Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Last Refuge of Scoundrels - Another Exerpt Post

Once again I have more words to write than I have time to write them.  The story in my notebook is too long to transcribe right now and there are four or five essays percolating that I haven’t been able to bring to fruition yet.  But I want to dump more brainlint on you, my cherished readers, so I’m going back to the well for another chunk of my unfinished opus, Avagadro’s Number.  For those of you keeping count, this is exerpt number 4.  You may now stop counting, and may all your Christmases be white. 

Agent Fraser’s enthusiasm for her employment could only have been tempered by the bleak scene which she had foretold at the intersection of Pandora and South Power.  One streetlamp shone over four broad, unpaved, littered lots.  Dustdevils rose from them all, reaching to touch the streetlight and dissipating weakly before quite making the stretch. Cardboard boxes and rusting parts of refrigerators and washing machines lay scattered like termite mounds.  Cans and bottles had been taken away by entrepreneurs, but piles of rotting papers and vegetables, scrap wood, broken toys covered the ground.  For more than a half a block in every direction, vacancy reigned.  Even the sidewalks seemed lonely.  The women sat in the car, unenthusiastic about the next step of their investigation. 

“Do you have to go through all that trash?”

“I’m prepared to.  I don’t think he’d put such important information in a random pile of garbage, though.”

“So where did he put it?  What’s to search?”

“The wires.” A utilities pole stood next to the lamppost, with a big grey fusebox and four thick crossbeams strung with line 30 feet above the street.  The sounds of the city were muted and distances seemed magnified in the clear night air.  Agent Fraser swung out of her car and opened the trunk with her key.  She took out a canvas bag with a Muni Power logo on it and brought it to the utilities pole. 

Draping the bag on a stubby police call box cowering between the powerline pole and the lamppost, she took out a length of rope and held it in her hand.  She put the carrying straps of the utility bag over each of her shoulders, the bag hanging in front like a bib.  She passed the rope around the pole and leaned back, holding the rope in both hands and pressing her knees against the wooden trunk.  Pulling forward sharply on the rope, she hiked her legs up a few inches and caught the pole with the rope a few inches higher yet.  Her feet were off the ground.  Within a few moments she had hitched herself up seven or eight feet, where metal footpegs had been driven into the wooden pole for easy climbing.  She scrambled up the pegs and stood by the fuse box, the wires above her and below her by only a few feet, well within her reach.  Just a yard or so from her face, across the empty space above the intersection, the streetlamp was shining its jaundiced light through grimy glass. 

Agent Fraser reached into her pocket and pulled out a key, with which she opened the fusebox.  “Looking good,” she muttered as she looked inside.  Her voice sounded very small and it seemed to fall like wet paper to Alma’s ears.  “Telephones and electric.  Interesting.  Maybe something.” She reached into her bib and pulled out a black box and some headphones.  Attaching the box to the fusebox with wires, Agent Fraser spent the next half hour standing like a crane on the footpegs high above the silent street, listening to her headphones, switching and dialing on her black box every few moments.

Eventually, Agent Fraser wordlessly removed the headphones, put her equipment back into her bib, and climbed down off the pole, dropping from the last peg to the ground with a little grunt. “Nothing.”

“You’re kidding; nothing at all after all that time up there?”

“Lots of phones.  Nobody’s talking about anything.  You can’t really tell much from the power lines, but there wasn’t anything to indicate any abuses.  I don’t think this is where the action is.”

They looked around again; if the action was to be found anyplace at all, it seemed unlikely to be this intersection.  Still, Glovebuster’s note had been clear enough once they’d understood what it said. 

“How about that call box?,” Alma asked.  Agent Fraser had been leaning against it after her long perch among the powerlines.  She stood away and looked it over.  The box was blue and faded, and looked as if it had been carved out of iron instead of cast from it.  A metal standard with desultory ornamentation pushed through the concrete, holding a one foot by two foot box about four feet off the ground.  It read “Police Call Box” on the front, had a locked door that swung open, and a blunted point like a Kaiser’s helmet on top. 

“They’re actually Muni Power property,” Fraser said, as she peered into the keyhole and fumbling with her keyring.  “We lease them to the police.  No money changes hands.  It’s a paper transaction, but no one pays much attention since they put radios…”

Fraser had selected a key from her ring and placed it in the hole in the door on the box. Turning it, she froze in position.  She shook and strained, her eyes starting from their sockets; her pupils shrunk to pinpoints in the dim streetlamp’s glow.  Her left hand was spasmodically stretched to the limits of her sinews; her right hand, holding the key, was vibrating and starting to smoke.  Her lips began to foam and she barely choked out a gurgle of surprise.  She snapped the key in two and fell to the ground, eyes still open, still and quiet now. 

Alma rushed to her side, but only in time to confirm the obvious.  She sat on the ground and held the dead agent’s hands in hers.  Frazer’s were preternaturally warm; Alma’s were icy cold.  She rocked back and forth on her haunches.  “Oh God; Oh God...” she muttered, her breath clouding the night air, mingling with the smell of burning wires and seared flesh.  Agent Fraser didn’t seem to be entirely de-electrified, even though she was stone dead; she lay sprawled by the callbox, in a tense and uncomfortable position, her hand still frozen in a grip on the broken half of the key to the call box. 

Alma looked around at nothing everywhere.  She felt, though, as if a presence had joined her, or was about to.  She felt totally exposed, her only friend a corpse.  The street light seemed to snicker at her, but it was just the sound of the electricity in the wires over her head. 

But the snickering was getting louder.  At first she thought that it was just her paranoia, making her think the sound was more intense.  Then she realized that she wasn’t paranoid – she had seen two lives struck down in a single evening.  She had been threatened, accosted, and stranded.  She was in trouble with the cops and her story was so bizarre even she didn’t believe it.  Everything bad was really happening.  There wasn’t any time to be paranoid.  She had enough to worry about as it was.

So she looked back up at the wires buzzing over her head.  They were definitely louder. They were getting louder by the second.  Then a spark flew out from the insulator on the top crossbeam.  It was a harbinger.  The next half-dozen sparks came out of the next-to-bottom wires in a loud burst.  Then the central fusebox blew open.  Inside, an electrical fire raged. Chunks of burning equipment were falling near her.  She sat, shielding Agent Frazer’s head in her lap, staring at the inferno as sparks rained down around her and the high tension wires began to fall, hissing like snakes.  The call box beside her was smoking.  Things were getting worse.

Alma stood and checked her options.  There was nothing to commend any escape route; all four directions seemed equally dangerous, unknowable, suspicious.  No path seemed safe anymore.  A siren resolved in the darkness; she knew it was coming to investigate an electrical fire on South Power Street.  Regardless of knowing the safest way out, she knew that she had to choose a direction and take it.  Fast.  That meant the car.  Unfortunately.

Alma grabbed the keychain from Frazer’s hand.  It was still hot.  She fumbled with it, looking at each key in turn to find one that looked like it would run a car.  The siren was quite distinct now, and a flashing red light pulled around a corner several blocks down to the left; against the utility poles it seemed to cast malevolent shadows, like fingers reaching out to her in the night.  But it was only a single fire truck - that, she could handle.  She turned and checked down to her right - several vehicles coming around a corner near the horizon, with the red flashers joined by blue and white ones as well.  Bad sign. 

She ran to the car, grabbing the longest key on the ring in blind desparation.  It fit the door and the ignition.  She locked herself in and surveyed her new environment.  Contrary to popular opinion, she wasn’t actually totally ignorant of affairs of the wheel.  She’d watched hundreds of people drive, some meticulously, some drunkenly, even amorously once in a while. She knew what had to be done, what it would look like if she did it right.  Just give the key a turn - the starter cam screamed in protest, already engaged.  Alma yelped back, threw the car into reverse, and slammed back squarely into the call box.  It hit the ground, and all the streetlights around went dark.  The only illumination was from the dozen or so fast-approaching sets of headlights converging on the fire, corpse, and wreckage. 

Everything else was dead black - no lights shone, not even Alma’s own headlights, which she was unable to find in the unfamiliar car.  Consequently, she couldn’t see much, and had an excellent excuse, once she located “drive,” for accelerating at maximum speed down the street in front of her and smashing
into a utility pole about 50 yards down along Pandora street.  She was unhurt.  As for her excuse, the police were not interested in it.

Sunday, February 25, 2007

See Theaters for Listings

I am not too good at seeing the Oscar movies before the big night, which I suppose is tonight.  I did see that Sunshine movie, which, as a suicidal gay motivational colorblind cokehead juvenile stripper, I found a bit derivative.  But that’s me. 

Which got me thinking: ME!  Yes, what about the movies I have actually seen, and even enjoyed?  Well there have not been big honking scadloads of those lately but that’s mostly my fault, I am spending too much of my time rebuilding quake-ravaged villages in Bhutan or some goddamn thing or other instead of going out to see movies.

That means that a lot of my favorite movie experiences were experienced way back when I was seeing a lot of movies, which turns out to have been the ‘80s.  But then there were also a bunch of older flicks I stumbled over at some point or other and really enjoyed, and even some more recent releases that just hit me the right way. 

But the main thing is, Me.  I have actually seen some good movies, though most of them not too recently. I decided to make a list of them to share with you, because reading a list of my favorite movies is exactly how I expect most of the rest of the world to want to spend its leisure time on-line. 

In light of the skepticism with which I had to view the above proposition, I decided to make a smaller, more interesting list: obscure movies I’ve liked.  For this purpose, I’m using a broad definition of “obscure”: “likely as not that most people reading this have not heard of it.” Maybe it was a big hit when it came out but no one remembers it anymore; maybe it’s a mindless series of ridiculous jokes and sight gags that flew under the commercial/critical radar; maybe it’s an actually arcane piece of foriegn goods, or maybe it was just a really cool art-house way to spend a chunk of time.  There’s a broad range, but the thing that links them together is that, for whatever reason, I enjoyed all of them, and I’m guessing you haven’t seen them yet. 

Making such a list as this has the ancillary benefit of making me look sophisticated and cultured, because I’ve seen so many interesting films you’ve never heard of.  It doesn’t mean that I’m so uncultured that the only movies I’ve even seen are ones no one else has ever heard of.  How could you even think that, it’s an outrage.  I weep with fury.  I accept your apology.  Let’s move on.

Some of these movies, I’ve seen four or five times; some, only once but I’d watch them again in a heartbeat.  Some are probably really hard to find but several are probably spontaneously generating in your sockdrawer as we speak, which is more an indictment of your sock management skills than an inspirational story of technology run amok.  ANYWAY.  I hope you spend your post-Oscar season compulsively renting all of these movies and enjoying the hell out of them.  The nominees (in random order as generated by my brains) are:

The Runaway Train (1985)
This one is really exciting. Jon Voight, Eric Roberts, Rebecca DeMornay.  ON A RUNAWAY TRAIN.  Oops, spoiler alert. 

The Crazy Family (1984)
I saw this in a theater in LA and laughed my ass off.  Japanese comedy is to comedy as japanese candy is to candy.  Keep an open mind and you’ll be richly rewarded.

The Stunt Man (1980)
Haven’t seen this in a long time, but really enjoyed it.  Peter O’Toole as some kind of freaky movie dude.  I tell ya, the man can make you believe anything. 

F/X (1986)
This is a fun suspense flick about using movie effects to BEAT THE TERRORISTS AT THEIR OWN GAME!  Brian Dennehey, too.  Gotta love the Dennehey. 

Goyokin (Official Gold) (1969)
This is a really beautiful and gripping samurai movie - as I recall, the best I’ve seen.  The final fight is on a snowbank, and the visuals have stuck with me for twenty years.

Wings of Desire (1987)
(and not the more recent nick cage remake) This is a visually stunning movie and has a cool story with a great cast.  Also, it’s German, so the morality issue is nice and opaque. 

Tapeheads (1988)
It’s risky to recommend a comedy I haven’t seen in so long, but come on, John Cusak and Tim Robbins?  Mid-eighties music video technology?  The lead singer from the Bonedaddies, Don Cornelius, Jello Biafra and Sam Moore?  Don’t expect high art and you’ll have a great time.

Highway 61 (1991)
Typical road movie, but this time with a drug-stuffed corpse, the devil, and Falco.  Lots of fun.

Mystery Train (1989)
Jarmusch in a lighter mood - this movie was beautifully constructed, highly entertaining, and had some great lines with even better delivery.

Ran (1985)
Probably the biggest production in this list, a gorgeous retelling of the story of King Lear in feudal Japan.  Acting, cinematography, script, and of course direction are unparalleled.  An incredible epic.

Bowfinger (1999)
Just like Ran, but set in the U.S. and with poop jokes.  A movie I fully intended to dispise and wound up laughing at nonstop.  I’m not proud but I’m honest - this one was pretty damn funny.

Go (1999)
Some people get distracted by the surfiet of WB starlets and starlings, but I never watched that crap so I could enjoy it on its own terms.  Obviously inspired by Pulp Fiction, but with a lighter touch and better sense of humor.

Super Troopers (2001)
If you enjoyed Harold and Kumar, this will leave you gasping for breath.  We kept having to rewind to hear stuff we were laughing over.  Again, not a movie to be proud of liking, but sometimes what you really need are shenanigans. 

UHF (1989)
A risky listing - this is a niche film and for the record I’m not a huge Big Al fan.  But this movie is really a great vehicle for him.  Raul’s Wild Kingdom is a great bit, and Michael Richards hits the high point of his career - years before Signfield. 

Shakes the Clown (1992)
I just remembered this one as I was typing up the blurb for UHF.  Shakes is a funny movie.  Funny “ha-ha,” and the other kind too.  Florence Henderson as the clown-hungry skank and Robin Williams as a mime instructor, back when he didn’t feel guilty about all the cocaine.  That’s entertainment!

Russkiy Kovcheg (Russian Ark) (2002)
Two thousand actors portray 300 years of Russian History in a single two-hour shot.  Bonus: spot Waldo!  No, sorry, really, kick-ass movie. As they say in mutha Russia. 

Chronos (1985)
Cheating!  This is an IMAX movie, and only 40 minutes long.  The “actors” are places so beautiful as to be unnerving, filmed in super-high resolution and with various film-speed variations to render stone and cities almost sentient.  I don’t know how it would translate from a football-field-sized screen to my little home system.  Back in the day, it was truly mindblowing.

Evil Dead II (1987) and III (Army of Darkness) (1992)
As I recall, ED-I was not as great - it took itself much more seriously.  ED-II begins to have some real fun with the “revenge of the creepy house” genre, and then AOD takes it to a whole new level.  Bruce Campbell really chews the scenery.  I’m surprised how many people have not seen these; that’s why they made it on the list.

Tengoku To Jigoku (High and Low) (1963)
Another Kurosawa movie (he also directed Ran and wrote a screenplay on which Runaway Train was based).  This is a very Hitchcock-esque movie, suspenseful and emotionally charged - and all modern, no swordplay or pagentry.  Mifune gives a rich performance as a man forced to choose between prosperity and morality.  Great movie.

Hauru No Ugoku Shiro (Howl’s Moving Castle) (2004)
Not at all like High and Low - pretty much the opposite, a very trippy cartoon about time-space travel and redemption, somehow.  I had some trouble following the story but the visuals more than make up for it.  My favorite of the recent big-screen japanese animation masterpieces.

The Big Hit (1998)
The movie where I stopped having such a ‘tude about Mark Wahlberg.  A heartwarming goofball hitman comedy - something for the whole family, plus sex and violence and Lou Diamond Philips.  A fine slice of escapism.

Additions to this list are welcome.  I can’t promise I’ll get to them right away, but I promise I will keep an eye open for them.  Meantime, I hope you don’t hate any of the movies above.  It would dishonor me, and that would mean a big showdown with the smacking and the whacking and the kicking and so forth.  I just don’t have the energy for that right now.  For God’s sake, people.  For God’s sake. 

Friday, February 23, 2007

Wrong Wrong Wrong

I do want to put up a bit of a post to welcome the weekend but the one I have in mind is a bit too detailed for me to manage right now.  Right now I am stuck thinking about the big blue-ribbon panel meeting I went to yesterday with serious heavy-hitting attorneys, appeals judges, statewide political strategists, and many senior staffers.  It was an interesting and important meeting.  They had a consultant call in at one point to discuss survey strategy and methodology.  His name was Richard Hertz.  It was all I could do not to ask him, “Dick Hertz?” and if he said yes, tell him to sit on an icepack and walk it off.  HA!  I am the funny making.  But really I’m not, because I kept it to myself. But here’s a few others that also seemed wrong lately:

* I got Z a bunch of stickers from a local toy store.  They’re cool stickers, all glittery with fun images like firetrucks and space alien heads and fire.  Plus they’re mylar so they can usually be peeled off without leaving an adhesive mess on my tabletops and eyeballs.  However, the company that distributes them has a brand logo of their name that really looks, on the shelves, like it says NAMBLA.  Anyway, that’s how it looks to me.  I’m just saying, if you’re selling products for little kids, maybe a clearer distinction from the old Man-Boy Love faction would be appropriate. 

* We saw a delivery truck a few days ago with a big sign on the side that suggested it was being used to deliver berries and other agricultural products.  The company name is painted at first in a green font for an agricultural motif, and then a blue font to evoke ripe delicious berries.  But do the owners of this south american company realize that not everybody in the contiguous 48 is ready to start their day with an extreme, highly-charged and adreleline-fueled fistful of aggroberries? 

* When we realized that Zach was getting to be able to vault out of his crib when the spirit (that is, the Spirit of Evil) overtook him, we visited Ikea for-to take a gander at their toddler beds.  We didn’t really find what we were looking for, but I did make two mental footnotes: first, every time I see the International Atomic Energy Agency’s acronym anywhere, I think they’re selling scandanavian design in a box.  “The IAEA has demanded that Iran permit the resumption of oversight at their centrifuges, which are available with variety of finishes and handles to help you turn an everyday room into a special space for your family .” (It does not help that they always seem to show up at nuclear hotspots with those damn meatballs in gravy.) Also - well first, I should apologize, because there is no sport whatsoever in making fun of the names of products at IKEA.  But that is not going to stop me from asserting firmly here and now that I am never going to make my boy grow up in any environment that will turn him into a dicktard. 

I guess that’s all for now.