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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
Kirk's Blurty:
| Tuesday, April 3rd, 2012 | |
| 11:20 am | I'm gonna shoe-gaze like it's 1993! Hey, next week I'm going to see Mazzy Star in concert! What?? I know! And I don't even own a DeLorean. Seriously, I can hardly believe this. If I were to list the bands/artists who are either dead or defunct that I would most want to see live, this would defintely make the top 5. No idea what brought this about, as they haven't put out an album since 1997. But who cares? I'm going! Also, man, it's been awhile. I feel like I should put something else here. I do have a few pictures of Morro the dog: http://www.flickr.com/photos/45689375@N05/ I really should put up some more recent ones. |
| Friday, March 4th, 2011 | |
| 8:52 am | The Morro Chronicles So the turbulent fates of pet ownership weren't done with us yet. Things are good now, two months in, but it was a bumpy road getting there. Late January, I take Morro in to our vet one morning to be neutered. Two hours later I get a call at my work, the vet tells me he found a growth inside his mouth; oh joy, biopsy time. After waiting through a long weekend, test results are as good as they can be. Morro has a non-metastasizing tumor, meaning A) if he had to have a tumor, this is the least-bad one he could have, and B) once it's removed surgically, we can forget about it, no risk of recurrence or spreading elsewhere. This at least made conversations with the vet hospital less scary. Oh, and for an added knife-twisting bonus, we had decided that after the previous medical adventures of Lola and Pascoe, any future pets would have pet insurance (yeah, probably should have been doing that all along, but we weren't). I had duly followed up on this after we adopted Morro, but--two words, folks: Waiting. Period. Because this tumor was found barely two weeks after the adoption, yes, we were Officially Screwed. Short version, I did get pet insurance sorted, compared different companies (highly recommended, there are some with so many exclusions they are all but pointless, but there are also companies that are quite good), and from this point we have an insured dog, but this particular adventure was all on us. Ha ha, vagaries of fate and timing. So the surgery was done early February, that and recovery went fine, and it was just waiting for test results to confirm that the surgery did indeed get all of the tumor. Finally got that phone call yesterday--affirmative--and we can at last breathe easier. The second issue, which will seem less serious after reading the above, was discovering that Morro is a bolter. This was actually discovered on the day we adopted him. After getting back home, introducing him to our house and the house next door, and taking him for a walk around the neighborhood, we went out briefly to shop. We left him, as per the routine with Pascoe, in the garage with access to the back deck. There's a small gate that leads to the hillside, with a latch, and turns out that if pushed against moderately, was less than totally secure. So we get back home after maybe a half hour, and no dog, gate unsecured. Panic. Helpfully, though only around 6:00 pm it was already dark, and one of the foggiest days of the year. So the two of us + my brother go looking, not knowing what direction is best. Even better, earlier that day the volunteers from Yreka had tipped us that while he was supposedly called Roman at the shelter, he didn't seem to much answer to that. Nothing like going around frantically looking for a lost pet and having to call out "doggie" to make one feel totally retarded, let me tell you. We spotted him a few times briefly then would lose him again in the fog. After maybe an hour, he made his own way back and this initial crisis ended. I decided that rather than secure the gate, given his youth and energy, it would be better to have a fence built on the hillside to give him more room to roam when we were gone. I'd often felt a bit guilty that Pascoe didn't have more room, not that he ever would have complained. So this was done, as well as existing fence reinforced. A couple weeks after the initial escape, Morro bolted from my mom's house one day when we were out; this one was anti-climactic as due to some cell phone confusion/unreliability, by the time we even found out, he was already back. (Amusingly, on this particular jaunt he had leaped a low brick wall into the yard of a neighbor's house so he could meet their two dogs. Two bits of luck, 1) the neighbor's dogs were friendly, and 2) he found he couldn't leave again the way he made his entrance, so he was safe within the yard until being retrieved.) Finally, a couple weeks after that, the new fence had been finished and we assumed we were good to go. However, a single plank in the older fence that needed reinforcing had been overlooked, though not by Morro, and...I had to leave work, make my way back from SF, and go looking. Fortunately this time I had a sunny day rather than a foggy night, and I found my quarry in about 20 minutes. No subsequent adventures since then, knock wood. So the tally was 2 surgeries + 3 escapes, all in the first month. We feel we are now owed some serious tranquility. Morro, a very sweet dog really, seems inclined to oblige. Man, all I wanted was to have a dog again, you know? Enough serious shit. I think I need to blog about my iPod. |
| Friday, February 11th, 2011 | |
| 10:20 am | Netflix Killed the Video Store Got an email earlier this week from my old coworker Ritchie, that my old video store finally bit the dust in December: http://www.berkeleyside.com/2010/12/07/front-row-video-to-close-after-26-years/ Not surprising, if anything it's more surprising that it lasted this long. Such an antiquated business model, now. But alot of fond memories for me. From 1986 - 1998, I worked at various Front Row locations for around ten years (I quit twice for varying periods and then returned). We were locally owned, not a chain, at its peak there were five stores (three in Oakland, one in Berkeley, one in Alameda), though the other four had been closed for many years. I worked at three of them, the last six years at the Solano store before I quit for good. Memories, man. Late fees! "Be kind, rewind" (the stickers actually said that). Where are your new releases? Do you carry adult films? (Yes, though by city ordinance they had to be less than 5% of your stock; ours was closer to 2%. When Ashlyn Gere guest starred on The X Files, I could say, hey, I've seen her have sex! Still the best porn title ever: Romancing the Bone. Dishonorable mention: E3: The Extra Testicle.) Tracking. Oh man, tracking. The simplest and most basic adjustment on any vcr, and yet so many people had apparently never heard of it. Which caused endless strife. "This didn't work, can I exchange it for something else?" Now once you got into the mid-'90s, people were a bit savvier and you were more likely dealing with a legitimate defect. But in the earlier days, it was likely the video had nothing wrong with it and just needed a tracking adjustment, and we the employees had to be hard-asses, or we would have been giving away ridiculous numbers of free rentals. Fun times. Once on a slow Saturday, we came up with a Letterman-inspired top 10 list of the most common responses to the question, Did you adjust the tracking? Some of the replies: -Oh, I tried everything. The most common response; often a lie. -I don't think my vcr has that. Which is true about as often as cars that come without a steering wheel, which is to say, never. -[blank stare] Honest, at least. -Look, my vcr is brand new, and all the other videos worked fine. The second part is often true, but irrelevant. The first part was usually a lie, unless we chose to believe that virtually every customer in these conversations just happened to have bought a new vcr last week. I mean, no one--NO ONE--ever volunteered that their vcr was actually old. So we actually printed up this list and displayed it on the counter. Really; we had both laid-back ownership and customers who mostly had a sense of humor and thought it was funny. But anyway, the very day we first displayed the list, I swear, the very next customer had a complaint that their video didn't play properly, and when I asked about tracking, said customer went through about half of the list. And I have to keep a straight face, while behind me three of my coworkers are doubled over laughing. I know alot of people who hate(d) working retail, but I always enjoyed it, and I was good at it. My last three years at Solano I was the store's buyer, which was the one job I've ever had I was perfect for. I more or less self-educated on film; I took a few film courses in college but I learned far more just watching endless movies on VHS, of all sorts. I slogged through a ton of bad horror movies to find the occasional gem like Eyes of Fire. And an advantage of working in the Bay Area, there was always a fairly high brow clientele so that we could justify a large foreign section and cult section. Probably half the French and Japanese films I've seen I saw this way. Some cool swag. Keychains for The Craft and Like Water for Chocolate. T-shirts for Amadeus, The Crow, Dead Man Walking, Single White Female (I gave this one to my cousin Diana). A Back to the Future jacket. A Reality Bites beach towel. A baseball signed by the cast of A League of Their Own. There were movies that made all their money on video after bombing in cinemas, like 9 and a Half Weeks and Crimes of Passion. The weirdest case was Red Rock West. This is a nifty John Dahl movie that was going to be released straight to video, then at the last minute the studio changed its mind and gave it a minimal theatrical release, which included Berkeley. But I guess it was too late to change the video release date, so we ended up renting the movie at the same time it was playing a few blocks up the street. It became one of those word-of-mouth hits, so popular that I ordered a couple extra copies for the store. Anyway, Harvey, the owner mentioned in the article above, was the easiest guy I ever worked for. And Ritchie really did work there for 20 years, which I can't begin to fathom, let alone explain. (That's consecutive years; the article also says Dave worked for 25, but that's cumulative; Dave, like me, left and came back a couple times.) But what can one say? I like Netflix, it's a better business model. Time marches on. One cautionary note. When I quit in '98, Front Row hadn't yet made the switch to DVD's. Now I love DVD's, which are infinitely better than VHS tapes for a number of obvious reasons. But VHS rentals, if they didn't otherwise break or become demagnetized, could typically last 200 or 300 plays, sometimes longer. A few years ago Ritchie told me that their DVD's typically gave out after around 50 plays. No doubt part of that is that people will tend to be less delicate in handling rentals as opposed to stuff they own. But still. I handle my DVD's extra carefully now. |
| Monday, January 10th, 2011 | |
| 10:06 am | Well, I don't even know where to start. The first part of this is like a sick joke. Lola died on Friday. It was very sudden and unexpected, as she had been her normal self all week. We got home in the early evening, and she was very still, on a part of the carpet that isn't one of her usual places. She didn't react to our coming home, and seemed to be breathing through her mouth. She did move near one of the vents after we turned on the heat, which is what she usually does, but something was obviously wrong. For a short time we just kept an eye on her, but it was soon apparent she was in distress, and we took her to the vet hospital in San Leandro. They examined her and took an x-ray of her lungs; after a half hour they spoke to us and said her prognosis was poor. We've known since her medical crisis two years ago, when she spent eight days at this hospital, that there was permanent scarring on her lungs and that her lifespan might be shorter as a result, but in those two years since being released she was just fine, coughed occasionally but was unchanged in her activity, behavior, appetite, etc. They told us there were a couple things they could try over the weekend, and she would be put in the oxygen cage in the meantime, and we went home. But after getting home they called us twice, the first time to tell us her level of oxygen saturation--not good--but that they still had things to try to stabalize her. The second call was to tell us she was failing. We drove back to the vet hospital, the damage to her lungs was too severe and there was nothing they could do. We took several minutes to pet her and say our goodbyes, and that was it. Lola was a great cat, she was shy with other people but very sweet and affectionate with us. She lived about nine years, and six and a half of those years she lived with us. We miss her alot. So Saturday. We would have liked to put off picking up the dog at least a week, obviously. But we knew this was the only chance to avoid a 13-hour round trip drive to Yreka and back, so we felt we couldn't blow it off. The trip was without incident, we met the volunteers in a parking lot in Williams, got the dog and drove back. He is a very nice and friendly dog (we renamed him Morro), we are glad to have him. The sad thing is given his temperament, I am almost positive he would have gotten along with Lola just fine, as Pascoe did. Never make plans, I guess. |
| Thursday, January 6th, 2011 | |
| 10:52 am | Mission: Yreka So, want to see our (conditional) new dog? Of course you do! http://www.petfinder.com/petdetail/17881895 This week has been a flurry of online activity looking at Chesapeakes--and there aren't alot out there--and this guy, we decided, was the best possibility. So we're set for a road trip on Saturday. Now, if one looks at Yreka on a map, it appears to be about 30 seconds from the Oregon border. Yeah, so we were looking at perhaps a 6+ hour drive, one way. I eventually spoke to the one (1) animal control person in Yreka and asked if there were any dog rescue volunteers who would be willing to meet us halfway, and after a few phone calls she made on our behalf, I was told to call Kristy (no last name) at the Rescue Ranch. She was very happy someone was interested in adopting the dog, who apparently has been at this shelter for quite awhile. She gave me a number and told me to call Bill and Sue (no last names; I get the idea they roll kinda informal in Yreka) who would be doing the actual transport. I was also told they would take the dog as far as Anderson. This would cut down our driving to 4+ hours. I called and talked to Bill last night, who said he would actually drive as far as Williams. Driving time now down to 2+ hours, one way. I'm liking this. Anyway, a time and place was set. Wish us luck! I am perhaps premature in blogging this. As I said to Robyn the animal control honcho in Yreka, the one potential deal-breaker would be if the dog shows any aggression/hostility to Lola. We were blessed with Pascoe, a mellow dog who liked everyone he met and never had an issue with Lola. So we're crossing our fingers, though I am cautiously optimistic. (Shelter dogs tend to have much less territorial issues.) But when I say wish us luck, I mean it. We won't know until we get the dog home. The other thing, the last two days I'm feeling a bit guilty. I have a picture of Pascoe on my desk at work, and a picture of him & Lola as my wallpaper. Though I miss having a dog, it has only been three months, and Pascoe was definitely special. One final note, that name will definitely be changed. Roman? I think not. We will see. |
| Thursday, December 16th, 2010 | |
| 3:22 pm | Angel vs. Eel, Owl vs. Dove It being an even-numbered year, we're off to the UK for xmas shortly. I may actually try to post more here in '11, though I've thought that before, so we'll see. Anyway, a few cultural musings on the year almost past. Film I dunno, kind of an off year for movies, nothing that grabbed me on the order of Zodiac or The Lives of Others. Winter's Bone was excellent. The best thing we saw on Netflix was a Serbian drama called The Trap. But we did have an event a couple weeks ago. The Paramount Theatre in Oakland was showing The Passion of Joan of Arc, which was on my list of Must See Before I Die. The biggest gap by far in my film education is silent movies. I think I was turned off by the stagey, over-emphatic acting at a young age and never moved much beyond that. I've probably seen fewer than ten silent movies in my life. Chaplin - nada. Keaton - zip. Plus I had to watch Birth of a Nation in college, which didn't help. But I knew this was one I needed to see one day, so I tentatively suggested it, and Mary-Jane agreed. I say "tentatively" because tickets were $25, this for an 82-year-old movie that's available on Netflix. It was a good decision. They did the whole chorale arrangement, with a 22-piece orchestra and 180 singers. An oratorio composed for the occasion was variously in old French, middle French (middle French??), and Latin. The Paramount is a fabulous art deco theatre about as old as the movie. The whole effect was impressive, but mainly the movie is amazing. Maria Falconetti portrays Joan, said to be her first and only film performance, and most of the film is extreme, intense closeups of Falconetti's face. It's a stunning performance, when you see it you get why it's been talked about ever since. Having finally seen it, I do recommend people watch this before they die. TV This was the year we had to admit programs on cable are just superior to broadcast shows in every conceivable way. As an added bonus, seasons of six, or twelve, or thirteen episodes! Man how I love that. 22 episode seasons are just a slog, and frankly dilute quality. Quick rundown, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, still excellent. Rubicon--a great show that failed, already canceled. Too bad, it was the closest Americans ever got to the dense, literate kind of spy story that LeCarre writes and the Brits adapt so adeptly. I heard it described as a large but quiet show, which is about right. Riveting stuff, and I'll miss it. Justified, Tim Olyphant as a Deputy U.S. Marshall with issues. Great, compact show, sharp writing and phenomenal casting. Ok it's not Deadwood, but then what is? The Walking Dead is good but it could be better. They do great visual set pieces but the writing really needs to improve. Being Human is another I enjoy but with some reservations. Once I got past the silly concept (a ghost, a vampire, and a werewolf share a house! Starring Tony Danza! not really), I liked it, and it did seem to be getting better as the season ended. The plotting is frankly weak, but the characters are great. I'll keep watching. But the show that most recently blew me away is Luther on BBCAmerica. This has Idris Elba as a rather tortured police detective, it was six episodes of intense, searing drama, mercilessly plotted, just great stuff. And it has two great performances, the other an actress called Ruth Wilson as a killer (not a serial killer, as she's sometimes erroneously described) who latches onto Luther. In the first episode she kills her parents, Luther cracks it but can't prove it. You figure the rest will be him continuing to dog this case, but no. Instead it moves on to other cases while Alice Morgan (the killer) hovers on the margins and insinuates herself into aspects of Luther's life, like his broken marriage. It sounds like a conceit that shouldn't work, but it does. The last episode ends in a bloody mess, and Luther asks, "Now what?" This better have a second series. One prop to broadcast, for the first time since Arrested Development went off the air, there's a comedy we actually watch every week. Modern Family, you are always funny, and I haven't seen a weak episode yet. Finally, I wanted to note the Most Ill-Timed Comeback Ever. Remember Meg Tilly? I always liked her alot. She hadn't acted since 1994. Just vanished, well no, she's a writer now actually, I even came across her novel in a bookstore. So out of the blue, she shows up on Caprica, playing a sort of religious matriarch. Incidentally, remember Caprica? The prequel to the Robots show that had a very hit and miss first season, which the SyFy channel decided to split in half and then wait nearly a year to show the rest of, by which time few people remembered it and fewer cared? So when the split season finally continued, there's Meg Tilly with maybe two or three lines of dialogue. About a week later, Caprica gets canceled by SyFy. Oops. Two things. I still really like Meg Tilly, and I hope she tries again. Second, Caprica really, really was not a good show. Stage Much credit to our neighboring east bay city of Berkeley, which now has three theatre companies we frequent which A) are way cheaper than seeing theatre in San Francisco, and B) are usually better than anything we see in S.F. anyway. It's win-win. The last couple years, Shotgun Players has been particularly good. We recently saw Mary Stuart there. I saw a traditional adaptation a decade or so ago, which was just fair. This was a modern, stripped down take, which condensed the script and used closed-circuit video monitors to enhance the trapped feeling of interrogation. Really good. About a year ago the same company did a half-punk adaptation of Threepenny Opera that we loved. The actress who played Polly Peachum (wish I could remember her name) was just fantastic. Actual reading of books Someday, someday I'll find the time to read as many as I think I should; in the meantime, the on deck pile gets higher and higher. One that was particularly memorable this year was The Wrong Mother by Sophie Hannah. There's a sub-genre (in my own mind, at least) of British psychological mysteries usually written by women, the standard of which remains for me Barbara Vine (pen name of Ruth Rendell). This is one of those. Excellent if this is the sort of thing you like. Oh, there's an annoying publishing quirk of changing her titles for the American market. The British title of this one is Point of Rescue. Music I just got Mary-Jane an iPod Touch for her birthday, so we are now a two-iPod household. Hers is way more advanced than my little Nano. I'm pretty sure it has a stun setting and can find the nearest location of Dilithium Crystals. My favorite band of the moment is Metric, who are awesome; we saw them early this year at the Fox Theatre in Oakland, and they were as great as expected. On Halloween we saw Kate Nash at the Warfield in SF. The sound mix didn't do her any favors, but still a good show, and she was very endearing. Also had a nifty lead on band called Peggy Sue (two English lasses playing a sort of electric folk), and in addition to the usual t-shirts and such, they were selling Kate Nash tea towels. Even better, I heard a woman in front of me ask, "What's a tea towel?" It was tempting, but we decided against spending $30 for a tea towel, even a Kate Nash one. Most importantly, she played "Birds" which I think is the best love song of the last however many years. Current 10 most played on my iPod: Elbow - Grounds for Divorce Tim Armstrong - Into Action Kathleen Edwards - The Cheapest Key Bloc Party - I Still Remember Kate Nash - Foundations Mint Royale - Show Me MGMT - Time to Pretend Persephone's Bees - Paper Plane The Ting Tings - That's Not My Name Arcade Fire - Rebellion (Lies) To all, have a great xmas & new year. |
| Wednesday, October 27th, 2010 | |
| 11:01 am | Go Giants!!!! http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/giants/detail?entry_id=75588 (the song that won't go away) Also please remember, the Texas Rangers were once co-owned by George W. Bush. Thank you. |
| Monday, October 4th, 2010 | |
| 10:19 am | Pascoe Our dog Pascoe died yesterday. Sorry to anyone we haven't been in touch with recently, but this wasn't sudden, he was very old and over the last week had declined to the point we didn't want to prolong his suffering. Pascoe's arthritis had gotten really bad, his appetite also declined, I don't want to dwell on the details but I can say that we'll remember him as a happy dog to his last day. Early last week I was despondent when he took a bad turn but after having him examined and discussing what to do, I tweaked his diet (I cooked him chicken and rice and bought some canned lamb) and his appetite rallied enough that he made it to the weekend. So we were able to spend most of Saturday and Sunday with him, he helped me watch the Giants make the playoffs on the last day of the season. Pascoe came to us on December 4, 2004, rescued from the redneck land of Merced, CA (days before he would have been euthanized; it's a severely overcrowded shelter). They told us he was 4. Pfffft. He wasn't 4, he was likely 6 or 7. We didn't mind, he was a wonderful dog and adopting him literally saved his life. The first half of his life, while it will remain a mystery to us, was clearly neglectful and probably abusive. He weighed 55 pounds and you could see all his ribs. The first several weeks we had him, he ate so voraciously he gained 17 pounds. He was shy and insecure, clearly was not used to being allowed indoors, and was so happy to have dog toys we figure they were the first he'd ever had. We created a backstory for him that he had been owned by meth dealers and his job was protecting the meth lab. (When we watched Breaking Bad we used to say "Quick Pascoe, hide!") Who knows, that may not be far off. Big differences between rescue dogs and dogs you raise from a puppy. Thor was the latter, and he came to be rather, um, entitled, and was very protective and territorial. What amazed me about Pascoe is that in spite of the awfulness of his early years, he was such a sweet dog that he liked everybody and assumed every person he met was his friend. (Thor assumed every new person was out to kill me until proven otherwise.) Our cat Lola had seven months seniority living in our house, and it was never an issue. If we slept late, Pascoe would wait patiently for us to get up rather than drop hints. He almost never barked. We have deer that come around our house all the time. Thor would chase them off. Pascoe would look over as if to say, "Huh, a deer" and then go about his business. His one act of aggression, ever, was a month after we got him, we came home late on a rainy night and there was a decapitated rat on the deck. Hey, it was a rat. So yesterday was heartbreaking, but it was his time. Pascoe got to swim in the ocean and in Lake Tahoe (his last time at Tahoe was just a month ago), go to dog parks and raid the magic food dish next door (thanks to my brother). My most endearing memory is until a couple years ago when his arthritis got bad, whenever we had been next door and were leaving, Pascoe would race back to our house as fast as he could. I think he just loved having his own home. He had it for six happy years. I've asked Mary-Jane to put a bunch of pictures on a flickr page. Until then, here's one of my favorite pictures: http://www.dogster.com/dogs/383739 And another: http://share.shutterfly.com/share/received/welcome.sfly?fid=4010f87ea1098bd0&sid=2AZuWTNy1aMnIQ And here's a happy dog song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKq_9S_Rm_4 |
| Friday, July 30th, 2010 | |
| 9:43 am | fire season Last Thursday night, it was about 1:40 am, I was about to go to bed and remembered something I needed to toss in the bin out front. I went outside, must have glanced toward my mom's house next door, and the sky above and beyond her house was orange. At the same moment I realized I could actually hear the sound of burning. While it didn't look to be her house burning per se, this was definitely something that was too close. I sprinted toward her house, assured myself it wasn't the back of her house on fire--at least not yet--and while I was going to knock on her door straight away at the last second I thought, no, 911 first. Ran back home, woke up Mary-Jane, called 911, was transferred to fire personnel (instantly, to be clear, no wait or delay) and told they were already on it. Well they should be--the fire station is a short walk from us and the actual fire as it turned out was even closer. Then called next door, my brother answered (he was still up too; it runs in the family), I conveyed the circumstances of the present situation, and it was agreed getting out of Dodge was the plan. They decided to just leave straight away. Mary-Jane and I sensed that we had at least a few minutes to pack a few things; semi-panic, sure, but we figured if firefighters hadn't yet knocked on our door to tell us we had to get out NOW, that full-on panic was at least several minutes away. So we each threw a bunch of clothes in a suitcase. I also grabbed wallet, keys, passport, checkbook, unpaid bills. Mary-Jane also loaded three pieces of art in the car. I had a brief fleeting thought about all my books, but there was no way. And of course, the pets. Pascoe was no problem, but Lola went into major freak-out mode. That scene near the end of Alien when Ripley, all of her shipmates dead, spends five minutes looking for the ship's cat flashed through my mind. Mary-Jane eventually corralled Lola and we were out the door. Right then my mom's car came back up the driveway. She hadn't been able to talk to any firefighters as they were rather busy but she sensed they were getting the upper hand on the fire. I looked up, the sky was no longer orange. We left anyway to see if we could talk to anyone. Found a single cop car amid six or seven fire trucks. Parked, walked back toward the cop car and found the police officer, who told us they were pretty close to having the fire in hand and that evacuation was almost certainly not needed. What it was turned out to be a house under construction, just up a short ways off our street on a hillside behind my mom's house. They had been building the house for months and it was probably 80% completed. We went back home with the assurance that we'd be notified if there were any turns for the worse; but at that point you could see the fire was pretty much out, just smoldering left. We knew also they'd stay at the scene all night. The massive firestorm in Oakland in '91 which everyone in the East Bay who was there remembers like yesterday, actually started from a fire that had been put out, was only smoldering and started up again after everyone had left the scene. So ended last Thursday's late night adventure. We checked out the scene the next day, the almost-built house was gutted. To give an idea of the proximity, at the back of my mom's property is a shed that holds tools and fire wood and such. Just past the shed is a low fence. From there you can look down the hillside at the now gutted house; I'd guess the distance is maybe thirty yards or so. Too close. In other news, last Sunday I made a dessert for the first time in my life. I made a rhubarb crumble, and it was great. This week we got a new (and much needed) kitchen floor, but I'd say last week was more eventful. We've had a mostly foggy and cool summer as well (sorry, East coast), which had to have helped matters. |
| Thursday, June 24th, 2010 | |
| 11:17 pm | Ticket Stubs of a Life, part deux (a mostly U2 entry) There are only two acts I've seen more than twice, Lucinda Williams four times and U2 five times. So this will cover the latter, though it messes with the chronology a bit. I Will Follow--to a point, Mr. Hewson (1983 - 1988, mostly) -U2, 1985, 1987, 1987, 1992, 1997 March 7, 1985, The Cow Palace, San Francisco. Touring behind The Unforgettable Fire, U2 had hit it big by then but bloat had not set in, and I remember it felt like George and I were seeing the band at their peak. An amazing show, one of the highlights was Bono asking if anyone in the audience could play guitar, inviting a guy onstage, giving him Edge's guitar and having him play the riff (I wish I could remember what song, but I can't) while the band left the stage one by one. And this guy was then alone on stage, and continued playing the riff for a couple minutes before the band returned. Awesome. Scandal, who had a few hits in the '80s, was the lead-on. Their lead singer, Patty Smyth, is currently married to John McEnroe. Song highlights: anything from War, Gloria, I Will Follow. Ticket price: $13.50. Free concert (so no ticket stub), Justin Herman Plaza, San Francisco, 1987. I was working my first video store job at the time, but had the day off. The phone woke me up, and one of my coworkers was calling because she'd heard on the radio that U2 were doing a free concert that afternoon. Amazingly (ok, stupidly), I was so tired that I initially demurred. I know. Fortunately my coworker called back a few minutes later to say something like "Dude, seriously." I came to my senses, she picked me up and we took BART out to S.F. By the way, if you've seen Rattle and Hum, it's the closest I've ever come to being in a movie. You can't see me, but I was there. The concert was short, maybe a half hour, and all anyone remembers now is Bono spraypainting the Vaillancourt Fountain with the words "Rock & Roll stops the traffic." Alot of people in the Bay Area hate the fountain, but I've always thought it was way cool. See for yourself: http://thomashawk.com/hello/209/1017/1024/Vaillancourt%20Fountain.jpg Then-mayor of SF Dianne Feinstein was none too pleased, but I'll get to that in a minute. It was a brief but exhilarating day. Song highlight: All Along the Watchtower, with the improvised lyric, "All I need is a red guitar, three chords, and the truth." That was U2 in '87. And the most important thing to say here: thank you, Karen Banuelos, for calling me that morning. I owe you. November 14, 1987, Oakland Coliseum. Touring behind The Joshua Tree, their best album, and they were at this moment unmistakably the biggest band in the world. It felt like an event for George and me days before the concert even happened. The entire show was electric, the Edge in particular was on fire. And oh yeah, the fountain incident. Mayor Feinstein made the dubious decision to grandstand this, looking very silly in the process. Bono responded with unparalleled hubris. From an account in the next day's SF Chronicle: "Inspector Joseph Toomey of the San Francisco Police called me and said he was collecting evidence concerning an act of vandalism. 'We take this seriously,' he said. I told him I take this seriously, too. Have you ever picked on the wrong band. We're U2. We're the Batman and Robin of rock and roll." Bono took heat for that one, but come on. That last sentence is one of my favorite rock & roll quotes ever. Oh yeah, and he also brought out on stage a gentleman by the name of Vaillancourt. Yeah, the actual sculpter, who defended the band. U2 one, Feinstein zero. Song highlight: Bullet the Blue Sky. Ticket price: $19.50. Lead-ons were the Bodeans and the Pretenders. I don't remember them; that day, no one did. November 7, 1992 and June 18, 1997, both Oakland Coliseum. These were, truthfully, mediocre shows. For one they toured behind Zooropa, an ok album, and for the other Pop, the worst album they've ever done. (Dave--agree, disagree?) So briefly, the first show I went with my friend Kathy, the second my cousin Lila. Ticket prices: $30 and $37.50. The lead-ons in '92 were The Sugar Cubes and Public Enemy. Bjork came off as shy but adorable. But that guy in the Sugar Cubes who didn't sing but kind of wandered around and shouted? Aside from being talentless, he was a total dick. Public Enemy were great, better than U2 that day by far. In '97 the lead-on was Oasis, already well past their prime. They have some good songs, but seriously, that tic of whichever Gallagher of clasping his hands behind his back and basically not moving at all? So not impressive. -The Kinks, April 26, 1983, The Cow Palace, San Francisco, and June 7, 1987, Concord Pavilion The Kinks have always been one of my favorite bands, in spite of wildly uneven output over the years (a nice way of saying they have quite a few albums that suck), and Ray Davies remains one of the least likely and most endearing rock stars ever. For George and I, both painfully introverted for alot of years, he was a rare frontman we identified with. And Dave Davies is an underrated guitarist. If nothing else, he once said "It wasn't called heavy metal when I invented it", and you gotta love him for that. The first show was fantastic, they were touring behind State of Confusion, which turned out to be the last good album they did. Ray did his Lola schtick ("we're not going to play that one tonight..."), they had 20 years of back catalog to pick from, and Ray is just a natural showman. Great stuff. Song highlight: Celluloid Heroes, one of the great live songs ever. Ticket price: $11.50. The second concert, alas, was not memorable, it was clear the band's best days were behind them. The ticket stub says Joan Jett was the lead-on, but I honestly have no memory of that. Ticket price: $16.50. -Pink Floyd, April 23, 1988, Oakland Coliseum George and I were teenage boys in the '70s, so it was practically the law that we had a phase of being intensely into Pink Floyd. We should have seen them then. By '88, Roger Waters was gone and truthfully we didn't care all that much about the Floyd anymore. I think we went to this show mainly because we'd never seen the band live. That said, it was a good show. But without Waters...the band felt truncated. One weird thing was that due to litigation, the band were prohibited from playing anything from Animals. (Why just that one album? No idea.) Nevertheless, they still went ahead and had a giant pig prop on a wire above the crowd. Odd. Song highlight: On the Turning Away. Ticket price: $22.50. The moral of this concert was: see a band when you're really into them, otherwise it'll be a bit anticlimactic. |
| Monday, May 31st, 2010 | |
| 11:18 pm | Ticket Stubs of a Life, part uno Some months ago I had to thoroughly search for something and I was reminded that I've kept ticket stubs for just about every concert I've ever been to. (Some other things too, like plays and sporting events, but I was much less consistent in holding onto those.) So I gathered them all together, and a blog idea germinated (procrastinated, whatever). In sorting through them, I did find a few shows missing, but in all the collection is pretty impressively anal, even for me. And so, first in a series: The Name of the Game (1979 - 1982) -Abba, Sept. 19, 1979, Concord Pavilion My first concert ever was fantastic. Among other things, it was the only time Abba ever toured North America (they were way more popular in the UK & Europe than in the states). My friend Scott and I were seriously into Abba for several years, so this was a huge deal. We went with Scott's mom (shut up, we had no drivers licenses then), his sister, and a friend of hers. The concert was epic, Agnetha and Frida proved to be amazing singers live, just a great evening. Song highlight: Gimme Gimme Gimme, which was brand new and hadn't been recorded yet. -Pat Benatar, Aug. 14, 1980, The Old Waldorf, San Francisco First concert in a nightclub. Pat Benatar's second album, Crimes of Passion, was released that same week, so the audience only knew the songs on her first, In the Heat of the Night. This was another artist Scott and I were into intensely for a few years. The show was amazing, obviously the atmosphere in a small club was completely different than a stadium show, and we were right in front of the stage, enough to see how tiny she actually was. I think Scott, his friend David, and I all wanted to marry her by the end of the night. The lead-on was a British band called Secret Affair; they never went anywhere, but they weren't bad. I saw Pat Benatar live once more a few years later; the second show wasn't memorable. Song highlight: If You Think You Know How to Love Me. Ticket price: $14.50. -The Cars, Sept. 26, 1980, Oakland Arena You don't think of The Cars as loud, but they were fucking loud that night. Their second album, Candy-O, was out. I went with Scott and my best friend George. Very good show, Ric Ocasek had an unusual sort of charisma. He was anything but handsome, and had this kind of reptilian aura. He was also the opposite of gregarious (in an interview he once mocked the idea of telling the audience to clap their hands or sing along). Nevertheless, on stage he was a total rock star. The lead-on was The Motels, who had a few hits in the '80s. Song highlight: Shoo Be Doo leading into Candy-O. -Heart, July 27, 1982, Concord Pavilion I actually saw Heart twice, which is odd because I never owned any of their albums. But Scott owned a few so I was somewhat familiar with their stuff. I remember this as good show, though I don't remember what album they were touring for. (The second show was not so good.) Lead-on was John Cougar (I don't think he'd added the Mellancamp yet); he wasn't bad, even though at the time I had no use for him. Song highlights: Mistral Wind and a cover of Zeppelin's Rock and Roll. Ticket price: $11.50. -The Who, Oct. 23, 1982, Oakland Coliseum EPIC. By the way, this was Day on the Green #3, Bill Graham Presents in Association with Schlitz. Anyway--EPIC. Definitely a candidate for the best concert I've ever been to. Oh yeah, this was also billed as The Who's Farewell Tour. *ahem* Since George and I never got to see Led Zeppelin, this is easily the most larger-than-life act we ever saw in person. (Yeah yeah, Keith Moon was already dead four years previous, what like that was our fault?) Lead-on numero uno was T-Bone Burnett, known lately for producing other people's stuff but back then a performer. He was not memorable. Lead-on numero dos was The Clash. THE CLASH, bee-yotch. They opened with London Calling, Mick Jones wearing this bright orange jumpsuit. Not too long after they broke up. Anyway, The Who, always known for their live prowess, were incendiary. It was an amazing day. Song highlights: 5:15, Drowned, a cover of the Isley Brothers' Twist & Shout in which John Entwistle sang lead. Ticket price: $17. Yep. |
| Tuesday, May 18th, 2010 | |
| 12:45 pm | [Insert bad House pun here] I couldn't settle on one, and House of Crap seemed to lack subtlety. Ever see a one-legged Vicodin addict jump a shark? Or, interesting strategy saving your worst episode for the season finale. [spoilers follow] ( Read more... ) |
| Tuesday, March 16th, 2010 | |
| 3:53 pm | I think you've seen this movie LEAD........FEMALE'S............NAAAAAAAME!!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFicqklGuB0&feature=player_embedded Ha. |
| Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009 | |
| 11:29 pm | 11 for the decade The season for year-end lists around the internets. I thought I'd have a go at picking my best movies of the decade, just to see what that would look like. I figured my over/under for comedies would be around two; yep. Anyway I ended up with 11. I tend to resist an order of preference for these things, so I'm listing them chronologically. No Man's Land (2001, Danis Tanovic) A Bosnian movie about three soldiers, two Muslims and a Serb, trapped together in a trench between their respective lines. The better angels of their natures do not win the day. Maybe the blackest comedy ever. Hero (2002, Zhang Yimou) I think this is the apex of epic martial arts movies. I liked Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon but I also thought it was kind of loopy; House of Flying Daggers was excellent but the story was a bit lightweight. In between those was Hero which was just about flawless. The Fog of War (2003, Errol Morris) Documentary about Robert McNamara, mostly talking about Vietnam. His candor was so bottomless it was jaw-dropping. I had the sense he felt he had to own up to everything. He did, and died a few years later. Monster (2003, Patty Jenkins) About the serial killer Aileen Wuornos. I didn't really follow the actual case, but this sure felt real. Prior to this I had no opinion of Charlize Theron, but she really brought it. Mysterious Skin (2004, Gregg Araki) Our favorite new actor of the decade was Joseph Gordon-Levitt. We saw just about everything he did, well ok we drew the line at G.I. Joe, but other than that. He was fucking amazing in this. Sideways (2004, Alexander Payne) The reality of being an American actress: You can be Virginia Madsen, talented, gorgeous, knock around for years doing mostly bad movies, then luck out and score this one. Huge success, Oscar nomination. Your reward: you get to be in The Astronaut Farmer. Maybe she should learn French. It worked for Kristen Scott-Thomas. Anyway, I loved this movie. Brokeback Mountain (2005, Ang Lee) I came out of this thinking it was pretty much a perfect movie. It lost to Crash, Academy? Really? The Descent (2005, Neil Marshall) The best horror movie, by far, I've seen in a long long time. The director's previous movie, Dog Soldiers, is pretty great too. Grizzly Man (2005, Werner Herzog) Documentary that instructs that bears are very cool; cuddly, not so much. The Lives of Others (2006, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck) About living in East Germany amid the Stasi. If I had to rank these by preference, this might be at the top. Brilliant and absorbing on many levels. Zodiac (2007, David Fincher) The other one that might top the list. I haven't even worked out why this works so well. The structure is awkward, you have three actors that sort of trade off being the lead character. The real life ending would seem to preclude a satisfying climax. It's not 'exciting' in the usual hunt-for-a-killer sense. And as Robert Downey jr. says at one point, the guy killed maybe five people, over many years; more people die on a freeway commute in a month. True. But it was just completely compelling every second for me. And it has one of the best, most haunting final scenes ever. I felt like someone had made a movie just for me. |
| Sunday, October 25th, 2009 | |
| 1:04 pm | Ann My sister Ann died early Thursday morning. She was diagnosed with cervical cancer in June. From the beginning she didn't catch a single break medically speaking. A week after learning of the diagnosis, she confided to me just how bad it was, how it was already advanced. She found a doctor she liked and decided on a treatment plan. She did two regimens of chemotherapy but neither had any significant effect. The four months since the diagnosis passed so fast, and none of us could keep up, that is, even when I thought I was facing the reality of this, I couldn't quite grasp just how fast it was progressing. I don't think anyone could. Several years ago Ann's best friend, Val, died of ovarian cancer. Val lived with her cancer for years, at a couple points so much time had passed that I thought she must have beaten it. I think now, though I was unaware of it at the time, I must have unconsciously used Val's experience as a template. At any rate, none of us thought time would be so short. Ann had been in the hospital for pain issues and was released on Monday. I was in touch with either her or with Rob, her partner for more than 20 years, nearly every day and we planned to drive down to Salinas on Thursday. However on Wednesday evening we got a call that things were not good, so we all drove down that night. Several friends were already at their house, and we spent several hours there, visiting and talking with Ann one or two people at a time. There wasn't time to talk about all the things we would have liked to, but it was a good visit, Ann was lucid and glad to see everyone, she would get short of breath easily and had to talk slowly, but she said she hoped to have three or four more weeks to see more of everyone. We left late that night and planned to visit again maybe the next day. Ann passed away around 4 a.m. the next morning, October 22, the same date our dad died in 1994. She was 47. My sister had an amazingly accomplished life. She was easily the smartest one in our family, she earned a PhD from Berkeley and a JD from Boalt School of Law, and taught (at different times, sociology and criminal justice) at the Univ. of Texas El Paso and then at San Jose State Univ. She traveled extensively, she loved dogs, and she was most responsible for introducing me to Led Zeppelin. We fought like demons as kids and were great friends as adults. I'll miss her terribly. I should say that having Mary-Jane in my life has made all the difference going through this, on my own I would be a complete wreck. I mostly worry about my mom and about Rob. I should also say that Ann could not have had a better and more supportive partner than him. At a later date I'll try to post some pictures here. |
| Friday, October 2nd, 2009 | |
| 12:13 pm | The World Will End on Sunday, October 4 We have an appointment with Dish Network, that is to say, yes, after 40+ years of resistence, cable TV is coming to the Lucas household. So sad. Changing technology forced our hand. First came the switch to digital. Helpfully, Pres. Obama moved the date from February, when shows were still airing new episodes, to June, when broadcast TV isn't showing anything that anyone needs to give a shit about. So we got the digital converter (w/ coupon), hooked it up, all was fine. Well, except that with the converter, we could no longer record on our vcr, only play. But it was summer, and we didn't need to record any broadcast shows. Digression: I will concede that we have been cheating for some time, in recording cable shows next door thanks to my mom getting cable a few years back. This allowed us to watch Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Battlestar Galactica, Damages, Saving Grace. btw, you know what spurred my mom to get cable? The local NBC affiliate, after some arcane dispute, moved from SF to San Jose, which, so we were told, would make NBC reception in Oakland iffy. We waited it out, and our NBC reception was fine. But my mom semi-panicked and was all, "You mean I might not be able to see The West Wing? Fuck that noise." Ok, she didn't actually say that last part, but she was rather attached to The West Wing, so she got cable. Anyway. But now it ain't summer no more. The final nail is that Comcast (aka The Worst Company on the Planet), which supplies my mom's cable, is forcing her to get some converter box thing which I suspect will render her own vcr obsolete. So reluctantly, we had to concede that action must be taken. (Note we are not ourselves going with Comcast, not after the nightmare of our cable internet experience.) So I'm here to apologize for the whole world ending thing. Oh, and I'm no expert on these things, but if you see a plague of locusts on the horizon come Sunday, it might be best to stay indoors. We're truly sorry about all this. |
| Monday, September 7th, 2009 | |
| 6:53 pm | Netflix August: The Quickening Race You to the Bottom Amber Benson! And this was almost, almost a good movie. An indie flick about a straight gal and a bisexual guy who both have boyfriends but are secretly having an affair with each other. It's quite watchable and has some good moments but in the end really needed a better script. Nice to see Amber in a starring role, and she's quite good as a character alot bitchier and more assertive than Tara. Battle Royale Cult Japanese movie set in a near future where every year a randomly selected class of school kids is deposited on an island, given randomly selected weapons, and told they must kill each other until just one survivor is left. Played straight and ultra-violent, it's very effective, unapologetic pulp, in spite of some decidedly variable acting. The teenagers behave like recognizable teenagers, which adds to its lurid effect. If it's the kind of thing you go for, it doesn't disappoint. Then Mary-Jane went to England for a couple weeks, and I saw a couple horror flicks solo: Eden Lake I picked this after reading a favorable write-up in Empire magazine, and I should know better. It's part of the sub-genre of which Deliverance is the gold standard, i.e., normal people find themselves hunted like animals in some remote location. In this case, a young couple are vacationing in a wooded area by a lake, get on the wrong side of a group of teenagers, things go from bad to worse, and so on. There's an art to this sort of movie. Arguably my favorite horror movie, the original The Hills Have Eyes, is a variation of this sub-genre. The trick is to walk the line between suspense and sadism. Eden Lake, while not quite torture porn, errs way on the side of sadism. I do not recommend this. My Little Eye A rare animal, a horror flick that Mary-Jane had seen and I had not, which she recommended. Five people, as part of an internet reality show webcast thing, agree to spend six months alone in a house in the middle of nowhere, with no amenities and no contact with the outside world. A million dollars to each if they last the full six months, and nada if even one person leaves early. Things are not as they seem. In spite of blatantly stock characters, this works as a tense, suspenseful little movie, with a genuinely chilling ending. |
| Thursday, August 6th, 2009 | |
| 11:12 pm | Netflix July: 3D: The Revenge Blind Shaft Chinese movie about two miners supplementing their income by killing other miners. Simple, effective story, but mainly this is interesting as a picture of how the poor live in modern rural China. Shock Corridor The word 'potboiler' seems to have fallen into disuse. Too bad, it's a good word. This is a Sam Fuller potboiler from the early '60s--starring Peter Breck of The Big Valley!--set in an insane asylum. I found it a bit too pulpy and over-the-top. I'd recommend The Naked Kiss as a better Sam Fuller potboiler from the same period. Previously seen by Mary-Jane, unseen by me. Same for the two movies below. Roman Holiday I haven't seen many Audrey Hepburn films, for some reason. Sabrina and the suspense movie Wait Until Dark, and that's about it. Roman Holiday is as charming as advertised, much as I remember Sabrina to be. Happy-Go-Lucky I hadn't seen a new Mike Leigh film since Career Girls, and Mary-Jane recommended this after seeing it last year in England. It's about a schoolteacher called Poppy who has what seems an impossibly optimistic outlook on life. She takes some getting used to; in the first 15 minutes, you wonder if her elevator goes to the top floor, she seems almost to not live in the real world. Her bike is stolen, so she decides to take driving lessons, and ends up with Scott as her driving instructor, an angry misanthrope who is essentially her polar opposite. There's not a whole lot of plot, you meet various people in her life and follow her progress learning to drive. Those scenes are somehow funny while at the same time excruciating, as Scott brings out the worst in Poppy. He's so angry and humorless she can't resist needling him constantly, and to be honest, I was half afraid the movie might turn into Taxi Driver at any moment. But it doesn't. It ends up being something remarkable. Eventually you realize that Poppy very much lives in the real world. She sees people clearly, and genuinely tries to connect with them. She's not insipid or daft (which one might think if not really paying attention) but is unapologetically herself and sincerely interested in people. It might be wearying to be around her all the time, she never shuts up and half of her jokes are lame, but there's a real goodness there, without judgment. Sally Hawkins plays Poppy, I'm completely unfamiliar with her, but she's amazingly good. Recommended. |
| Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 | |
| 10:52 pm | Netflix June: Electric Boogaloo 4 movies, first time we've managed one per weekend for a whole month. Let's Scare Jessica to Death Will mentioned this once a long time ago, and I'd heard of it for years but never saw it. This is a low budget horror flick from 1971 about a woman just released from a mental institution who, with her husband and a friend, goes to live in a remote house in the country. And starts seeing/hearing things. Are they real? It's an effective little movie with one major handicap, which is the lead actress gives a really weak performance. Great final scene, though. Deliverance Previously seen by me, unseen by Mary-Jane. What can you say? It's Deliverance. Third time I've seen it, hasn't lost a thing. Still brutal, still a classic. I don't imagine it helped Georgia's tourism industry much, though. Mary-Jane commented that she previously hadn't realized that there was a time when Burt Reynolds was hot. Idiocracy Two people volunteer for an army experiment in which they're put in hibernation and wake up 500 years in the future. In spite of being chosen for being average, they find themselves the two smartest people in the world in a dumbed-down future which is sort of half consumerist nightmare and half Jerry Springer. (Karl's Jr. ad: "Fuck you--I'm eating.") This is a great idea that is about halfway successful. It's very funny in places--the monster truck rally/rehabilitation scene is brilliant. But oddly, the movie seems hampered by being ruthlessly committed to its premise. That is, the main characters (and the audience) are so surrounded by wall to wall stupidity that the effect alternates between hilarity and despair. It's often really funny, and then it starts to just wear you down. Kind of fascinating, actually. I have no idea if this effect was accidental, or intentional. Infernal Affairs The Hong Kong flick that was remade as The Departed. Cop goes undercover in the mob while simultaneously a gangster infiltrates the police dept. Two moles, and neither knows the other's identity. Paranoia and suspense ratchet up from there. Excellent and highly recommended. Best Hong Kong movie I've seen since Hard Boiled. |
| Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009 | |
| 10:53 pm | Netflix May: A New Beginning 2 movies. Partly because we're prioritizing season 2 of Breaking Bad, which we're about halfway through. I was right that the first season mostly sets the table for the meth hitting the fan in s2. The show really hits its stride, it may be the best thing on TV that I'm currently watching. More on this when we finish the season. The Dead Girl This was very good, I recommend it. A drama from a couple years ago, it begins with a young woman's body found in the desert. The movie is told in five chapters from the point of view of different characters whose lives are affected, some who knew the dead girl and others who did not. That could sound gimmicky but it isn't really. Various roles are played by Toni Collette, Rose Byrne, Brittany Murphy, and Marcia Gay Harden, who are all quite good. On a side note, I keep noticing Toni Collette getting cast as characters who are supposed to be seen as unattractive. Really? Only in the movies, man. Fight Club Previously unseen by us, yes that's correct. We now have to resign our membership in the Never Seen Fight Club Club. Which leaves only five Mongolian goat herders as active members. Sorry, guys. (I have, however, still never seen Titanic. Go me.) So what do I have to say about this? Um, mostly that I should have seen it ten years ago, when it was all part of the zeitgeist and stuff. It's weird for a movie from 1999 to seem almost dated. (I had the same sensation when I finally saw The Matrix, long after every other sentient human on Earth.) Not the movie's fault, of course, but it was next to impossible to separate the it from all the cultural whatnot that hangs off it. Also, because it's so much entered the culture, we knew going in about the big reveal late in the movie. That can't have helped. So. I dunno. It was never boring, and frequently funny, but I may be in Roger Ebert's camp of not entirely getting it. And the whole thing of seizing the day and reclaiming one's life or vitality or whatever by purposely getting punched in the face repeatedly--which the movie seems to take seriously--um, no. In conclusion, I'm glad I finally saw it, but I suspect that for me the essential David Fincher film will always be Zodiac. Lola update: Miss cat seems to be doing fine, we give her antibiotics (which she loathes) twice a day, more followup x-rays to come, but she does seem to be past the worst of it. Oh, and a word about timing. We got Lola on May 15, 2004 (I'm blessed/cursed to remember such things), so this May was five years we've had her. She went into the hospital on May 14. Also, May 18? Was our 6th anniversary. Lola's outlook appeared bleak on the day. We did nothing. Didn't even exchange cards we'd already bought until the following Saturday. Finally, you might recall Lola came home on a Friday. That was good, aside from the obvious reason, because on the Sunday two days hence we went to a play called The Lieutenant of Inishmore. This is a very violent (seriously; splatter-movie violent) black comedy about Irish terrorism whose plot revolves around a murdered cat. I couldn't make this stuff up. |
