Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Two Headlines and some pulpy filler - because you’re not ready for an essay
I’m sitting here wondering what to put up here today. I’ve got the red fedora thing, but there’s also all this random update stuff and a few chucklenuggets that feel a bit more time-sensitive, assuming that anything connected to this site has any bearing on anything whatsoever, regardless how timely or stale. But it sort of feels as if the red fedora could use a bit of a breather so I’m going to do a little backfill and bring the entire interborg up to date on everything.
Cousin Justin has just sent us a kind note and a fistful of disks, and a funkier, groovier mix could not be imagined - Jimmy Smith (20 minute track “The Sermon” aptly named) and Keith Richards and Ron Wood (whose track “Crotch Music” actually turns out to be fantastic), and some good ol’ Isaac Hayes. I’ve never before heard Hayes’ song “Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic” (typing the name helped me to pronounce it but I’ve not quite got it yet - and the backup singers have to SING it) but I’ve listened to it about six times since yesterday and like it better each time. Plus, most of what he sent was recorded off vinyl through a USB turntable, so there really is a richness to the sound (as well as the occasional pop or thrush, which actually sounds kind of cool here). So, upshot: great new tunes on board - IN ADDITION TO the huge influx I got from Andrew a few weeks ago. If funk has curative powers, I am on a fast track to recovery.
Sharing the headline with CHUCKLES BATHES IN FUNK is my review of Avatar. No, some people hadn’t seen it yet, and I was one of them, and all of us went to the theater together on Monday morning and caught up. My excuse was BONE SURGERY. I can’t vouch for any of the rest of them. But anyway now I’ve seen Avatar, and I’m getting these vibes: Land of the Lost, filmed at a Spencer’s, designed by Roger Dean; Horton Takes Peyote and Hears a Hoo; basically the same as Running Man but with Giovanni Ribisi as Richard Dawson, which just seems right, doesn’t it? Can’t you see him doing Match Game? Anyway, it was fun and I would recommend it on a big screen theater; I am not sure how well it translates to smaller screens since the detail was so much of the movie. Then again I just saw LOTR on TEEVEE and it was still great - but that was also a much bigger story. Titanic, when I saw it on an airplane without sound, was not that impressive. Then again, neither was Greenland.
Other movies seen recently: Rize (amazing!), Gangs of New York (also amazing!), Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (actually quite good), Julie and Julia (half was pretty good and half was pretty not). I also finished Team of Rivals and the History of the American Stomach, and my short story is now just awaiting some technical input but I am done with it. I’ve started writing other things again, too. I am a fountain of artistic input and output. Well, maybe more of a sump pump, but the principle is generally similar.
updated, with extras: History of Violence, 300 (I’m watching all the stuff in which Kel has expressed the least interest), Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers,” which is pretty interesting and a very fast read; and as of last night, James and the Giant Peach. That’s some efficient enculturation, there, boy.
Nugget of wisdom, learned at the school of Jesse: When you live with a monkey, sometimes some poo’s just gonna get flung. For this moral, I just dare you to compose the accompanying fable.
And that puts me in mind of a conversation I recently had with my boy’s remote-controlled talking R2D2. I thought I’d share it with you because my self-esteem was getting dangerously inflated.
Zach approached me with his plastic toy as I lay sprawled in exquisite repose across the sofa, watching ultimate fighting or the golf network or something equally engrossing. “Dad,” he endearingly whined, “do you want to have a talk with R2?”
“Of course I do, son. Let me hoist my bulk marginally upright and we can get started.”
(...)
“Hey R2, how’s it going?”
“BEEPbeepbepbit HONKblat.”
“Yeah me too. What ya gonna do about it.”
“DeedleBEEPHONK HONKblatBLATwhistletweet!”
“Oh thanks for asking, she’s fine. She asks after you.”
“SweEEKdibblewhistle honkBLATplurp.”
“Right, and I’d had no idea you’d even met before. Really, that woman’s amazing, she knows everybody.”
“WHISTLEhonkBLAT.”
“Right, right. So how’s your mom?”
(...)
“Bippybippy chu-chukka wee-fizzzz.”
“Of course. Of course. Right. That was insensitive of me.”
“Honk beepWHISTLE blatt.”
“No it won’t. I apologize.”
MORAL: If you’re talking to a robot, don’t ask about it’s mother.
That should be enough of all this for now. I guess my prior intimation of coherency was inapt. Next time, for sure. Heh.