a microscopic cog in a catastrophic plan

makeup for the cosmetically challenged

2010-11-06T17:17:00.005-05:00

So I'm sitting here in my house, not particularly compelled to a)clean b)cook c)knit d)read e)watch football, so I have belatedly recalled that yes, I do have a blog...and no, I haven't written for it in something like a year, so I'm combining this chore with another: the annual winnowing-out of the appalling amount of makeup I collect. Thought I'd write some reviews, in case you are remotely like me, and strangely compelled to purchase such things without the faintest idea if they work. So allow me to edify you, allow me to save you some money, and allow me to tell you that there are, in fact, some things you can't live without. Men: you, too should pay some attention here. I have seen some pretty grim looks on people of the XY persuasion on TV recently. Like it would kill you guys to use some bronzer once in a while? Anyway, here we go.

Primers: These are, without a doubt, the greatest advance in makeup technology in the last 20 years. But there are a zillion of them, and every single one...if you are to read the Interwebs...is the best. There actually are some differences and uses for some and not others. Basically, they are silicone-based goop that you put on prior to makeup application that makes the makeup stay put.
Category I: face primers. Best whole-face primer: Spackle, by Laura Geller cosmetics. This stuff is great. Smooths out the lines, fills in the creases, makes your foundation stay put, kills shine dead. Now, people are pretty much evangelical about Smashbox PhotoFinish primer, but I think it's too thin and too silicone-y. The Laura Mercier primer is kind of meh, and overpriced. Spackle ain't cheap, but it lasts forever and it comes in a nifty pump. And it works. I kid you not. I tend to only use this, though, for when I need to do a full-metal-jacket whole-face TV-oriented or "big deal evening out" makeup. It's sort of overkill for every day.

Category II: trouble spot primers. Best in class: Primed and Poreless by Too Faced cosmetics. Lightly tinted, sucks up oil, looks natural if you don't want to wear a full-scale, buffed-out foundation+powder over it. Also, it's fairly cheap for what you get. You only need about a pea-sized amount to do what you need to. No, seriously, you'll be tempted to use more because it's awesome, but if you use too much it will clump up and look kind of...well, like you have some sort of communicable disease. Runner-up: Jemma Kidd mannequin skin complexion enhancer. Kind of pearlized, but not too much. Stays put, mattifies, and is available at Target. A little pricey for what you get. But it's pretty good. Second runner-up: "that gal" brightening face primer by Benefit. Does what it is supposed to do, is a pale pink, looks okay but is better for people who are 1)vampire pale and 2) under 40. You look a little goofy trying to be all dewy-skinned and such when you are toting 40-ish years of disappointments, hangovers and sundry unfortunate incidents under your belt.

Category III: eyelid primers. Make your eye shadow stay on and render it crease-proof. Laura's choice: not a primer at all, actually, but gets the job done: MAC Paint Pot eyeshadow in the shade "Painterly." Put it on first, smooth it out, brightens up the eye, eyeshadow sticks to it like nobody's business and you never get creases. You can just put it on by itself and instantly look like you have had about 5 hours more sleep than you got. Now, I need to throw in here that my sister Amy, whose experience with eye makeup makes me look like a rank amateur, is all about Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer Potion. I tried it once and it made my eyelids itch...which is about par for the course with me. I have insanely sensitive eyes. But she swears by the UDEPP, and really, you'll have to take my word for this, she knows what she's talking about. So if you don't have super-sensitive eyes, this stuff is very good, according to someone who knows. My runner up in this category is Shadow Insurance from Too Faced, which I like but seems to run out of gas after about 6 hours. On the other hand, it does not make my eyelids itch, so there's that.

Category IV: eyelash primers. For years, I wondered what the heck was up with me and my strange, impermeable and apparently Teflon-coated eyelashes. I couldn't make any mascara stay put. Waterproof mascara was no match for my eyes. The mascaras that you put on and they turn into little tubes of goo on your lashes? Nope. Slid right off. So I was not much of a mascara-wearer, until I got this TV gig and I had to tell the makeup people that this mascara business? wasn't gonna work on me. And they said, "oh, that happens to everyone. Here, use this." And they gave me some eyelash primer. And the rest, as they say, is history. Best in class: Blinc Lash Primer. You can get it at Beauty Brands or Sephora or Ulta. Big beauty stores tend to have it. Cheap, works great, cute packaging. Done deal. Runner-up: Lorac lash primer. Harder to find, slightly more expensive. Still works great. Forget anything you find in CVS of Walgreens claiming to be a lash primer. Never works. Never.

Well, I could go on like this all day, but I'll cut to the chase, basically letting you know what I'm keeping, out of this mountain of products, because it works. Everything else? Buh-bye. I don't want to end up on an episode of "Hoarders," having collapsed under a mountain of old cosmetics.

Best undereye moisturizer: La Prairie cellular contour eye cream. Upside: actually works to make your wrinkles less crepey and firms up the skin under your eyes. This, I find, makes LPCCEC unique amongst eye creams. Lasts 2 or 3 months, as a little goes a very long way. Downside: costs as much as a good king-size down comforter. Doesn't come in a pump, which is more sanitary and all. Second choice: Avalon Organics Coenzyme Q10 Cellular Renewing Wrinkle Defense. Upside: works okay, moisturizes well, though it's no LPCCEC. Comes in a pump, doesn't make my horribly sensitive eyes sting at all, smells like lavender, is under 20 bucks (!) and you can get it at either your co-op or an grocery store with a good health-foods section. Downside: is not LPCECC. Not particularly good at reducing wrinkles, but at least you're making an effort.
Undereye moisturizers that sting my eyes and/or do not appear to either reduce wrinkles or moisturize? Olay Pro-X. Garnier Nutritioniste. ROC Retinol Undereye Cream. Neutrogena Wrinkle Defense. Clarins Eye Serum. Lancome Eye Serum. Elizabeth Arden Eye Serum. La Mer. Clinique Repairwear Undereye. Estee Lauder Eye Serum. Aveda Tourmaline Eye Cream. Lumene Undereye Cream. Seriously, you get the picture. I've tried about every drugstore cream and a lot of dept. store brands. If you have a question about one, call me -- I've probably tried it at some point. The two I recommended are the only two that ever didn't make my try to claw my eyes out or induce horrible red puffiness (or, for those of you new to cosmetics: "do the diametric opposite of what undereye cream is supposed to do").
Best expensive foundation: Chanel. People go on and on about the Laura Mercier but I am not a fan...I think it's too sticky and never really sets well. If you have 50 bucks to blow on foundation, go with the Chanel Teinte Illumineé.
Best midrange foundation: MakeUp For Ever Mat Velvet. Looks great. Stays put. Good range of colors...I think if you are male and have been asked to appear on TV, you should consider getting some of this stuff. Really blends well.
Best drugstore foundation: The late, lamented Revlon Skinlights. It was discontinued. Revlon PhotoFinish is pretty good, as is Sally Hansen Inspired by Carmindy liquid foundation. I'm really pale, and they both have pale enough shades that don't turn out yellow on my skin. Most other drugstore foundations' palest shades are too dark for me.
Best loose translucent powder: Laura Mercier.
Concealer: Amazing Cosmetics Amazing Concealer. Best I've ever used, by a mile. Expensive, but lasts forever. 2nd-best: Benefit's Erase Paste in shade No.1. Under no circumstances should you ever use CoverGirl or Almay concealers. They do not, in a word, conceal. Plus, they have that dopey doe's-foot applicator. Don't use it. Put on the concealer and then repeatedly tap it into your skin, don't smear. It won't stay put very well, but if you're in a bind (i.e., on your way to the prom, need something right now for under five bucks, and you happen to be at Wal-Mart), it will do for an hour or so.
Best pressed powder: Chantecaille, in Very Light. Hard to find, but is great.
Best bronzer: Trish McEvoy. Go with Bronze #1. If you don't like this, try the St. Tropez Mousse Bronzer in the lightest shade. Bonus: has SPF 15 in it.
Best powder blush: Trish McEvoy in Barely There.
Best creme blush: Dream Mousse by Maybelline in Soft Plum. Stays put all day!
Best lip stain: BeneTint original (don't be suckered into the PosieTint! It is way too pale -- I gave it to a friend for her daughters to play with. )
Best lip balm: well, this is embarrassing but I make it myself. It's a shea-butter lip balm. If you want some, ask me. I don't like commercial lip balms at all.
Best lipstick: True Red - Chanel's Star Red, with MAC Russian Red getting an honorable mention. Pink - MAC Petals and Peacocks (English rose pink), MAC Girl About Town (magenta-ish) or American Beauty Very Pink (true pink, blue undertone). Coral-pink: La Prairie Rose Bronze (beware! $$$$) or Maybelline Sweet Nectar (like, about 300% cheaper, looks about the same). Mauve: Aveda Nourish-Mint Lipstick in Sugar Apple.
Best eyeliner: Bobbi Brown gel eyeliner in Cobalt or Plum.
Best drugstore eyeliner: LÓreal Telescopic in Waterproof Ultra-Black.
Best mascara: Maybelline Lash Discovery. Here's the thing about mascara -- you really ought to throw it away every 3 months or so, so it makes no sense to buy expensive mascara. If you use primer, any kind really will get the job done. Runner up: Physician's Formula Lash Enhancer.
Totally useless? Neutrogena Lashtint. Totally overrated? Great Lash. That stuff looks horrible on me and is gloppy and goes all over the place. But if you love it, good on ya. Let me know, 'cause I keep buying it and then throwing it away, and I might as well give it to you.
Best expensive mascara that I will use if I win the lottery? Fresh Cosmetics Firebird Mascara in Charcoal Grey. Best free sample mascara ever? Fresh Cosmetics Supernova Mascara in Jet Black. They frequently will give you samples of this at Macy's. Just sayin'.

Well, that's all I have the energy for at the moment. More cosmetic trivia anon, plus a discussion of perfume. In the meantime, happy November. Talk to you soon.

A Microscopic Cog in a Catastrophic Plan by Laura Lorson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at witheringexhaustion.blogspot.com.

the military-industrial-entertainment complex

2009-10-22T08:47:00.003-05:00

hey there, hi there, ho there -- I just realized that I have been HORRIBLY lax about updating this, so here's the short version.

The store moved.

Kelly broke some bones by falling off a ladder.

I had a terrible case of poison ivy.

I broke a toe.

There was one day where Finnegan would not stop barfing. The solution, according to a vet, was to feed him some cough medicine. This led to Finnegan not stopping barfing, and now barfing in a vivid, Technicolor red. We are still working on getting the carpets back to normal.

My sister had a baby. It is a girl. Her name is Emerson.

I am going to enter the Pillsbury Bake-Off.

I got the flu. I think it was H1N1, but that may just be wishful thinking, because it seems more daring.

I recovered from the flu.

I made apple butter, pumpkin butter, elderberry tincture, and Danish. (These were not all part of the same recipe.)

People were apparently tortured during the Bush Administration by being forced to listen to music including Metallica, Britney Spears and the BeeGees. In short -- the Bush Administration would have apparently saved money and time by locking their detainees at my house. There would have been no waterboarding, and I could have tried out my Pillsbury BakeOff recipes on them.

I continue to be mystified by pretty much everything.

A Microscopic Cog in a Catastrophic Plan by Laura Lorson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at witheringexhaustion.blogspot.com.

the quiet summer symphony of cicadas and tree frogs

2009-08-03T20:13:00.003-05:00

It's hot here in Jefferson County, which is actually a phrase that any number of people in pretty much any state in the union could be writing right now. I've been feeling kind of beaten-down by life lately, and keep hanging on to the idea that come autumn, things will be better. I'm not much of a fan of summer. I have never liked the humid heat, which is unfortunate, given that I have never lived anywhere that the two don't go hand-in-hand. Still, I get a little nostalgic for my childhood when the temperatures rise and I find myself in a room that's just a little too hot to be comfortable. When I was a kid, I would sit in my (generally sweltering) room and read, or listen to the radio, and convince myself that if I could just lay as still as possible, the heat wouldn't be so bad. Another thing that conjures up "heat" for me is hearing any song by Little Willie John, or anything from the series of records called "Oldies But Goodies," of which my father had about 10. So in short, anything on Ace or Roulette or Chess, old rock and roll of the Huey "Piano" Smith school -- all of this conjures up maddening, stifling heat and the orange-gold light of early-evening, the kind that cinematographers wait for all day and is flattering to everyone, even when you're caked with sweat and grime and one more day's failures to be brilliant, world-altering, and compassionate.
I've been playing with the dogs this evening, who are also not summertime fans, and this makes me feel better. It makes me think that it is not the fault of the hyper-critical, rational mindset I have always had that makes me hate the weather. I made some peach tea, and took a book outside to read, where it's just this side of stifling, listening to the sun set. Autumn will come soon enough, I suppose, and then winter, then spring. These things that seem awful now will eventually become stories filled with asides about my own intemperance and foible, and I will forget that it was as bad as it currently seems. When I come inside, I can hear the tree frogs singing in four-part counterpoint, and I forget that just minutes ago, I was outside and couldn't hear them at all over the noise of my own brain. Distance and time are gifts.

enough already with the confessing! freundlaven!

2009-07-01T06:24:00.004-05:00

Unquestionably, this will mean more to those of you who were fans of Animaniacs. "Commence with the screaming and running and the hair-pulling and the freundlaven!" being the signature of the Animaniacs' Jerry Lewis auteur-like feller. "Freundlaven! Flamiel! HOYL! How'd you...with the going...you were there...but here now...you are...for me to see...how'd you do..."

Anyway, seriously, Mark Sanford? You were just kind of sadly, weirdly pathetic the other day (what with the hubris and the talking and the schlockiness ...freundlaven!) but now you are squicking me out. Enough with the Argentina and the mistress and the Harlequin Romance-inspired monologues. HOYL! You make me want to put my fingers in my ears and chant "lalalalalalalala"until you go. Away.

Not romantic. Gross. If I were that Jenny Sanford (re: Mark Sanford:"I'm going to try to fall back in love with my wife"), I'd say, "wow, that's really big of you, but please don't put yourself out. You derivative, soap-opera watchin', two-timin', tango-dancin' self-consciously self-serving piecea poo."

you've got to get it right while you've got the time

2009-06-25T18:12:00.003-05:00

Tonight, the world's all agog with the news about Michael Jackson, and I myself am not sure how to feel about it. I think this is a watershed moment, actually, kind of like when Elvis died. A hinge moment, I think they call it. A tipping point. I mean, Elvis was about the dawn of a new kind of youth culture, an engineered kind of celebrity, a tale of promise gone to success gone to seed. He started out as a marginally talented kid who got rounded up by some hucksters who realized that the time was ripe for something new, something different, a little bit dangerous and ultimately all about sex...and the denial of its power, even as it was being flaunted in this sort of creepy, underage way. Elvis and his crack team of handlers went about it by merging black and white music, and that was also the genius of Quincy Jones and MJ, successfully emasculating and white-ifying funk on the dance floor...though I will unkindly point out that while Elvis was about a figurative merger of black and white, MJ took things a little farther than people were comfortable with, given the whole "gradually becoming white"/"maybe it's vitiligo"/ "plastic surgery addiction" thing.

Anyway. Elvis dying was an end of an era, and a moment when people about the age I am now stopped for a moment and thought, "oh, I really liked him when I was a kid." It got to be one big mortality-check for people just on the cusp of middle age. But you know, the Elvis death stopped everyone for a moment, and people all rushed to Graceland and started this whole (to my mind) odd thing where you leave candles and teddy bears and flowers and such to rot in front of some random place, as though the places themselves are magical and mystical and somehow imbued with the dearly-departed's spirit. I myself think that there was more of the spirit of Elvis embedded in the walls of Sun Studios. Anyhow, I see this kind of continuum, this kind of arc of the Cult of Celebrity, maybe beginning with Elvis, reaching its apogee with Princess Diana, and then, perhaps, just perhaps, ending here, with the sad news today about this poor kid from Gary who was turned into a moneymaking machine, who never got the chance to really create any kind of self outside what the public decided he was supposed to be. I think the weirdness displayed by MJ in the last 10 years fed on itself -- that was how he got publicity, it was how he stayed in the public eye, and being used to the star-maker machinery of the 70s and 80s, that was all he really knew how to do. The new, faster, frankly more vicious celebrity machine of the here and now was something he didn't know how to cope with, I think.
But maybe this will be the thing that changes the paradigm. I mean, I'm not holding my breath, but you never know. The death of Elvis marked the end of the beginning of the whole created, bought-and-paid-for, mass-marketed celebrity culture. Maybe the death of Michael Jackson will mark some kind of ending of the end. Maybe now is when we've finally reached critical mass, now that the tabloid poster child for The Sickly Fascinating Odd has passed to his great reward, whatever that may be. Maybe now is the time that people quite caring about random pretty people doing random things, being famous for fame's sake. Between Jon & Kate, Spencer & Heidi, Robert & Kristen, LiLo, Paris...maybe now is the time when we're all so sick and tired of ourselves and our apparently limitless voyeurism (and our fellow-travellers' apparently limitless exhibitionism) that we can't stand it any more. Though probably not.

I was reading my friend Doug's observation that he was someplace, as the news about Michael Jackson was unfolding, and everyone was staring down at their communication devices, thumbs flying across the keys. I find this unbearably compelling, and unbearably sad. No one wants to look each other in the eyes any more at a time of startle and shock. We want to look at the screen, which is looking back into us, just like the abyss. Or maybe I'm just reading too much into it. Wouldn't be the first time. We want to know everything, we want to know it now, we're feeding the beast to the point of bursting and we still want more. We are making things worse, just when we thought that *more, more, more information* would make things all better. Someone asked me about an hour before the official death announcement came what was going on, and I went to TMZ.com for the latest news. Then I went to Twitter. What does this say? When did this happen? What's the next step? Who are we becoming?

He was a guy in over his head. He made some good records. Every time he'd go to Japan, I'd think of Don DeLillo's book "Mao II," which opens with the thought that the face of the future is the face of the frenzied mob. Ordinarily rational people started wearing red leather jackets with too many zippers so they could be more like him. He was driven mad by having the world at his feet -- a common enough tale. Like Ozymandias, King of Kings (no, not the Watchmen character). Look upon his works, ye mighty, and despair.

Antoinette Perry, we salute you (with glittery hats and jazz hands)

2009-06-08T13:03:00.002-05:00

I love the Tony Awards. I like them much better than the Oscars, which I also watch every year. The Tony Awards actually seem to matter to the theatre community...much more so than the Academy Awards do to Hollywood. Anyway, I have been a regular viewer of the Tonys (Tonies?) since my childhood. I remember

--the year the Tony Awards were broadcast from the point-of-view of Bonnie Franklin
-- learning who Bob Fosse was from the Tony Awards
-- learning who Stephen Sondheim was from the Tony Awards
-- being stunned to learn that Boyd Gaines was actually a Broadway actor more than a bit-part TV actor
--figuring out who Harold Prince is
--seeing Bernadette Peters sing with a voice like a foghorn while skipping around doing a number from "Sunday in the Park with George"
--learning that whatever it was, Broadway was something fundamentally different and more immediate than a movie

and so, for all their faults, I love the Tony Awards, and will faithfully watch, every year, just because I think this is the kind of awards show that actually OUGHT to be televised, if just to see the warmth and good humor of the Broadway community.

That is all.

to dream the impossible dream. to drive the undriveable car. to do the impossible job. to open the unopenable jar.

2009-05-27T20:27:00.003-05:00

This week feels like it is never going to end. I am not, not, resolutely not going to discuss my job on this page, but basically, I feel like I have aged ten years in the last ten days. I am not having a good time.

Elsewhere, though, I find myself in one of those almost obsessive-compulsive feedback loops, wherein everything is going through this Man of La Mancha "impossible dream" filter. Which is to say, for those of you who are uninitiated, that mentally, everything is "the un-__________-able _______." I am drinking the undrinkable Coke Zero. I am washing the unwashable dishes. I am wearing the unwearable shoes, writing the unwritable piece, sleeping in the un-sleep-on-able bed, petting the unpettable dog. Whatever, I get on these kicks. Every now and again, one of these will strike me as completely hilarious and I'll burst out laughing. I get looks indicating that perhaps I'd be better off in a home of some kind.

Of course in my head, I hear it sung to the tune. "To eat...the uneatable pie! To pack...the unpackable box! To cook...the uncookable dinner! To mate....the unmateable socks! To feed! The! Un! Feed! A! Ble!.....DOGS!"

Whatever, it's a game and it's funny and at the moment, it's what is keeping me (what passes for) sane.

I just think it will happen, soon

2009-05-13T14:21:00.002-05:00

I'm on a little bit of a Philip Larkin kick here, lately. Don't worry -- it will pass, and we will return you to your regularly-scheduled swooning over T.S. Eliot, William Stafford and Ted Koozer.

ods bodkins

2009-05-08T13:51:00.002-05:00

Weird words of the day*:

logy
pumpkin
misled
ragamuffin
saturnine
whiffle
avoirdupois
reify
mugwump

* I know what they all mean. They just sound strange to me. It's weird that they wound up being English, if you know what I mean.

on watching 'willy wonka and the chocolate factory'

2009-04-11T13:07:00.002-05:00

Okay, so I saw this film maybe 15 times as a child, as it was the "Overboard" or "Under Siege"of its day -- constantly in reruns, constantly on television. I probably have not watched it in 15 years. I just watched the first 40 minutes. I submit herewith a list of things I do not understand.

1) When exactly is this film happening? There's television, but Charlie's mother is still doing laundry in a giant cauldron with lye soap that she stirs with a giant wooden pole? No wonder they are starving to death. There's TV, there are live satellite feeds, and this woman is basing her livelihood on the odds that people somehow don't have washing machines? Or, alternatively, are lonesome for Victorian England and want to re-live the magic by sending out their laundry to her, rather than to a dry-cleaner or a commercial laundry?

2) Who is paying for all this candy in the opening "candy man" candy store scene? Are all of these children running tabs? Do their parents pay at the end of the month? If the shopkeeper is throwing taffy all over the place in giant, swooping arcs, why would he care if Charlie scooped up a piece and then ran out the door? What is this guy's shrinkage cost per month?

3) What exactly is the content of tomorrow? According to Bricusse and Newley, the songwriters, the candy man:
"can take tomorrow, dip it in a dream...separate the sorrow and collect up all the cream."
So I surmise that either tomorrow or dream is in fact at least partially dairy. The sentence implies that some component of tomorrow or a dream is sorrow, which at some point is separated, presumably because it does not taste particularly good. 100% sorrow-free cream sounds like a pretty good idea, but I'm not sure why a candy man is doing this. Is it some kind of sideline business?

4) Grandpa Joe seems like a real son of a bitch. He says "one of these days I'm going to get out of this bed and help out," yet we learn from his daughter that he has not done so in more than 20 years. GJ then states that he would do so if the floor were not so cold, a not-so-thinly-veiled dig at the daughter, who cannot adequately heat the shack in which they live.

5) The family lives in a shack, with a superannuated television, one 40-watt lightbulb, and a king-sized four-poster bed, apparently with bedlinens (which are not particularly inexpensive for king-size, but I digress). Four elderly people, two men and two women, sleep, eat, and god-knows-what-all in this bed. They never leave the bed. How exactly is there a child left in their custody? DCFS should have paid a call on these people by now.

6) They are eating, fairly regularly, something described by Charlie as "cabbage water." There is apparently no money for spices or bread to accompany this meal. Yet the grandfather mentions that he smokes tobacco. Charlie offers to pay for the tobacco. The grandfather demurs, but then his (evil? stupid?) daughter protests: "It's only a pipe a day, Dad." So she is enabling the grandfather's tobacco addiction, and is not averse to her child working at an under-the-table cash-payment-only job delivering newspapers to facilitate this?

7) Wouldn't Grandpa George, Grandma Georgina, Grandpa Joe and Grandma Josephine be drawing SSRI disability payments? Wouldn't Charlie's mother be drawing Social Security survivor benefits after her husband died? It seems there is some mismanagement of funds taking place here that may border on the criminal.

8) Tinkers roam the streets, offering their knife-sharpening services. And this is taking place when?

9) Grandpa Joe, far from being kindly and charming, decides that despite not working...nay, not GETTING OUT OF BED for twenty years...that he would like to go see the inside of the Chocolate Factory with his grandson. His legs, however, have not atrophied, so I am assuming that at night he is getting up and exercising, or sneakily going for walks or smoking or something. It turns out that despite an initial equilibrium problem, he is actually fine enough to go on a six-hour walking tour of a facility that must, to a starving child, seem like a cruel temptation and mockery of justice. Also, he has a very nice cane, which seems a little amiss in this landscape of poverty.

10) The part about the musical lock? The woman says it's Rachmaninoff? It's not. It's Beethoven. It's the opening of Fidelio.

10) WW&tCF was made in 1971. Amnesty International was founded in 1961. I am skeptical of their silence on the Oompa-Loompa question.

I had to quit watching then, because I was getting too annoyed. Also? Bricusse and Newley? Argh. Who thought this was a good idea?

the peculiar comfort of lowered expectations

2009-04-09T09:59:00.001-05:00

thank you Royals -- you're .500, that is all, repeat ALL, I ask of you.

kyle farnsworth

2009-04-08T09:57:00.002-05:00

well, that was 4.5 million dollars well-spent. PHILO Farnsworth would have known better than to pitch Thome straight up the middle on 2-and-1 in the bottom of the eighth, and he died in 1971.

Another fabulous season of Royals baseball awaits.

rule 6.05

2009-04-06T20:41:00.003-05:00

Okay, so another baseball season is upon us, for which I am profoundly, humbly grateful, and I'm the kind of person who actually DOES keep score at home, plays rotisserie-league baseball and loves the ever-lovin' heck out of the game, and I swear, I just don't get the infield fly rule. I have had it explained to me and it always makes sense at the time, and then I try later to remember what it is and it's beyond me. Kind of like general relativity, or Fermat's last theorem -- I get this quick flash of complete comprehension, like the green flash on the sea at sunset, and then it's gone.

Anyway, the advent of baseball always makes me feel good, cozy and quiet inside, secure in the knowledge that on any given evening from April through September, I can hunker down with a radio and listen to a game, announced in a way that leaves room for daydreaming and breathing and seeing the whole game, all complete, just like Einstein field equations, now that I'm thinking of it. Maybe that's what I like about baseball -- the game of Euclid, the game of angles, the game of grassgreen and chalkwhite and stripes mown into the outfield -- it changes the way you see things, if just for a couple (or three or four or if it's an AL/NL matchup, five) hours.

It's still not gonna reconcile me to the designated hitter, though.

In other news: a woman I work with wears a perfume made with heliotrope. I mentioned it to her, saying how it was unusual, and she had no idea what I was talking about. She said she thought it smelled like roses. Which it most certainly does NOT. Whatever, if that's what she thinks it is, and she likes it, I suppose to her it does indeed smell as sweet, no matter the name. I just want to know how you get up past the age of 20 and have never smelled what a rose smells like. Which, for the record, is not like heliotrope, not at all.

Oh, well. This is where complex, elegant rules like those in baseball would be useful in the workplace. I say, "nice heliotrope perfume, that's really unusual" and my co-worker says "it's not heliotrope, it's roses, what is wrong with you?" I could defer to the umpire, who in the absence of knowing the difference between roses, heliotrope, opoponax and stephanotis, would call it an infield fly: runners advance at their own risk, and everyone just rolls with it. Crisis averted. Now, if we could just figure out who keeps leaving their old, mold-encrusted coffee mugs in the sink. Maybe we could appeal to the 3rd base line judge on who keeps committing this outrage: we could rule it's Stephen Bartman, for lack of a better scapegoat, and the world will continue to spin on in its epicycles, apogee and perigee, steadfast and solemn.

stepping lightly, just like a ballerina

2009-02-28T16:03:00.004-06:00

I know I have been bad about updating this, but I'm turning over a new leaf. Or, at least, things are just now starting to get interesting again.

What is up with all the sudden rhapsodizing over 'Astral Weeks?' In the last 72 hours I have heard at least 5 people talking about Van Morrison and this record. Hmph. I love this record. I have loved it ever since I switched over from hating it, about 20 years ago. I thought it was strange in 1985, but it stuck with me. I realized that I loved it in about 1988, and all things being equal this mattered not at all, as it rarely came up. Now in the last three days, everyone's suddenly all enthusiastic about it. Ok, whatever. Where were you people when I was un-confident in my own musical tastes? Now that I don't need validation, they're everywhere. I will never, everever grow so old again. Hearing the 2 pieces on NPR, the one TV piece, seeing the three magazine articles, I will try not to feel smug and instead just suggest that yes, it would be a good idea to listen to 'Astral Weeks' again soon. An aside: I associate this music strongly with the beginning of spring. The songs are all shades of green and yellow, and they make me think of things growing in good black soil, stretching for the light of the sun.

Here's something odd that happened today. I went to the pet store to purchase some dog food for the beasts, and as usual there were not enough cashiers, so I'm standing there with a 40-pound sack of Nutro Natural Choice Small Bites in Lamb and Rice Meal slung over my right shoulder as casually as only a 40-pound sack of Nutro Natural Choice Small Bites in Lamb and Rice Meal over one's right shoulder can be, and anyway this woman is taking an eternity up at the checkout stand, and she's just prattling away to the bored teenager who is waiting for her to finish writing out her check. Now, I'm aggravated because I'm waiting and holding this giant bag of dog food, and this nimrod is writing a check(!) and having to fish out her driver's license (!) and she's off on this tangent about, I don't know, switchgrass or something that she is growing for her skunks (!). Anyway, so she suddenly stops in this middle of this soliloquy and looks right. at. me. and says "I have seven cats. What do you say to that?" And I say, "um, me?" and she says "yes. I have seven cats, what do you say to that?" and I think okay, what am I going to say to this, and so what I say is this:
"Oh, wait, I know the answer to this one. The answer is one. I am the one going to St. Ives."
And the woman just *looks* at me. And takes her stuff and goes out the door. So the teenager is ringing my stuff up now and says: "You're weird." Okay, this woman was just talking at this kid for like 15 minutes at top speed and volume about having seven cats (which pretty much is game-set-match on the insanity question) and raising skunks and switchgrass, and I'm the one who's weird, huh?

The world spins on, apace. Retail service-industry teenagers think I'm weird. Music reviewers can't get enough of a 40-year-old Van Morrison record. I can't wait to see what happens tomorrow.

an anecdote that will probably interest precisely one reader of this blog

2008-10-14T10:22:00.001-05:00

Sophia Hawthorne used to call Herman Melville "Mr. Omoo." I find this rather charming. That is all.

the radical scaling back of one's expectations

2008-10-08T11:16:00.003-05:00

I was in the grocery store a couple of days ago, and was trying to purchase less and get more out of the whole experience. I went ahead and splurged on a very expensive (okay, comparatively speaking) Honeycrisp apple. It was exceptionally good. I'm not kidding around, this apple restored my faith in agriculture, median voters, and the American economic system. I kind of now want to tell everyone who's all tied up in knots over the current world situation: go eat a really good apple, and really concentrate* on it while you are eating it. This little Zen sort of moment will do you a world of good.

* by concentrate on it, I mean really think about everything that has to do with this apple. Hold it in your hand, look at it, think about how it grew, and how you ended up getting it, and feel the heft and weight of it, then eat it slowly and think about the texture and the taste. Okay, fine, make fun of me -- I'll go sign up for an OCD support group now.

apocalypse postponed; what to read while you wait

2008-10-01T11:06:00.003-05:00

I have been reading a great deal (which sounds remarkably like "I have travelled a good deal in Concord...") and I can definitively recommend the following for a fine diversion, which might come in handy about now, if you are sick to death of politics and politicking and the Cassandrine wails of the media. Yes, I know that titles of books are to be underlined, but I'm on a clamshell terminal here and that is not working out.

"Uncivil Seasons" by Michael Malone
"The Decameron" by Bocaccio
"The Persian Expedition" of Xenophon (I love the little snarky asides -- like the part where he describes the Syrians as very nice but oddly entranced by fish)
"The Red Book Mabinogion"
"The Normans in Sicily" by John Julius Norwich
"Girls on the Run" by John Ashbery
"Local Wonders" by Ted Kooser
"The Story of Edgar Sawtelle" by David Wroblewski (I know, it's an Oprah, but I started it before she signed off on it)
"Genie du christianisme" by Chateaubriand
"Hymn of the Universe" by Teilhard de Chardin
"Akt und Sein" by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
"Isis Unveiled" by Helena Blavatsky (I know, I kept meaning to get to it, and now I did)

books you can skip, if you want:
"Special Topics in Calamity Physics" by Marissa Pessl
"Sweetheart" by Chelsea Cain

This is for those of you keeping score at home. Just doin' my part to keep people reading, in the face of crushing indifference.

where are we going, and why am I in this handbasket?

2008-09-30T09:34:00.002-05:00

Well, things seem fairly dire at this point, so in that greatest of all American traditions, I've decided to just not think about it. I mean, I lay awake last night in a complete cold sweat thinking about global financial meltdown and was all panicked and upset...so at about 4 am, I got up and played with my dogs and decided to watch a DVD collection of Warner Bros. cartoons that a friend of mine gave me. I felt much better. Everyone else seems to have some kind of plan -- Henry Paulson, Newt Gingrich, innumerable bloggers -- mine is, as of right now, to eat chocolate pudding and play with my dogs. I believe that Congress should buy everyone a pony. It would improve the fundamentals of the livestock/equine breeding market, and the nation's hay-baling equipment manufacturers. Also, the construction industry -- we're all going to need barns. It's no stupider than other stuff I've heard in the last 72 hours.

...and the ambiance has that certain je ne sais quoi

2008-09-10T10:20:00.002-05:00

This is the funniest thing I have read in weeks -- Camille Paglia, via Salon.

"One reason I live in the leafy suburbs of Philadelphia and have never moved to New York or Washington is that, as a cultural analyst, I want to remain in touch with the mainstream of American life. I frequent fast-food restaurants, shop at the mall, and periodically visit Wal-Mart (its bird-seed section is nonpareil)."

Its bird-seed section. Is. Nonpareil.

I snorted sodapop out my nose. I'm trying to imagine Camille in all sorts of places she would consider plebeian, describing them in her own "you little people need an anthropologist to tell you what's what" sort of way.

Camille Paglia at Burger King: their ground-beef patty sandwiches are exquisite.
Camille Paglia at Costco: the ready availability of 20-pound jars of mayonnaise and packages of frozen shrimp the size of peat-moss bags is toujours perdrix.
Camille Paglia at Kohl's: the 80%-off rack is sine qua non.
Camille Paglia at Kansas Speedway: the tailgating is a veritable Montmartre (immediately preceding the French Revolution).
Camille Paglia at Tractor Supply Company: its vast selection of bagged pet foods and John Deere-logoed outerwear reveals a Midwestern weltanschauung of thrift and practicality.

Sheesh. Camille Paglia, everywoman. (slaps hand to forehead, rolling of eyes)

a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma

2008-08-27T13:49:00.003-05:00

View halloo to one and all. I have been a little depressed, which I am chalking up to the election season (now 50% longer! with lemon-freshened enzymes!). I go home at the end of the day, looking forward to no electronic input of any kind. I have been reading a lot of Greeks and Romans and historians thereof, to remind myself that really, things were not exactly *better* as the Normans grew to power in Sicily. It occurs to me that the Fall of the Roman Empire might have been hastened had there been 24-hour cable news coverage of it.

I have a question -- do we, as a country, now have on hand a quantity of portable trailers that outgas somewhat-less formaldehyde than previously? Because it appears that we may need them, in the same darn place we needed them before. Don't even get me started.

I was given something called "Amish friendship bread" today, which appears to be a kind of sourdough starter for a kind of quickbread. If you can call something that takes ten days of mixing and adding stuff a quickbread. Not sure what this is supposed to be -- will I eat it and discard all my clothing with zippers? I'll have a slice and suddenly feel compelled to go to a barn-raising? I'll let you know.

My perusal of Tacitus proceeds apace. My Latin, rusty from disuse, is getting progressively better. I find that the more I read in another language, the less time I have for reading political blogs and comments areas of newspapers, and the better I feel about the world. Here's the scorecard so far: Germanicus? Awesome. Agrippina? Not so much. Crispus? Thumbs up. Tiberius? Kind of a creep.

I wish there were some sort of modern-day Tacitus. I suspect that if such a person exists, he/she is, in fact, a political blogger. It is thus with a kind of hope-tinged regret that I find myself reading many, many, many of these kinds of blogs. Mostly, it makes me exasperated that this great opportunity (i.e., the opening up of the great digital podium for all to speak) has attracted so many people who, quite frankly, cannot write. "You with your jejune little grammatical rules! How dare you tell me, The Chronicler of Our Age, that I need a better understanding of the subjunctive mood? How dare you! You are in thrall to the mainstream media! You are keeping me down, man! You're part of the problem! You don't want to hear the truth! You are threatened by the Glorious Coming Wave of Citizen Journalists! Spelling is patriarchal oppression! Oops, out of time -- gotta go feed my cats and watch teh Battlestar Galacticaz. 111000011010zz!!"

Whatever. I blame the iPod for all of this. You somehow end up getting the idea that the world revolves around YOU and your playlist. It's all about customizing things for this big collective "you" out there. Like, heaven forfend that you should have to sit through a Journey song you don't like or something. Perish the thought that you might have to get along with people who don't agree with you. Horrors -- the idea of reading something that makes your blood boil with rage? Forget it, who needs that kind of stress? Just keep reading and listening and thinking about stuff that you already know you like. Slag off all the people who disagree with you, embrace those who seem to be just like you. No problem. To quote Aaron Sorkin (which I don't recommend as, say, a habit): "Hubris, yeah, that always turns out well."

forecast for region: sunny, 20% ch t-strms, high of 87. mstly clear after 8, low in the upper 60s.
forecast for my house: shady, 40% ch mowing lawn, 20% ch baking Amish bread, 100% ch playing with dogs. extended forecast: reading, with a chance of housecleaning on Saturday. 30% ch of journeying Sunday to Leavenworth County to look at a sunflower farm. 0% ch of watching political commentary on television. It is remarkable how much better you feel about the world when you just. turn. it. off. Not to mention how much more time you find you have on your hands to knit, bake a pie, think a thought, look at the sky.

hot hot heat is bug bug bugging me.

2008-07-22T09:16:00.004-05:00

No, not the band, though I'm not wild about them either. It's hot, by which I mean HOT, which means that I am now exceedingly cranky and a little depressed, which is a mean trick when you're already taking boatloads of antidepressants. I have this theory that I have some kind of reverse SAD kind of disorder. Actually it might have to do with high barometric pressure. I am no biometeorologist (which I hold in a similar regard to homeopathy -- I guess it means something to some people, and if it works for you, go with it...but, seriously, I can't quite follow the logic. If infinitesimal concentrations of, say, arsenic are better for you than the largest -- something I can't really argue with -- shouldn't I be the picture of health because I am consuming the smallest concentration of arsenic possible, which is to say none?) but I think there may be something to this. Prairie high pressure is fierce and strong and unrelenting, much like our folk heroes of yore (Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill, Laura Ingalls Wilder). I just cheer up when we get rain and storms, which I think may have something to do with the lower barometric pressure. I actually have no idea, I just like rain and get sulky when we go a month or two without any.

The dogs are unhappy, too, which makes some sense (I would be especially grumpy if I were to be stuck in a longhaired sweater in this weather). Though not all that much, as we go out of our way to let them out in the morning, when it's cooler, and then they get to stay inside the air-conditioned house all day, lounging about on our beds and couches, taking an occasional break from napping in order to bark at a squirrel or something outside the window. It's a rough life.

I will probably always, the rest of my life, associate Lawrence with oppressive heat -- when I was in high school and then college, it always seemed as though it was 10 or more degrees hotter on any given day in Lawrence than it was in Olathe. Not that this is a bad thing. I just associate Lawrence summers with sweltering. Though nothing, nothing, I repeat NOTHING is as hot as an un-airconditioned summer in Washington, DC. I used to live in a beautiful old pre-WWI building with french doors and high ceilings, and no airconditioning. I ended up getting an airconditioner for the bedroom (I don't care how hot it is anywhere else in the house; you just have to be able to sleep) and I'd go in there at the end of the day and it would be like plunging into a swimming pool. As long as I live, I don't know that I will ever feel such unalloyed bliss as that first moment walking into that room after a long day of work and commuting with the lunatics on the bus and trudging up the 5 flights of stairs. Which just goes, I suppose, to show that sometimes innovations and the modern are not necessarily always better. I mean, really -- if you're in climate-controlled surroundings all the time, where's the absolute relief of walking into a room a full 35 degrees cooler than the ambient temperature of the house? If there's always call-waiting, how will you ever know the relief of hearing the phone actually ring after an hour straight of getting a busy signal?

In keeping with my general upsetted-ness, I have been reading John Kelly's "The Great Mortality," all about the Black Plague. This book is great. Just FYI -- I understand if you aren't keen on plunging into several hundred pages on the decimation of Europe -- but it's really good. Even if it does kind of make a person want to move a hundred miles away from her nearest neighbor (which in Kansas is actually a legitimate possibility, at least out west).

Anyway. There's nothing to be done, really, about the heat, so go have a Fudgsicle and sit in front of a fan and read something good. I am reading the Venerable Bede, which is remarkable for many reasons, not the least of which is the wackadoo Angle, Saxon, and Jute(-ish?) names. If I get another dog, I'm naming him Ethelred.

when, in the course of human events, yo...

2008-07-04T09:56:00.002-05:00

Happy Independence Day. It's good not to be under the thumb of a detested regent suffering from mental illness. Or at least, so I am assured. Hee.
I stopped off at the grocery store last night. The 16-ish-year-old fellow hired to put my purchases into a sack had nothing to do, as I generally do not require sacks from the Hy-Vee, because I carry around a giant LL Bean Boat-n-Tote for just such an eventuality. Anyway. So this kid says, "what are you doing for the 4th of July?" and I, being me, say "celebrating our nation's independence from the yoke of British monarchy, how about you?" and this sends him into a fit of giggles. He then told me a story about how his neighbors across the street are British, and didn't know what the deal was with the 4th being a holiday. I was skeptical. Surely if you are in the USA, and you are British, you are clear on the fact that the USA (U-S-A! U-S-A!) has this deal about being ex-British. I mean, maybe you don't know that it falls on the 4th of July, but you probably know that we have, as a country, sort of got this vested and adamant interest in being independent, and that we generally take any opportunity at all to deck ourselves out in red, white and blue, and eat high-fat meats cooked over charcoal. Anyhow.

The kid said his neighbors didn't see what the deal was. I suggested that maybe they were, as the British say, "having him on." I then proposed that if said British expats have a swimming pool, he and his friends go chuck a couple of boxes of teabags into it. Down with the King! Down with the tea tax! And the Stamp Tax! Whoo! Stupid Redcoats! Yankees rule, Tories drool! Kid looked confused. Oh, well.

Stay safe. Don't stick sparklers in the ground and go running around barefoot. Remember: a significant number of maimings occur following the utterance of the following sentence: "Hey, watch this." A significant number of amputations tend to follow the addendum of "Hang on...hold my beer."

home again, again

2008-07-03T13:37:00.002-05:00

Okay, so remember how I wasn't home because I went to Louisville? Well, then I was not home because of a burst pipe. Kelly and I are now back in Perry after 6 fun-filled nights and 5 sun-drenched days in glamourous, exotic Topeka. (Thanks, Corcorans! Y'all are aces! Thanks for the bed and the breakfasts!) Things we learned:

1) gas is more expensive in Topeka
2) our commuting from Topeka to Lawrence on a regular basis would not be in anyone's best interest
3) you can turn off the water to your house with one of those vise-grip wrenches
4) ...but it is easier with the grabby iron pole thing that the water department uses
5) our cordless phones can serve as walkie-talkies
6) mysteriously, we had a pipe extend underneath and past the house that went to absolutely nowhere. I am considering displaying it as art, calling it "The Ted Stevens Memorial Water Pipe to Nowhere." (this funny, really -- google "Ketchikan Alaska" or possibly "Gravina Island Bridge" and see whatcha get)
7) it is apparently unwise to join copper pipe to steel pipe
8) those tall weedy things that you kind of sometimes just let grow near the perimeter of the house because, heck, they're not bothering anything? Cut 'em down. Seriously, no, cut them down now.

But anyway, now we're home again. Again. Stop by, swap howdies. Have a glass of water, now that it's running again and is not the color of blood. *

* water not the color of blood is a potentially limited-time offer, based on outward worldwide apocalyptic indications. Requests for water not the color of blood after postmillennial or amillennial dispensation may not be honored by the management due to availability constraints. Colorless water availability improves in absence of locusts, hail, leprosy, Wormwood, celestial trumpet soundings, bowls being poured out upon the seas, and reconstructions of the Temple of Solomon. Tax, title and destination fee may apply.

home again home again jiggity-jig

2008-06-17T11:58:00.002-05:00

Howdy -- for those to whom it seemed like I vanished from the earth, that is not what happened. I went (on the spur-of-the-moment) to Louisville to see my family. So, that being said, I did not
-- get trapped underneath a collapsed pile of records
-- go see Lawrence of Arabia on a big screen for 72 hours straight
-- perish of langours
-- lock myself in a room to read all of the books in the "Twilight" saga
-- lock myself in a room to read all of the works of Epictetus
-- go on an all-5-season Wire-watching jag
-- finish my book
-- edit my book
-- make more notecards for organizing my book
-- clean my house
-- walk my dogs
-- whip up a Tournedos Rossini, accompanied by Pommes de Terre dauphinoise, with Souffle Rothschild for dessert

That being said, I'm back from Louisville, we did not blow away in a storm, and I am no further along with anything than I was when I left. :-( More soon.

to kill a snake, one must cut off the head

2008-06-04T09:41:00.002-05:00

So I was at the grocery the other day and they were having a sale on organic yogurt. 50 cents a cup. Okay, I'm game...plus, the other kinds of non-organic yogurts were a dollar a cup. Whatever -- it's yogurt, it's made with strawberries -- how bad can it be?

Answer: exceedingly bad. You know that scene in the movie "Big" where Tom Hanks takes a bite of caviar and sour cream and then goes ballistic trying to get it out of his mouth? That kind of bad. So I look at the ingredients list, because -- seriously, this stuff was really bad. Anyway, the bottom of the container tells me it's not spoiled, which was definitely the first thing that went through my mind. The next thing it tells me is that it's made naturally (which I had assumed, because...it's organic yogurt. Says so right on the container). The next thing it tells me is that it is flavored with organic strawberry puree. Okey-dokey. Then I look at the parenthetical ingredients for the organic strawberry puree. Strawberries (check), water (check), tomato-lycopene concentrate (che...wait, what?) . Then, finally, as I am throwing the container away (in flagrant violation of pro-animal protection, pro-recycling, green, Birkenstock-y standards), it dawns on me -- the name of this product is "Cultural Revolution." It had not occurred to me as I purchased it that in general, you probably don't want to name your delicious yogurt product after a program instituted by Mao Zedong. "Look for our other delicious products...Great Leap Forwards Tofu Bites, Year Zero Frozen Spinach Lasagna, and Glorious Proletariat brand Organic Yam Chips!"

I'm just sayin'. Let my experience inform your purchasing choices, in defiance of the running-dog lackeys of the imperialist West.

gloom, despair, agony on me; deep, dark depression, excessive misery

2008-05-27T11:30:00.002-05:00

For those of you who were forced to watch "Hee Haw" as a child...and you know who you are...well, the title of this post will jog your memory a bit. I never understood why that segment of the show was supposed to be funny.

Anyway, YES, I know that I have not posted anything in a while, and YES, I'm sorry about it, and NO, there's nothing I can do about it now, so cut me some slack.

Here's what's been happening: bad weather every gosh-darn day. Telling people to get out of the way of tornadoes, lightning, hail, and other accoutrements of the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Kelly and I bought a car. I will put a picture of the Element up sometime soon, because it is just so darn cute. I love this car. It is irrational to love a car, but I do. Because, you know, I'm stupid, or something.

I had a birthday. It was fine. My mother is having a birthday today. I assume it, too, is fine.

My nephew kinda-sorta broke his leg by falling off a couch (yep, those would be the Lorson catastrophic-stuff-happens-to-us-in-nominally-benign-circumstances genes, all right). You can learn more about this at schindlersinkentucky.blogspot.com. Cute pictures of a kid in a bright green cast abound.

The dogs have been keyed up and on-edge for days. I am assuming this is because of the weather. On Friday night, Finnegan came in and woke me up and would not leave me alone until I agreed to go downstairs with him. I sat down in a chair in the downstairs bedroom and was watching the Weather Channel (geeks of the world, unite!), and he was still unhappy. He kept nudging me, and then pushing me, and whimpering. So I stood up, and he pushed me into the bathroom. Which is where we go in moderately severe weather -- if I can hear the tornado sirens going off, we go outside and get in the creepy underground storm shelter. Anyway, Finnegan was determined, so I gave in and ended up sitting in the bathroom for an hour, until he calmed down. Dogs? Love 'em. They endlessly surprise you.

Nothing else to report, really. The book is coming along slowly, because I am a lazy bum with no sense of self-preservation or ambition. The house, however, has never been tidier. It is amazing how much energy I have for vacuuming and dusting when I know I should be writing instead. The lilacs have finished blooming for now, though they may make another run at it. Our magenta peonies have bloomed; the pink are ready to go any day now. Also, the irises are up and our poppies are blooming.

Happy birthday, Mom! Eat cake, go out for dinner, go wild. I'm glad you were born.

that gum you like is coming back in style

2008-04-17T08:56:00.004-05:00

I try to stay away from the politics here, but seriously? Worst debate I've ever seen. Makes me embarrassed to be a part of the profession to which I've devoted 20 years.

Who thought it would be a good idea to let Stephanopoulos -- who was on the freaking Clinton payroll, for crying out loud -- ask questions at this thing?

Who thought it would be a good idea for him to ask a question about the flipping Weather Underground, apparently suggested by none other than the august, wise, non-agenda-oriented, utterly fair and with-no-axe-to-grind Sean Hannity? I was hoping his followup would be on the Symbionese Liberation Army, or possibly Tupac Amaru. Whip inflation now! Dig that crazy new single by the Average White Band! Didja see my new macrame plant-holder? Wanna come over and see my pet rock?

Charlie Gibson -- what? Seriously, if you are that heated up over the capital gains tax (at least, heated up that apparently you are going to have to pay it at some point), you need to get someone else to host this debate.

The question on "What would you ask George W. Bush to do after he leaves office?" I hated both responses to this question. I thought they were disrespectful. There is a correct answer to this question: it is "I would ask him what he would like to do, and then have him do it." A runner-up: "I would ask him to be in charge of promoting faith-based initiatives."

All in all, I am so angry at ABC I cannot see straight. Way to go, shill-bots. Next time they have a debate on ABC, I think the moderators should just spout non-sequiturs from "Twin Peaks." It would be about as informative and enlightening.

this trend can now officially die

2008-03-26T10:17:00.003-05:00

You know, I am a fan of pop music -- always have been. To the grave dismay of my friends and now my husband, I'm a singles kinda gal. I don't care that much about albums, unless they are
a) Exile on Main Street
b) Maggot Brain
c) New Amerykah
d) Shoot Out the Lights
e) Laughing Stock
f) The Blues and the Abstract Truth.

Anyway, I like singles. And in the 80s, I liked them even more than I do now. So imagine my joy at discovering the latest internet meme:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBGIQ7ZuuiU

You got RickRolled! Okay, done now. Old people get it, your trend is finished. Thought I will probably still think the random playing/direction to/interruption of events with this song is kind of funny for at least another week or two.

Also? In case you were wondering? The Kareem Abdul-Jabbar blog for the LA Times is completely great. Scroll down and look for his post on why people always thought he was so angry -- this is hilarious.

it turns out this stuff does come up again someday

2008-03-18T12:35:00.002-05:00

Okay, so you should go take this quiz. It's oddly empowering.
(click on the title of this posting, and it will link you to the quiz.)

I'm not going to explicitly brag about this, because it is after all pretty much a test for 12-year-olds, but I did quite well.

NCAA tourney brackets due soon. If you want to play along but don't know anyone to have a bracket contest with, zap me an e-mail and I'll hook you up.

Rediscovered enjoyable food of the month: Chee-tos Puffs. If you have not seen the commercial where the girl loads up some obnoxious lady's laundry with these, you should check it out.

Music of the week: New Amerykah, by Erykah Badu. It's great. Also? Elton John's Madman Across the Water.

Book of the week: The Life of Samuel Johnson.

Forecast: cloudy, chance of fog, N winds 10-15, high 52.

as a member of the grammar police, I hereby make a citizens' arrest

2008-03-11T10:05:00.002-05:00

I read this online at blogs.abcnews.com:

"Clinton campaign finance committee member, former vice presidential candidate, and former Rep. Geraldine Ferraro, D-NY, told the Daily Breeze of Torrance, Ca., that, 'If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.'"

I refer Representative Ferraro to the following tutorial:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjunctive_mood

Seriously, I am so sick of this election.

the academy of motion picture arts and sciences

2008-02-25T12:49:00.004-06:00

...still has some 'splainin' to do, if you ask me, but all in all I was okay with the Oscars last night. Tilda Swinton is possibly the coolest girl on the planet, from wearing that weird Uncle Arthur-y black smoking jacket thing to wearing, apparently, no makeup, to giving George Clooney grief about his stint as Batman. I kind of wanted Julie Christie to win best actress, but everyone I know who saw "La Vie En Rose" said that Cotillard woman was amazing, so I'm okay with that. Let's hear it for Diablo Cody, who managed to look just like every woman I've seen at a Lawrence wedding in the last 5 years (i.e., bare arms with marginally inappropriate tattoos, dyed hair in a Louise Brooks bob, red-red lipstick). And Javier Bardem, taking time out to apologize for rockin' the Prince Valiant 'do in the movie role of his life thusfar. And who was that girl with Viggo Mortensen? Was it his daughter with Exene Cervenka? Because that kid is going to be the coolest girl on the planet when Tilda Swinton decides to abdicate. *** this just in: my sister informs me that the girl is Viggo's niece, Sydney. Viggo and Exene have a son but no daughters. Apparently, Henry Mortensen is a DJ, a poet, and attends Columbia University. Thanks, Wikipedia! This has no bearing on the fact that Sydney is going to be a very cool young woman when she grows up. ***

Still, AMPAS, I wanna rumble with you, because there is no way that "GoodFellas" was not the best movie that year that you all went with "Dances With Wolves." Dorks.

the secret history of mr. crankypants

2008-01-31T11:16:00.000-06:00

Well, I just finished reading Procopius's Anekdota, and I have learned two things. Number the first: my Greek is not as bad as I thought. Another three or four books and it should be back where it needs to be. Number the second: wow, this book is one of the few I have ever read that probably should be called "scurrilous." This guy *hated* Theodora, and I'm not too sure why. I know why he was peeved about Antonina, and other sources back him up on the idea that she was a mean-spirited nouveau-riche with very little to recommend her, but seriously -- this guy completely had it in for Theodora. He seems to have not liked Belisarius much, either -- again, other sources say he was kinda insufferable, too, so I'm cutting Procopius some slack on that front. On the upside, Procopius would be far less fawning and much more entertaining on the subject of LiLo, Paris, Tara, the catastro-trainwreckasaurus that is Britney, et al, than Jezebel or TMZ.

In short, I believe that I have found the Ted Casablanca of the archaic world. There are even little moments in Anekdota that you honestly would not be far wrong in translating as "One Blind Vice."

I decided, upon finishing up this book, to take a couple days off from the Greek to work on a hat. Characteristically, I will finish it pretty much when this cold snap ends. It's being worked in Trinity stitch, which you may know as popcorn or blackberry stitch. It's a bit of a pain, but I think that's just because I'm at the point where I had to upsize the needles and add in 42 stitches to the round and I didn't leave a lot of give in the stitches I'd been working as the ribbing. Oops. Also, it appears this may end up being too small for me. (My own dumb fault -- I didn't knit a swatch for gauge.) So one of you lucky (4) readers may end up as the recipient of a charcoal-gray knitted hat with cute little knobbly deedlybobbers all over it. I'll see if I can think up a contest. Also: your head should be smaller than mine...I'm a 7 & 3/8ths, which I know from acquiring a fitted Louisville Bats cap a couple of years ago. You'd think I would have measured the circumference of said cap and knitted accordingly, but you'd be giving me far too much credit for craftiness, subtlety and guile.

Finally: I am mortified, as I spent much of yesterday announcing in dire tones that we were expecting 8 inches of snow. It appears that we are now expecting only two inches of snow. Curse you, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration! I'll fix your little red wagon one of these days! (Picture your faithful narrator, shaking her clenched fists at the sky.) On the upside -- well, I'm not having to deal with 8 inches of snow.

Also: I decided that I will go to the Democratic caucus on SuperAmazingMegaJumboTuesday. A report will appear here. The mechanics of caucusing are unknown to me; I hope it does not involve fisticuffs. Just in case, I'm going to brush up on the Marquess of Queensberry rules. I'll let you know how it goes.

this is the Andy Rooney episode.

2008-01-21T11:41:00.000-06:00

In honor of the writers' strike, I am going to publish a post here that involves the simple stringing together of possibly unrelated sentences. Writing is hard; why knock myself out over this? Especially while my brothers and sisters are on the picket lines? Solidarity forever!

Brr, it's cold in Kansas.
Ever wonder why it's impossible to find a shower curtain made in the USA rather than in China?
I sure do like macaroni and cheese.
I hope the Giants win the Super Bowl.
I do not plan to watch the Super Bowl.
I plan to watch the Puppy Bowl.
I think I'll tape it so on the day that Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney clinch their respective party nominations, I can watch the Puppy Bowl again, which will cheer me up immensely.
My friend Aimee is going to have a baby boy.
Apparently they are thinking of naming him Dexter, of which I strongly approve.
My dogs Finnegan and Beatrice have lately been behaving so adorably that it is almost painful.
I wish I had a newer car, but I can't afford one.
I feel better about myself when I don't watch television.
I have been reading Flavius Josephus's "The War of the Jewish People against the Romans" and it is remarkably interesting.
I like those slipper socks that have grippers on the soles.
I decided to purchase some cheap jewelry to wear on the tv show that I host. It occurred to me that I should try to look like the people who look good on TV when I'm on TV. So that means big costume jewelry necklaces and modestly-scoop-necked shirts.
My skin is ridiculously dry. I have more lotions and creams stockpiled for this condition than the average Walgreens store.
My hair's too short.
I wish I had a really good book of fiction to read, which I had not already read.
Try as I might, I just can't seem to enjoy Victor Hugo.
I believe that I have unfairly dismissed Eric Dolphy for his avant-gardism.
I have been too lenient in my judgment of Gustave Flaubert, and too harsh against Turgenev.
I am sick of eating oatmeal.
I wish I knew how to play the cello.
I cannot figure out who is watching all of these Law & Order television series.

Wow -- it all makes sense now. I, too, could crank out columns by the bushel like Andy Rooney and Larry King. Seriously, doing it this way is a *lot* easier.

live free or die -- are those my only two choices?

2008-01-11T11:25:00.000-06:00

well, I try to stay away from the politics on here but I just have to ask: what is up with the New Hampshire people? Over the years, I have found that I like the *idea* of the common-sense, stoical Yankee...only to find that the *reality* of these sorts of people is disappointing in the extreme. A-yuh. I once got to go to Vermont, and I was very pleased at the prospect, with high hopes for bonding with laconic, no-frills farmer types: I returned, sadder but wiser, and aware that there are a great number of high-end spas run by ruthlessly mercenary New Englanders who look like they're chiseled out of stone. Also: take the Ben & Jerry's tour. But I digress. I just didn't like the sort of "we're going to vote however the heck we want just to spite those gullible rubes in Iowa, who fall prey to television advertising and promotional flyahs. We're the first in the nation because we are sensible and smaht and we'll show you fools! We know best! Stick yah dadgum poll right up in the...no, better yet, I'll answer your goshdahned poll and lie to yuh because you non-Yankee types are morons! We know, because you ah all up here buying metric tons of those maple-sugah candies! And ovahpriced, ovahaged cheese! Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha, live free or die, suckahs! See ya next Novembah!" that was going on.

That having been said: can we just get this whole thing over with? The sniping between Obama supporters and Clinton supporters is giving me a headache. The sniping between Huckabee supporters and Thompson supporters is giving me indigestion. It's almost enough to make me actually watch Nancy Grace.

so may I introduce to you....the one and only Britney Spears

2008-01-04T17:28:00.001-06:00

seriously. I just...I mean...wow.

"we hope you have enjoyed the show...we're sorry, but it's time to go."

what would Jesus eat on his birthday? or, refined sugar makes the holiday bright

2007-12-03T12:08:00.000-06:00

So the Christmas season is upon us again, and I find myself mystified by some of the great American holiday traditions. Why do we all seem to have this compulsive need to eat completely disgusting candy? Where exactly is it in the Gospel of Mark that there's some kind of discussion of candy at the birth of the Messiah? Maybe it came from the lesser-known adorants, maybe the shepherds, who wanted to bring a gift and could only find a half-eaten box of liquorice comfits coated in non-pareils way in the back of the pantry? Okay, maybe most Christmas candy isn't really all that disgusting (I direct you, tonstant weader, to Gravity's Rainbow and Pynchon's short little digression on the relative merits of English candies). But why this obsession with sweets at Christmastime? My grandmother used to set out large cut-glass dishes of stale candy for various gustatory and aesthetic assaults on the senses. At any rate, it's at this time of year that I suddenly am overwhelmed with the urge to eat hard candies of suspect provenance, well past its sell-by date.

I have been making gifts this year, since as usual I am completely broke. I didn't do as much pre-season shopping this year and am a bit panicky about what I'm going to give my husband. Anything I really want to give him is too expensive for us to really afford. This is kind of frustrating. I admire those women who can whip up sweaters and such in a trice -- I, however, need months at my disposal to make something as mundane as socks or a scarf. I do not know where people find the time. At any rate, I was watching some television yesterday and saw some of the ads...who are all these people purchasing cars as Christmas presents? Who is this wife who is stunned and surprised at receiving a Lexus? Didn't she have to co-sign the loan? Didn't she wonder why thirty thousand dollars disappeared out of the savings account? Are people this stupid? Or, no -- wait -- maybe people don't generally give each other luxury cars as Christmas gifts. Maybe people are pretty much pleased at getting the 8-dollar box of Russell Stover candy with the bow printed on the box.

I did spend the weekend wrapping most of my presents for this year, and making up some Christmas cards. Not that I do it in that made-for-television fantastickal way. I wrap everything in brown kraft paper and then make bows out of real ribbon (I always wanted Christmas presents with real fabric ribbon when I was a child -- so that's what I give now). I had my annual fight with the collapsible shirt-boxes that you can get at Kohl's and Dillards and such, which make intuitive sense until you try to assemble them. Anyway, now I have all these wrapped presents and a nagging sense that everyone's going to be disappointed in what they are getting this year. I try to remind myself that personally, I'm just happy to get a gift in the first place, so maybe it will all turn out okay.

Also, I made cookies. Chocolate-cherry-pecan oatmeal cookies, to be precise. They are startlingly enjoyable. I also hand-dipped some Oreos in that kind of dipping-chocolate. Those are pretty good too. I have not had time to make what is for me the uber-Christmas cookie -- Thumbelinas. Basically, these are butter with a little flour thrown in to make them hold together, a little sugar to make them sweet, rolled in pecans, then baked and globbed up with canned frosting. Trust me when I tell you not to eat more than 20 of these in a sitting. (They're deceptively small...it seems like you could eat four dozen and not break a sweat...but believe me, you'll get sick after twenty.)

Finally, in other pre-Christmas news, I have not yet decided what to do about a tree. I love that winey-piney smell that a fresh-cut tree brings to a house, but it's such a complete hassle to get it and get it home that it seems almost silly to do it for no one but me and Kelly. I have a suspicion that the dogs will attempt to ingest the lower branches and at least one ornament each. Plus, they are tail-waggin' dogs, and this will invariably lead to an infestation of pine needles in odd places that I won't find until late February.

I don't know, I love this season and I love the traditions, but this year, it seems like everything's been so turned-upside-down financially and emotionally that maybe it would just be better to let it all go. Maybe we could spend one year just saying "you know what? You can have a day to think about the importance of religion, the sacrifice made by Jesus Christ, peace on earth and goodwill toward men without having to go through all this rigmarole." As long as there's cookies, I am thinking that I will have done my part. I'll keep you posted on what we end up doing, which will be low-key in the extreme. Unless Oprah happens to be reading this; in which case, I have no real need for a new Pontiac or a refrigerator with a television stuck to its front...what I would really like is a fancy espresso machine to give to my husband, which I cannot afford, and the fact of which is bumming me out.

the evening redness in the west

2007-11-22T09:50:00.000-06:00

I have been re-reading Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, probably because there's all this buzz over No Country for Old Men (of which I am not a big fan). I decided to give Meridian another whirl because I realized I had not bothered with this book since throwing my copy out an open window at Sellards Scholarship Hall in 1987. Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps I had misjudged. So, I'm an open-minded person. I'm willing to admit when I've made a mistake.

Okay, I made a mistake. This is a great book. It's not for everyone, and it's obviously not for those it's for at every time in their life. Get off my back, syntax police. Other critics will tell you more, in a more compelling way, than I'm going for here.

Here's my complaint. I got a copy of the Modern Library printing of the book, which has an oddly fetching photo of McCarthy on the front, and an essay by Harold Bloom at the beginning. About which: um, seriously, this should maybe go at the end. Unless the assumption is that the only people reading this edition of this book are people who have already read this book. This essay is odd. It sort of irritated me, which is strange because in many ways I tend to agree with Harold Bloom (i.e., that the point of reading is aesthetic enjoyment, not making some kind of political statement). In many other ways, I do not (i.e., that the best DeLillo book is Underworld; that Bud Powell's "Un Poco Loco" is some kind of watershed moment for music). But in the main, I don't mind him so much. But this essay struck me as unnecessarily condescending, and frankly overwritten.

At any rate. There's an awful lot going on in this book. Under no circumstances would I recommend it to my mother, whom I know quite well. Nor would I recommend it to someone, conversely, whom I do not know well. The violence may be allegorical, but I suspect not. Maybe there's something to the idea that violence is what we bring to the table, and it's the suppression of violence that is the only thing that makes civilization. Living beyond the pale may mean embracing the violence. Shades of Conrad, shades of Melville. This is a fine book, a frightening book, a book that causes me concern. This is why I love to read.

ascension day

2007-11-07T13:05:00.000-06:00

Well, I've been having a thing lately that I don't really want to get into, but suffice it to say: yes, I know I have not been posting with any kind of regularity. Management regrets the inconvenience.

Okay, so, just so this isn't the complete waste of space that it could be, I will mention here that I am in a recording studio at this moment, listening to various pieces of music that I may or may not mix onto a Veterans Day piece I've committed to for Friday. (And yes, I know that Veterans Day is Sunday. This needs to air before Veterans Day.) I keep lots of pieces of music in a file here just in case the perfect thing comes up. Fair use covers a lot of this, and our BMI/ASCAP contract covers the rest. I assure you that I purchased all of this. Anyway, if I hear a thing that I like a little bit of, I save it here and then can come back to it if I need it. This makes the craziest list -- sort of an iPod playlist gone all wrong. I just finished listening to a passacaglia that I like and the Brahms Clarinet Concerto. I have decided against both. I am noticing that virtually all of the music I have in here is kind of...well, either ethereal or sad, depending on how you want to look at it. (With the exception of a White Stripes piece I used for a commentator's thoughts on music and his father.) Anyway, it's good to go back through all this stuff occasionally and see what can be deleted. I have a disproportionate amount of Radiohead up here, apparently. That's another strange story, because I was determined that I did not like Radiohead, based entirely on my experience of their first record. I had a friend who adored this tape and played it endlessly and I didn't like it one bit. So, in short, I gave up entirely on Radiohead before they started making music that was right up my alley. I heard some of their other songs purely by accident and couldn't believe I had written this band off. Okay, lesson learned. So now there is a lot of Radiohead on file in studio E. I was kind of delighted to see just now that I have The Hollies' "The Air That I Breathe" in this file. I just love that weird whiny guitar opening with all the wocka-wocka processing on it.

At any rate, the thing I have up here that I want to use but cannot even think about is the Talk Talk song "Ascension Day" from their record Laughing Stock. I am just crazy about that record and have been for years. There's not a lot of instances in which I can use it, but sometimes I just come in and listen to it and it (exceedingly oddly) makes me feel better.

So. Go get yourself a copy of Laughing Stock and don't listen to the recordstore guy who will invariably tell you that this is not what you really want (unless you go to the record store in Lawrence and your counterguy is Kelly, who will cheerfully agree that this is an excellent choice, and that his wife listens to it all the time). Unless this guy is one of those crazy audiophile types, in which case he will probably go completely wiggo over you. But in that case, you should ignore his exhortations for you to buy it on the gold disc or the remastered pressing or get the original Verve release rather than the Polydor...all that stuff is just nuts.

the horror! the horror!

2007-10-29T14:47:00.000-05:00

Having spent the weekend cleaning my house with the television on, I have once again (sort-of) seen the Bravo "100 Scariest Movie Moments" and "30 Even Scarier Movie Moments." I have to say that whoever it is that they are polling is really, truly, deeply confused about what entails a scary movie moment. Here's how I see it: there are movies filled with scary moments, and there are movies filled with completely disgustingly gross moments. People, I think, are now confusing the two. At least, this is what I believe accounts for the movie "Hostel" coming in at numba-one on 30ESMM. I have not seen "Hostel," despite my love for ucky movies, because all things being equal, there are just some things I don't think I need to see. I have not seen "Wolf Creek," or "Old Boy," or "The Audition," or whatever the latest entry into the Completely Awful Sweepstakes is. I saw Saw-s I and II and profoundly wish that I had not.

Anyway. I was glad to see David Cronenberg well-represented. I was afraid it was going to be all Hitchcock, all the time. Don't get me wrong, I love Hitchcock thrillers, but I just never thought Vertigo was all that scary. I'm more of the "out of a clear blue sky whammo" school of thought on psychological horror. I'm not so completely art-school-ified that I go all "Cahiers du Cinema" on this issue...I am not here to agitate for the last 45 seconds of the Rififi heist scene as the height of tension in all of modern film. I did not find the original "Wicker Man" frightening at all. But I feel as though there's still some kind of place for true thrillers in the marketplace.

I also do not understand how the villains of films like "Halloween" and "Friday the 13th" and "A Nightmare on Elm Street" became icons of frightening-ness. Did the sequel-makers actually see any of these films? Because Michael Myers was not supposed to be the scary thing in Halloween. The dread of being punished for what you did wrong, and what you knew was wrong when you did it, was the scary thing. It's scary because of the dread. It's scary because Laurie finds herself wondering what the heck she did wrong to deserve this kind of terror. She's the good student, she takes care of the children, she's living a life of rectitude...but somewhere, somehow, she must have done something wrong...if only she could figure out what. The message is: no one is innocent. No one is good enough. Evil might find you, for no good reason. That, my friends, is terrifying. (Of course, Halloween III is just scary because of the idiotic script.) Anyway, the mother was the killer in Friday the 13th, not Jason Voorhees, so I don't even know why the whole freaky-cat-in-a-hockey-mask thing had any legs at all. Then in ANOES, Freddy Krueger was not the scary thing -- having no control over the subconscious was the scary thing. Also, the parental lynch-mob was the scary thing. Freddy was punishing the parents who burned him alive -- the terror was inherent in the fact that the children were being punished for the sins of the previous generation, which had literally sacrificed a human being to get their flawlessly manicured lawns and conspicuously expensive cars. Seriously -- I saw these films. I remember seeing them. I remember the plot points. But I guess concepts don't make for such good sales and residuals in the costume division of Megaconglomerate Studios, Inc.

So: my scariest movie moments are apparently not especially scary, but, well, there it is. They say that psychological horror plays on the individual's particular fears -- "they", in my case, appear to be correct.
1) the moment in "The Shining" where Shelley Duvall suddenly figures out that her writer husband has been spending 12 hours a day writing different permutations of the same sentence over and over again
2) that moment in "The Exorcist" where the demon addresses Father Karras in his mother's voice and begs him to explain why he abandoned her
3) the moment in "Dead Ringers" when we realize just what exactly Beverley and Elliott are intending to do to Claire in a drug-addled haze ** editor's note: I realized that actually the horrifying moment is at the end, where everyone's all drug-addled and we see what it is that Beverley did to Elliott. The only horrifying thing about Claire is Genevieve Bujold's accent. **
4) the moment in "The Blair Witch Project" where the camera turns to that corner in the basement and sees Michael with his back to Heather...and the audience suddenly puts two and two together about what's about to happen, and then it's over! Whammo! Cut to black! Eek!
(note: I actually was thrilled when this film was finally finished because the cinema verite video made me motion-sick, so that may be why I had that ultra-Greek kind of catharsis at the end of this highly overrated film. But that moment -- boy, that was something.)
5) the "reveal" scene of what happened to Cleopatra at the end of "Freaks"
6) the "blood-testing" scene in John Carpenter's "The Thing"
7) the end of "Night of the Living Dead" upset me more than anything that happened anywhere else in the movie, go figure.
8) the last shot of "The Vanishing" (no, not...I repeat, NOT the lame-o remake...the original) gave me nightmares for a month.
9) Lars vonTrier's "The Element of Crime" was fairly horrifying to me for a variety of reasons.
10) Of all things, the torture-terror-dome in "Brazil" still freaks me out (those masks! Gives me the cauld grue).

All things being equal, if I really want to get scared to bits, I tend to read a book. I prefer the chiaroscuro of Lovecraftian horror to the crisp, hi-definition realism of, say, "Saw III." Anyway. Happy Halloween. Go watch a scary movie. Drink some hot cider, eat some popcorn, go wild.

there's famous, and then there's impressive

2007-10-23T12:36:00.001-05:00

You are never going to guess who I just talked with on the telephone. No, seriously -- guess. Okay, forget it, you're never going to guess. I just got to talk with Lee Mendelson, the producer of "A Charlie Brown Christmas."

In my accidental life as a journalist, I have talked with a lot of famous people, and it's kind of a little rush, but after a while, not that big a deal. You just say what you have to say and move on. I've gotten to talk with Presidents, Secretaries of State, Prime Ministers, Nobel Prize winners, National Book Award winners, Pulitzer winners, and they are invariably polite and kind of straightforward. I've talked with lots of celebrities, and invariably they are rushed and a bit bemused because of their "if it's Tuesday, this must be Chicago" kind of schedules.

But once in a while, you talk with someone who is so quietly impressive that it leaves you with this kind of glow all day. That's what happened today. An artifact of my childhood that made a profound impression upon me, then and now -- it came from this person's mind. It was created out of the force of this person's will and commitment. I just talked with someone who did, and does, his job with a kind of dignity and calmly self-confident excellence. I guess the reason I'm so completely over the moon about this is that the show itself always telegraphed a kind of low-key, stately quality. If I aspire to anything, that's what I want out of life -- I want to leave something behind me that, 40 years down the road, someone says "that person who made this -- I'd have liked to have known her. That person knew what she was doing. That person was good at her job."

All this philosophizing aside: squee! I talked to someone involved making in a MAJOR piece of pop culture that isn't a complete embarrassment!

the October Classic

2007-10-22T12:47:00.000-05:00

I have been occupied by work to the extent that this past weekend, I was so tired I simply could not muster up the energy to do anything that required conscious deliberation and thought. As a result, I watched a fair number of sporting events.

Now, I love baseball. I really like the World Series. I guess I am rooting for the Rockies this year, for two reasons. Number the first: I like that they don't have the highest or second-highest payroll in baseball. When a team is so completely loaded with talent because the management has apparently nothing better to do with, oh, 300 million dollars, I just don't have any kind of warm feelings towards them. Seriously - Red Sox management - could you guys, like, cut that Julio Lugo and funnel the 36 million bucks to Medecins Sans Frontieres? It seems as though 36 million dollars would buy a lot of that creepy super-charged peanut butter stuff that's saving thousands of children from dying of malnutrition. Maybe if we could make the case that some of these children might grow up to be outstanding middle-relief pitchers? Anyway.
Number the second: I love that there was seven inches of snow in Denver on Sunday. Brr -- get out your woolies, Manny Ramirez. It would be super-cool to see the baseball fans turn themselves out for the home team at Coors Field all decked out like Packers fans at Lambeau. But other than this, I don't really care much. I tend to always root for the team with the lowest payroll (makes my support of the Kansas City Royals seem almost rational, when I put it that way). And the Rockies story is pretty remarkable. Of course, this is their kiss of death -- whichever team I prefer will get waxed, and disillusion me further about the world. It's not that I'm naturally depressed -- it's just that things have this way of working out not in favor of the underdog. Except in, say, major motion pictures like "Rudy" or "The Bad News Bears Go To Japan."

Speaking of Japan, we want to send out a big Konichi-wa to Trey Hillman, who is coming to Kansas City after a very successful stint coaching the Nippon Ham Fighters beisuboru team. Nice to have you with us, Trey. You will be able to find nice housing at an affordable price here in the City of Fountains. No light-rail, though, so you'll want to buy a car. They'll treat you right out in O-uh-woh-lathah. Or Tiffany Springs. My friend Mark kind of burst my bubble when he informed me that the Nippon Ham Fighters are more accurately the (Nippon Ham) (Fighters) rather than the (Nippon) (Ham Fighters), which is what I had thought. I had no idea what a ham fighter was, but it was kind of surrealist and cool, in keeping with the old-fashioned moniker of Nippon, so I was all excited about it. Because really, after a certain point, as a Kansas City fan, all you can ask for is some retro Surrealism. There's a giant lion who walks around Kauffman Stadium shooting hot dogs out of a cannon into the stands. Where do you go from there? Some guy who fights ham in pre-Imperial Japan. Works for me. I'll buy the jersey, sure, why not?

Anyway, I'm all ready to watch the Series, with my husband who will dismiss all of my comments about fielding and defense and "strategery," because I think he thinks I don't understand the game all that well. He will gripe about the overpaid Red Sox, and be all mad about the sponsorship/paid placement stuff, and rail about the Coors Company (which I guess is now the Miller Company), and in short, it will make me kind of long for the days when I used to watch the Series with my dad, and it was in early October because we didn't have, like, a month and a half of playoffs to make more money for the networks and the owners. I will think about the Big Red Machine and Reggie Jackson and Bob Gibson and Rod Carew, and feel, once again, that things were actually marginally more enjoyable in the 70s (hairdos, Qiana jumpsuits, and lack-of-cell-phones aside).

another sign of the coming apocalypse

2007-10-15T13:32:00.001-05:00

Okay, so both KU and UK are now doing really well in football. This is a completely disorienting phenomenon, for someone who grew up just accepting that she was destined to be a college basketball supporter for her whole life. Also, it's driving me to actually watch college football, which was always something that I only ever did if something exceptional was happening. Or if Boise State was playing, because I kind of really am digging on the blue astroturf or whatever it is. I find myself rooting for the weird plays, like when the Stanford band took the field at the end of that one Cal-Stanford game and everything was all screwy. I find that I watch with a kind of desperate hope that someone will run the Statue of Liberty play, or the flea-flicker. It doesn't happen often, but it fills me with a joy that is downright unnatural when it does. It beats the whole sort of "Marty-ball" drudgery that my favorite pro football teams get caught up in: each play is a running play, and it gets 3 yards, and then they try to run some kind of locomotive-straight-ahead play on 4th-and-1, and the guy will invariably run into the knotted, twisted clot of 350-pound men in the middle instead of, I don't know, walking around the giant wad of linemen...and they turn over the ball on downs.

Anyway, it's strange, and I'm pleased, but I now don't really know what to say when someone asks me about college sports. I am used to only being asked about it once NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament time rolls around in April.

Also, I want to point out that I have a comparatively finite space, mentally, for sports, and I'm kind of all focused on baseball right now. Note well: if the Rockies get to the World Series...and sweep it...people will be talking about this team for the next 50 years, about how extraordinary their achievement was.

In other news: I have a new and really good recipe for Hello Dolly cookies. The secret is the toffee.

for fraternity between the nations, and the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses

2007-10-12T08:16:00.000-05:00

The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded today. I found it exceedingly odd. Then again, how odd is it that this prize, possibly the most well-known prize in the world, was established by the guy who invented dynamite (and apparently something called ballistite, which I don't know what that is).

I went and looked up who else had won this prize, as the only other people I knew off the top of my head were Jimmy Carter, Arafat/Peres/Rabin, Mother Teresa, Wangari Maathai, Elie Wiesel, Muhammad Yunus, John Hume, David Trimble, Medecins sans Frontieres, Aung San Suu Kyi, Desmond Tutu, Lech Walesa, Amnesty International, Mairead Corrigan, Norman Borlaug, Dag Hammarskjold, Willy Brandt, Albert Schweitzer, Cordell Hull, Linus Pauling, Woodrow Wilson and Teddy Roosevelt. It turns out this is a creditable list to know off the top of one's head. I either never knew or had forgotten that Henry Kissinger had won one. I had thought that Mahatma Gandhi had won one, but he did not. I had forgotten about Fridtjof Nansen. I had forgotten about Robert Cecil. I didn't know Jane Addams got one.

I had never heard of Frank Kellogg (1929), and so looked him up. He won for something called the Kellogg-Briand Pact, which I had also never heard of, and so looked that up. This is because it was more commonly called the Pact of Paris, which I had heard of but was only a distant, hazy thing, tamped down in the memory-closet alongside the Hawley-Smoot tariff act and Jack Paar and mapping polar coordinates. Apparently, at some point, nations signed a treaty agreeing that war is really no kind of useful instrument for national policy. Hm. What do you know? Seems like that would be useful, if anyone remembered that we all signed such a thing. Apparently, it is still a binding part of international law. I guess it's useful enough AFTER someone launches a war...kind of like when they throw in all kinds of arcane violations when you get pulled over by a traffic cop. "Okay, you were going 98 in a 45 mile an hour zone, so that's a pretty big fine, right there. Plus, you were not wearing a seatbelt, and your windows are tinted too dark, and you can't have more than six trolls in your back window, and your brakelights are out, and you can't drive on the Turnpike with a cracked windshield, and there was also failure to yield, and also I don't like your haircut. 2500 bucks, see ya in traffic court." I picture the World Court filling out charges against the government of Sudan this way: "Okay, you violated human rights, so that's a pretty big fine right there. You misused NGO aid; you used your military to attack your own people; oh, you violated the Kellogg-Briand Act...and your windows are tinted too dark. See ya at the Hague, or you can just pay the fine by mail."

Anyway, I suppose that any day in which I learn that someone, somewhere, actually keeps track of the idea that there is such a thing as a "crime against peace" is not a wasted day.

I also learned that the first winner of the NPP was the founder of the International Red Cross, Jean Henri Dunant. He shared it with Frederic Passy, the founder of the Societe d'arbitrage entre les Nations. This seems like a good choice, in retrospect.

Albert Gore. I'll be darned. I'm not opposed to this per se, just extremely surprised. Perhaps next year is Bob Geldof's year.

(sing along with the 5th Dimension now)

2007-10-08T17:47:00.000-05:00

Daylight Saving Time does not end until November 4th. I am sure all you people who go on and on about how great it is to have light later in the evening (I'm lookin' at you, Mom) for, I don't know, your marathon training sessions or 20-mile bicycle rides, are pretty self-satisfied about this. I'm going to point out here that while this is completely fine for you people who don't get up at 4 am, those of us who are now wired to get up at the crack. of. dawn. are pretty sick of it still being pitch-dark outside at 7 am. I cannot quite get over that somehow people who prefer the quality of light in the morning are somehow regarded as irrelevant idiots, while the ones who like evening light get all the breaks in this issue. Seriously. I like the sunrise. It is the only positive thing that has ever come from my protracted morning-shift radio job. I learned to love morning light. And now I can't see it because I'm already in my cubicle by the time I'm getting any of it. But no, no, we all love DST. Tsch. I hate the entire concept of it. This is ground I have trod before, but just wanted to bring it up again. I looked it up: the GOLF INDUSTRY was instrumental in getting this extended-DST stupidity through Congress. So, you people are indebted to nimrods with khakis, tucked-in pique polo shirts, braided leather belts, and quarts of Drakkar Noir. Thanks. No, seriously, thanks.

united, we stand. divided, we blog.

2007-10-04T12:54:00.000-05:00

Okay, so I updated the layout so there's less interminable scrolling-down to be done. Also, I like this sort of Prussian Blue color better for the post titles. This has nothing to do with Prussians. Whom I often confuse with Hessians. And Cossacks. I really have to read more.

The last few days, I've been reading up on the Siege of Leningrad (about which: there is no way I would have survived such a thing. I get cranky when I can't have a Nilla Wafer or two after supper. I never cease to be amazed at the sort of thing that people manage to endure) and am, as a result, into stripping down the fancy and keeping to the essential. Hence -- the more minimalist layout. I am a true daughter of my generation: in keeping solidarity with the survivors of the privations of war, I am...*streamlining the design of my blog.* I'm an idiot. It's like that story I always wanted to write where I'd have these guys sitting around watching "Apocalypse Now" over and over again with the heater turned up to 90 degrees and vaporizers running so they'd feel more "in-touch" with the Vietnam experience...I sit, reading, in my house with the windows open and fans trained directly on me so that it's freezing cold, resisting the urge to go get a snack. Puts me more in touch with what I'm reading about. Did I mention that I'm an idiot? Oh, I did? Okay, then.

Other things being read and re-read, with less of the urge to create environmental verisimilitude:

Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature (Auerbach)
The Ecclesiastical History of England (The Venerable Bede, whose name I just love)
Epictetus: The Discourses (Oldfather)
On War (Clausewitz) (hence, the obsession with Prussian Blue, hee)
The Holy Rule of St. Benedict (Verheyen)
Christian Iconography (Grabar)
American Tabloid (Ellroy)
The Great Deluge (Brinkley)
Murder Must Advertise (Sayers) (and might I add, this is just swell, just like eating a box of chocolates that turns out to consist only of your favorite kinds, which in my case would be dark chocolate buttercreams)

Surely everyone else in the world is reading something much more useful, or challenging. I despair of my chances at ever getting serious about learning anything. Anyway, the thing I'm getting at here is that while I'm doing a lot of reading (and not nearly enough real writing), what I'm really enjoying these days is taking a few minutes here and there to read these little snapshot bulletin-boards of my and my friends' lives, because it's this kind of interesting way to have a certain kind of conversation, without us being on a conference call or in the same room. It's from looking at these other discussions that I feel like I'm actually learning something useful, more than anything I read or see in other kinds of media. And so, for this, I thank you kindly, and beg your indulgence as I try to figure out what it's going to take for me to feel engaged in something meaningful, for the first time in a long time.

I can write a washing-bill in Babylonic cuneiform, and tell you every detail of Caractacus's uniform

2007-10-02T20:37:00.000-05:00

...in short, in matters vegetable, animal and mineral I am the very model of a modern Major-General, but I am having a bit of a time figuring out what the heck I'm supposed to do about changes to my health care plan. The website that is allegedly the answer to all my problems is raddled with broken links, and no one has really clearly spelled out in the glossy cardstock catalog that arrived to explain it all for me what the darned new program that I think I'm supposed to enroll in is even actually CALLED, so I'm kind of at a loss, here. While I am by no stretch of the imagination what anyone would call profoundly intelligent, I can follow instructions (and, you know...can read) and am fairly web-savvy. But this process takes me down blind alleyways and labyrinths that would make Borges weep with terror. Wha-?

There are plenty of stone morons out there. I know, because I tend to be standing in line behind them at the DMV (or any other place involving the filling-out of paperwork...remind me to tell you a less truncated version of the story of my last flu shot at an open clinic where I got in line behind Mr. and Mrs. "Remember the Maine" and their complete bumfuzzlement at the idea that they might need to reveal...or at the very least know...THEIR SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS if they wanted Medicare to pay for it...which of course they did, because why would they pay for it themselves because he's a veteran of the freaking battle of the Somme, or San Juan Hill, or possibly Agincourt, for all I could tell). And basically, I don't know how these people are getting by. I don't know how they pay their taxes, I don't know how they register their cars, and I now have added to this sad compendium another thing to wonder about. How on earth are these people, who cannot figure out that the express lane is for twelve items or less...that the tollbooth does not take pennies, despite the giant sign printed in five languages that says "NO PENNIES"...that one should not reach into the diamond cross-cut paper shredder while it is running...how are these people going to handle dealing with health insurance, which as it turns out, is actually hard to figure out? So here's what I'm saying: if the powers that be want people to choose lower-cost health care options, and get more involved in the administration of their health care, would it not be a good idea to make the brochure that tells you how to do it, you know, less complicated than a schematic diagram of flipping UNIVAC?

I know our mythic history, King Arthur's and Sir Caradoc's

I answer hard acrostics, I've a pretty taste for paradox

I quote in elegiacs all the crimes of Heliogabalus,

In conics I can floor peculiarities parabolous;

I can tell undoubted Raphaels from Gerard Dows and Zoffanies,

I know the croaking chorus from The Frogs of Aristophanes!

and yet, when it comes right down to it, I cannot really effectively say at the moment if I would be better off with preferred provider plan A or program 2008 B or the QHDHP with HSA. WTF. And let's not even get into the intricacies of the new prescription drug formulary, which requires three years of organic chem, a PDR and a consult from Elvis Presley to decipher.

But still, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,

I am the very model of a modern Major-General.

Next week: pondering the mysteries of the adminstration of NGO programs by the United Nations with a sing-along from the Mikado! He's the U-N-High-Comm-MISH-on-er!

and for her next trick, she'll make the empire state building vanish

2007-09-27T14:17:00.000-05:00

Okay, so the nightly catastrophe for yesterday was as follows (prepare for protracted backstory. abandon hope, all ye who enter):

I got up really early yesterday morning and started making bread. I decided I wanted a nice brown bread (oatmeal, molasses, whole wheat flour, some rye) to go with our leftover soup (chicken and cavatappi). Okay, I mix it all up, to the delight of Finnegan and the bemusement of Beatrice. I mix, I make a sponge batter, I let the yeast proof and the whole shebang, kneaded for 15 minutes and popped it all in the great big bread bowl I bought when I lived in Minneapolis and have lugged from house-to-house since then. So far, so good. I come home after a wretched day at work (about which more, another time) and punch it all down, separate, allow to rise in the good Chicago Metallic bread pans on top of the stove while getting the oven up to temperature. Took the dogs for a walk; came home; baked. Okay, so Kelly and I really like homemade bread, and especially like it still warm. So we eat about a half a loaf of this bread, because we are believers in moderation. Also, we are looking forward to sandwiches with this bread for Thursday.

So we're cleaning up the remains of the dinner, and I get this phone call from one of our reporters, and the long and the short of it is, he's got a piece that has to run on Thursday and I need to edit him, though he had promised me the script by 3 and he didn't get around to sending it until 7. Okay. I go off and fix up the syntax and question where he got all his stats and such. In the meantime, Kelly has gone upstairs and is watching a movie and is wearing headphones so that he can really appreciate the THX that George Lucas went to all the trouble of figuring out so that people can have their gallbladders shake whenever the Dark Lord of the Sith comes on screen, or whatever. So I finish up this edit after about 40 minutes, and go brush my teeth and get ready to go to sleep. (Early to bed, and early to rise, suckas.) I go upstairs and lay down and am reading John Keegan's "The First World War" (because I am a shade underwhelmed with all the Greatest Generation Love going on with the new Ken Burns film on The less-Great War). Kelly comes up and says, "what did you do with the bread?" I say, "what do you mean, what did I do with the bread? It's on the counter next to the loaf we didn't eat yet." (Can you guess where this is going?)

Okay, so we troop downstairs, mystified by the Disappearing Bread, and then...it's like a moment out of a movie. We're looking around, mystified, the cooling rack is on the floor, there are no crumbs, NOT A ONE, on the floor...and we both, as if on a synchronized swivel, swing our heads to look at...Beatrice. Who, on cue, licks her chops. Oh, good grief. The dog ate a loaf-and-a-half of incredibly dense bread. And all of the crumbs.

Okay, this is not that big a deal, but seriously...it was like aliens swooped in and kidnapped all this bread. Not. A.Trace. Not anywhere. Somebody call Anthony LaPaglia and Marianne Jean-Baptiste. And there Beatrice stands, looking for more. Or, possibly...for a pound of butter to wash it all down. Anyway, this morning, I think she was still pretty full 'cause she looked a little green around the gills and was unenthused about breakfast.

In other news, there's a bull loose on the streets of St. Louis after some kind of weird truck accident. Watch out, Missourians! Look both ways before you cross the street!

really?

2007-09-25T16:44:00.000-05:00

President Bush gave a speech at the UN today and said that Americans are outraged over human rights abuses in Myanmar. It's my experience that Americans can't find Myanmar on a map that consists only of Myanmar and big red letters saying "This Is Myanmar," with a giant red arrow pointing to it.

Forthwith, here are things that I think Americans are actually more outraged over. I'm not saying that they shouldn't be outraged over human rights abuses anywhere, but seriously: outrage implies a level of engagement that I just don't think is there when it comes to Myanmar.
Outrageous things, according to the people I spend time with on a regular basis:

-- that Myanmar changed its name from the more-euphonious "Burma"
-- that there are only 16 games in the regular season of the NFL
-- that Buffalo wings are so small, and come with so much celery
-- that it takes so long to get to the weather during the evening news
-- the relative competence of the Chiefs offensive line
-- that Chinese titans of industry are poisoning everybody with lead in the toys and antifreeze in the off-brand juiceboxes and E.coli in the spinach and some kind of strange plastic in the dog food and so forth
-- the cost of cheese
-- those kids down the street
-- how that one family just doesn't care about all those dandelions in their yard
-- that time that Sonic took Frito Pie off the menu
-- that Britney Spears
-- that darn rap music
-- kids hanging out at after-hours bars
-- fish aren't biting
-- only 3.2 beer available out at the lake
-- allergies
-- "Rock of Love"

she's ready for her close-up , mr. demille

2007-09-24T08:51:00.000-05:00

Here she is: Beatrice. Up close and canine. I don't really know how to edit photos so you'll just have to put up with the flash splash-back in the eyes.

She's been here all weekend, and after a rough 2nd and 3rd days, seems to be getting along a bit better with Finnegan. She's going to have to sleep in the utility room for a while 'til we get all of the continence issues sorted out. Days are more or less fine, but come nighttime, she gets a little confused.

We've got the food issue straightened out as well -- fortunately, she does not seem to have the same trouble as Finnegan with commercially-produced food. I almost had a sort of mini-nervous breakdown at the thought of making 50 pounds of homemade dog food a week instead of the current 25. But for now, she's cheerfully tucking away Hill's Science Diet Adult lamb & rice formula.

Anyway, we think she's awfully sweet. She has a louder, deeper bark than Finn -- our neighbors will continue to loathe us. She has staked out the windowseat in the living room as her lookout post.

the destroyer of vices and bringer of joy

2007-09-21T08:30:00.000-05:00

There is a new member of the clan...straight from a sold-out set at Caroline's in New York and the Lawrence Humane Society...won't you please give a big hand to the little lady...I give you...BEATRICE. I'll post pictures soon.

Beatrice is a Great Pyrenees and is just the tiniest bit larger than Finnegan. She's all-white and has the double dewclaws, so we are assuming that she is a pure-breed. Which is not necessarily good news, barking-wise.

Anyway, we picked her up yesterday and she's (knock wood) settling in just great. Slept through the night, no housebreaking accidents. Go figure. Finnegan is not being territorial at all, which is a bit of a surprise. They're not bestest friendsters, but they've achieved detente. Beatrice appears to be more or less the Eastern Bloc (having staked out the austere, utilitarian yellow and blue rooms) while Finnegan is more like NATO (claiming the flashier, gadget-rich kitchen, TV room and stereo room).

Anyway, we had this list of names to try out and we did that, and after getting no response whatsoever to Annabel, Agatha, Frances, Fionnuala, Georgia, Olivia and Jemima, she perked right up when we tried "Beatrice," which is a name I have always liked, what with its connection to The Divine Comedy and "beatific" and "beatitude" and all that. And by inference, the Beats. Not Kerouac. More like Ferlinghetti and Snyder, McClure and Lamantia. So...Beatrice it is. The destroyer of vices, the bringer of joy.

In other news: I have had an idea for how to revise the book, so posting will be light for the next few days. Between this and acclimating a new dog, I'm going to be a bit tied up. But there will be pictures of the new dog soon! Beatrice, like her namesake, looks rather less like a beauty and rather more like she's ineffably kind. And that's exactly my style.

1, 2, 3, 4, please don't play that song no more

2007-09-17T22:29:00.000-05:00

Enough with the video iPod ads, already. If I was going to buy one, I would have done it already.
That song was irritating even before it was being played 6 times an hour on national television.

On the other hand, I really do like the new Macy's commercial that Barry Levinson directed. I could see that one a bunch more.

up next, what Mischa Barton is thinking of having for lunch. film at 11.

2007-09-17T14:13:00.000-05:00

It's a great day to be a journalist! I am so proud of my comrades in the ink-stained trenches! Just moments ago, while events in Afghanistan are apparently starting to spin out of control, the costs of the war in Iraq continue unabated, the world's clean water supply continues to be in peril, and the nation has a new Attorney General nominee, the MSM 24-hour newschannels just scored a hat-trick: on FOX, reports of a hit (!) being ordered on Kevin Federline (the less charitable among us might say, "well, at least he finally got a hit"); CNN was focused on OJ Simpson's arrest and bail hearing ('cause you know, he's not any kind of a flight risk, historically speaking); and MSNBC was showing a different piece on approaches that various solicitors might take in the upcoming custody hearing for Britney Spears's children. All at once! Whoo-hoo, hooray for the mysterious alchemical processes that determine priorities at major network news outlets! Anyone who comes by my desk right now gets a free piece of gum.

I, a member of the not-so-interesting media, am focused at the moment on a piece concerning the installation of a new voting-tabulation system at the Kansas Legislature and some kind of regulation up for approval by the Wichita city council that will restrict the ownership of, I kid you not, wallabies (the marsupials, not the shoes).

A proud moment for the heirs to the legacy of Edward R. Murrow et al.

the marginal utility of discount luxury

2007-09-16T14:31:00.001-05:00

Skirts acquired, though not from Kohl's -- from Target. I am a pitiful excuse for a fashionista. Though we all of us reading this knew that. Both skirts are black; one is a-line, the other a pencil-skirt, both designed by Isaac Mizrahi and sold for less than 20 bucks. I find the branching-out of luxury designers into discount stores to be a fine thing for me personally, but it raises lots of questions for the social theorist in me about the nature of luxury, and the relative worth of a brand-name. I personally could not care less that I bought these skirts designed by a designer; the price was right, the fabric seemed durable, and they came in my size (which is always a bit of a trick). Much of the other stuff there did not meet these criteria. I looked at the Vera Wang stuff at Kohl's but apparently the day they rolled her stuff out (two days ago-ish), the store was beset by people with the self-restraint and consumption impulse of locusts in a corn field. At any rate, not being a size 2, they had little that I was even willing to examine. The things seem nice, and I did pick up some super-opaque microfiber black tights that she designed, but in general I think this is not really for me. I don't wear a lot of synthetic fabrics and I don't groove on tuck-pleating. Still, as usual, you can't beat the Kohl's discount shoe section, and I got some oxford shoes with a heel. Tim Gunn would be proud.

All of this stems from the fact that I woke up a few days ago and was getting dressed thinking, "why do I dress like such a schlub?" I suddenly realized: well, you don't have to. Just start dressing like not-a-schlub. I have some nice clothes; why don't I wear them? So now, I am doing that. I am going to try to look nice. No reason not to. I decided that for this to work, I would need more skirts, and now have a pleated wool navy skirt that I bought back in about 1996, one in kind of a slate blue cotton jersey, one in a chocolate brown, and the two I got today in black for wear-to-work-type situations. I have a couple of others for "get all dressed up-nice" occasions. So we'll see how this little experiment goes.

The kitchen floor is mopped, the laundry is all done, the floor mats and scatter rugs have been washed...all in time for my husband to get home so he can mess them all up again. Finnegan does not much care for the St. Louis Rams, or at least I'm assuming that's why he's completely not into football today.

That is all.

does the way i wear my hair determine my integrity?

2007-09-15T15:15:00.000-05:00

After much soul-searching, I decided to get a haircut that would be more than just me, meekly asking Wes (the coolbop grandpop who cuts my hair) to just trim a little off, please. Vide, hic.

Okay, so this is not the best picture in the world, but in short, I took this in the bathroom so I could see the digital camera monitor reflected by the mirror to see if I could actually get a photo of me, rather than of the back of the wall or my shoes.

I kind of like it. I'm just sick to death of maintaining the sort of mid-length, not much one-way-or-the-other-ness of the haircut I've been dragging around on my head for the last couple of years. I think I look a little bit on the horse-y side, but I think I'll get used to it...and in the meantime, at least it will mostly be out of the way. At least it will once I glop it all up with what the hairstylists casually if a bit Orwellian-ly refer to as "product." They say that women who wear their hair short have a really strong sense of self-esteem. In my case, I must be the exception that proves the rule, but in general, I like this haircut -- I think it looks striking and strong and sort of cleanly-defined, in a way -- and the people (of whom there are legion) who will feel obligated to point out the number of lesbians with short hair and their concerns that I might be mistaken for one can go fly a kite. You know, I have had short haircuts regularly since I was a child and the only people who ever say this sort of thing aloud to me about the short hair are women, and in general, they have real venom in their voices when they do. I wonder what's up with that. Most men I know think this kind of haircut is cute. They like the Victoria's Secret/trashy girl in metal video hair in the abstract, but in the concrete, I always get complimented by men when I'm wearing my hair short. But women...women are another story entirely. I can remember being ostracized for several months in junior high after getting a particularly short haircut -- there were some really mean girls who just would not let the "lesbians have short hair" thing die -- but eventually a) my hair grew out, and b) in the meantime, I learned an awful lot about professional hockey and COBOL computer programming, because I ended up sitting with the ostracized boys, of whom several commented that they liked the new aerodynamics of my head. Kooks, all of them, but now successful kooks. People who were popular in junior high and high school never end up being a success.

In other news, I made pumpkin bread this morning, cleaned and folded the laundry, and made soup for this chilly day. I came home to discover that my cattycorner-across-the-street neighbors have acquired (purchased? leased? stolen?) an ATV and a contraption that looks like a motorcycle with training wheels. The unfortunate children born into this family are now blatting and buzzing these things at ridiculous speeds up and down the street, sending my dog into complete apoplexy. A man (father? uncle? cousin? boyfriend? meth dealer?) wearing a t-shirt bearing an obscene phrase is standing out there grinning maniacally at them (his offspring? nephews? foster-care-check-providers? customers?), drinking a beer. I kind of want to go offer him some lottery tickets and bait.

Tune in tomorrow, as our heroine goes shopping for some skirts at Kohl's and mops the kitchen floor.

re-enforcing the stereotypical banality of stereotypical blogging

2007-09-14T11:11:00.000-05:00

...and in other news, I'm getting a haircut tomorrow. I'll post a picture after the deed is done, unless I'm sitting in a darkened closet, weeping uncontrollably.

also: a trip to the grocery store! And making food for Finnegan! Hooray for this outlet, allowing the most mind-numbingly mundane tasks to take on an emphatic postmodern significance! At last, my life has meaning...or at least, documentation.

yet another sign of the apocalypse, or: why everyone is SO over blogging

2007-09-14T10:23:00.001-05:00

Which is to say, that now that I have gotten around to setting once of these up, it unequivocally means that the trend is officially dead. Though one would not be wise to bet that the appetite nitwits have for spouting their undoubtedly ill-informed opinions in a public space will dry up any time soon.
Anyway, here's the space for pictures, comments and all that jazz so that the extended family clans, moieties, matrilineal and patrilineal groups (and their unnamed subsidiaries, off-shoots, shell and offshore holding companies, et cetera, in perpetuity) can see what's-a-happenin',- hot-stuff, out in the center of these-here Yoo-nited States.
Welcome back, my friends, to the show that may not in fact begin at all. Consider this my unending mic-check phase of this little shindig.
Stay tuned for pictures from Kelly's trip to the allegedly magnificent Olympic Peninsula, and photos of my recently-painted dining room. Also: a forthcoming essay on the genius that is "The Wire," and ongoing updates on my book that may or may not ever get written, because I'm too busy updating this thing. Much attention will be paid to the evidence of things unseen, and the substance of things hoped-for. Discuss amongst yourselves.