterday," Dmitri Mendeleyev and the Periodic Table of Elements, Salvador Dali's Persistence of Memory.
Me? "Don't forget your dongle!"
I had a pile of things prepared to take in to work today but I had neglected to put my USB flashdrive onto that pile and will absolutely need it. I woke with a start at four in the morning having just had an insistent nightmare in which I was made to feel like an idiot for forgetting a USB flashdrive. When I woke with a start, I got up and put the damned thing on the pile of stuff I need for work today.
You ask me, Morpheus is phoning it in. Where's my THIS?
Or, anyway, I've never had a practical dream.
Robert Louis Stevenson dreamed the entire plot of The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde. Elias Howe dreamt the invention of the mechanical sewing machine. Prince woke up and was able to write out the entirety of "Little Red Corvette". Samuel Taylor Coleridge dreamed the poem Kubla Khan and, when he was transcribing it, was disturbed by a knock at the door which caused him to forget the rest of it.
Paul McCartney and "Yesterday," Dmitri Mendeleyev and the Periodic Table of Elements, Salvador Dali's Persistence of Memory.
Me? "Don't forget your dongle!"
I had a pile of things prepared to take in to work today but I had neglected to put my USB flashdrive onto that pile and will absolutely need it. I woke with a start at four in the morning having just had an insistent nightmare in which I was made to feel like an idiot for forgetting a USB flashdrive. When I woke with a start, I got up and put the damned thing on the pile of stuff I need for work today.
You ask me, Morpheus is phoning it in. Where's my THIS?
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Candlemas 2011
So today (or tomorrow?) is Candlemas. Or Brighid. or St. Brigit's Day. Or Imbolc. Or Groundhog Day.
Whatever. Same Diff.
This is the midpoint between the Winter Solstice and The Vernal Equinox.
In my phony-balogna Secular Paganism this is one of the holidays. Because our main belief is that holidays should be evenly distributed and have good party decorations.
You celebrate the lengthening of the days, the first buds on the trees, the baby animals conceived but not yet born. You celebrate the winter for its wintryness. (because, at Christmas, you celebrate all the things winter is not, really).
I meant to have a big party this year. My WINTERLUDE party. Was gonna have tons of lights and candles and lanterns and was gonna serve gins and tonic and listen to brittle electro-funk music.
Alas, the New Year's thing we had sorta threw us, money wise. Next year.
Anyway, Happy Candlemas! Happy Winterlude! light some candles. make one of these things, whatever the fuck they are:
See you dumbasses for Easter.
Whatever. Same Diff.
This is the midpoint between the Winter Solstice and The Vernal Equinox.
In my phony-balogna Secular Paganism this is one of the holidays. Because our main belief is that holidays should be evenly distributed and have good party decorations.
You celebrate the lengthening of the days, the first buds on the trees, the baby animals conceived but not yet born. You celebrate the winter for its wintryness. (because, at Christmas, you celebrate all the things winter is not, really).
I meant to have a big party this year. My WINTERLUDE party. Was gonna have tons of lights and candles and lanterns and was gonna serve gins and tonic and listen to brittle electro-funk music.
Alas, the New Year's thing we had sorta threw us, money wise. Next year.
Anyway, Happy Candlemas! Happy Winterlude! light some candles. make one of these things, whatever the fuck they are:
See you dumbasses for Easter.
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