Ingenious and beautiful, yet, withal, sad-making

Over at belleandsebastian.com, the gang has a 28 minute promo video for their new LP Write About Love, and, boy, is it ever B&S to the max! Shot super-nicely, everyone looks great, tons and tons of shots of Glaswegians doing things that are anathema to your Creed-loving (still!) neighbors, like reading. And that's what is sad - I loved watching this thing, but wondered if I had what it takes to nigh-singlehandedly rescue the entire American populace from the maelstrom of grossness in which we are embroiled.

I'm scared I may doubt it. So maybe I can keep things cool in my house?

Not only Brett Anderson's birthday yesterday,

it was also my mom's! 84!

Some lines I imagine from Whit Stillman's new movie

According to New York (where I also go this pic), Greta here (last name escapes me) is in the new, getting-ready-to-be-shot Whit Stillman movie Damsels In Distress. Like, yay!

Maybe when this comes out Duke and I can repeat our day of seeing a movie, buying shirts then eating Chinese.

Anyway, the movie is set at a college ("Seven Oaks" or some such) and its suicide-prevention center.

Here are lines I imagine will be in it:

"Callowness has no place here."



"No, that was Lyle Waggoner."


"I do so love sweater weather."


"I was on a cereal diet."



token boy: "Just the sight of her ankle made me weak..."



Girl 1: "Well, then we seem to be on the right plath."
Girls 2 & 3: [double take]

"So, I was telling Larry Block the other day..."

See, now I have to be friends with Lawrence Block. Here's what happened: a friend of ours was looking to dispose of around nine grocery sacks of books. I said I would get rid of them, but, being a meddlesome twit (obvs), I perused her castoffs and among the stacks found this:

This is one of those reissue pulp things from the same imprint that did that Stephen King The Colorado Kid thing which you sometimes think of buying at Half Price Books. Well, the Bride read it, I am reading it (having my same suspense book problem I often have, which is being nervous about what is going to happen to characters, so only read about 40 pages a stretch, then go back to whatever safe ephemera is close to hand until I saw logs), and I must say it's fantastic. SO, I then needed to see all about Lawrence Block, right, so his wiki bio says he went to Antioch, right here in Yellow Springs, and that his detective character Matthew Scudder is in AA! What the hell? Old LB says nothing about the auto-biographical aspects, in deference to anonymity issues!

So, now I have to have a cookout where both Danny Trejo and Larry Block come, and whatsit from Blur.

"Content quality": I scoffed

On the "your post published successfully!" page that appears when I post, there is an ad for something called Blogworld 2010 and a 20% off electro-coupon to attend. Among promises for this event are ways to "increase revenue" (?), "grow your audience" (nah, we are a select elite bunch!), and strengthen "content quality."

This last made spit Maxwell House out my nose, because what in the world could possibly be done to improve Nick Eddy Relents?

Ridiculous!

I am unique: refections on the Hunt for a Reds October

Well, the Cincinnati Reds have clinched a division title for the first time in fifteen years! Excitement! Momentum!

But how many people can truly say that they know someone who was at the crucial game? Hardly any! So I am a very, very special person, cos our Kyle was indeed there. He took his friend the Dutchman, who is actually from the Netherlands, and who was likely wondering "Red? Why not Orange?" and working on a spliff the size of a leg of lamb. Well, no, he's sort of pious, I think.

Still, how fun!

Reminder 2

To someone else, you and yours might be GarbagePeople.

Olympia!

Yes, I do find it exciting that Bryan Ferry has gotten off his posh arse and made a proper album, complete with the obligatory completely hookless single (which samples Roxy's "True to Life"!), expensive-appearing video and a Peter Saville-y LP cover featuring that old slag Kate Moss!

Why, don't you?

It also serves to remind me: how does this guy still have money? I mean, sure, he's a household word in the UK and probably Switzerland and somewhere you wouldn't expect like Lebanon or Israel or Brazil, but, still...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfE85HfYzHs

More schedule crap to make your editor insane

Then I tried to get Tess fixed on Saturday at the little community spay/neuter basement inside our neighborhood church. She was still lactating, and they won't do surgery for fear of infection when lactation is still present. Plus she's probably preggo again (she loves it), so those babies will have to come.

The nice lady said "Can you separate Mom and her kitten for twelve days?"

"Well, no, not really, they are outdoor cats and if the two indoor ones get wind of another cat inside...see, they are idiots and will pee on the ceiling, the walls and all hell will break loose..."

So, Sadie the kitten will get fixed first in a couple of weeks, THEN Mom Tess will have more kitties, we will place those and then lock The Hoo-er of Bonner up in a concrete box where she can't get any more action...but, with weaning of kittens, when will that be? January?

Good grief!

Not Blanda!

How could George Blanda die? Is this even possible?

I thought he was still playing somewhere, like for the Chargers, maybe.

Reminder 1

Do you read this blog? Please follow, then.

BORING

Okay, so I am on two medicines. NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS WHAT THEY ARE, NOSY!

Anyway, over years of being on them I have occasionally missed a dose (heh) here and there -- weekend away, forgot to take, what have you, to the point that I am fully two weeks apart between the two. This is the worst, because it means an extra trip to the drug store and waiting around (and yes, even as an old man, I understand that I can call in or order online -- no matter, the wait still involves somebody wanting to tell me about "puttin' their boat up," or a fidgety nine-year-old with surly meth-mom shrieking "Put that fuckin' thing down, Jayden!", etc).

SO, I guess my concern is, what with insurance folderol, how can I get the two meds back in sync? The drug store staff, when this comes up, and I've been trying to figure it out for a couple of months, give me blank looks like I've just said "hey, can you transmute this keychain into the purest, purest GOLD?" I called the doctor's office and asked them. They are supposed to shirtsleeve it around the office and see who salutes.

Anyway, WEAK!

Oh. Man.

I keep on burpin' smokey ham.

It really has come to this

The sorta-pointless (especially so today, not just the normal N.E.R. pointlessness) series of gripey posts continues with this, the name of a perfume:

Yuk!

What's being advertised here?

Droid phones? Windows? Paint? Brooks Brothers? Levis?

???

Gabe dictates the Bride's look for fall 2010

Good hell!

Check this weird-ass jacket I saw at Marshall's! Maybe this is one of those weird Japanese things, like on Engrish.com. Regardless, should have bought and lived in it!

No, no, I should have bought both of them (shown) and then made a friend wear one around with me! Oh, regret!!!

Weekend

Meanwhile, over at Duke's...

What has I did?

Silly, silly me

As much as I loved "Pull Shapes" (it was on our wedding songlist!), can someone out there in the world tell me how I failed to listen to the first Pipettes record until today?

What the hell?

I'm also on a kick with these, like, 33 minutes or less records: new Jeremy Messersmith, that Clientele ep, this thing, Best Coast...it fits my lifesyle, though; I'm a busy woman! Er, man. I said MAN [storming off]!

Leo!

Went to mail something at the closest-to-work post office and was bedazed anew by this weird sculpture that still hangs in the lobby/queuing area:

Yes, it's Indian and Trader (1942), by Leo Schulemowitz!

Leo even sent a letter ahead, which hangs framed, adjacently:

New York, NY

April 30, 1942

Dear Mr Alexander,

This is to let you know that

the sculpture decoration for your post

office had been completed and shipped.

We will please see that no one

uncrates the sculpture until my

arrival as it has been packed in a special

way.

I hope to arrive in Miamisburg

on the 14th or 15th of May to install

the panel.

With kindest regards,

Sincerely yours,

Leo Schulemowitz

A quick jaunt through the internet confirms that this was a bit of WPA New Deal art, putting artists to work. One can just imagine 1.) Leo happily cashing his check so he can go meet Grant Wood for drinks in the Village, and 2.) his dread at having to take a train to some godforsaken hole in the wilds to see his piece installed.

Poor guy!

The Droid I was looking for...a MAN'S PHONE

I just inherited the Bride's Droid, as she has moved up to a Samsung Fascinate. The best thing about it is that Google Sky Map thing that one sees in the iPad commercial...it's free AND when you point it down at the ground it shows you what stars are visible at that point on the other side of the earth. Yes!

Also, at the phone store on Sunday, some rat-tail behaired GritterDad was stomping around saying to his wife and kids "No, no, I need a MAN'S PHONE!" I understand this, as my last phone was a dinky little thing that would elicit comments from stooges along the lines of "Does that phone come in Mens?" or "Did you get that at my mom's yard sale?" But this guy seemed to have a skosh too much identity tied up in his phone. I mean, Christ, it's a phone. I was tempted to get some Gorilla Glue and affix a $59 flip phone to a hammer and say "Here ya go, asshole!"

Did not because we were late to meet friends to watch NFL pool action which I ended up losing, anyway (see below).

Oh, Elizabeth

So bummed to hear that Peggy is a Scientologist. Not sure why, but it makes me feel bad.

It truly IS a funny shaped ball

I'm in a football pool! That should put those rumors to rest! Anyway, Sunday at 5, I still had a chance to win 100 dollars. I didn't, of course. I would like to win one week very much, because I could then use the winnings to finance 10 weeks of further poolage. And I found that one does care, even about the most seemingly insignificant matchups, when there are are thick wads of cash involved.

WHAT? Were they shooting a Pet Shop Boys video here this weekend?

MS Paint New Yorker Cartoon 9/21/2010 (effed up version)

"Honey, check and see if we have 'The Sky's Gone Out' on

the iPod..."

MS Paint New Yorker Cartoon 9/21/2010

"He just learned about how, before electricity, people could
double the light from a candle with a mirror."

Ratatouille throwdown!

Took a break from the mega-intense stage experience Sunday night to partake in Gabe's homemade ravioli with ratatouille.

Glorious!

Our hosts!

Cricket says: "Mom, I've got a bob! Also, Sadie and Tess are right; ease up on the flash there, shitty [Patrick] MacMullan!"

Pig on some pex!

"Turn off that damned flash!"

Freja!

I thought that model Freja Beha was new on the scene, but turns out she's famous already. As is something called a "beeber [sp?]," apparently. Ah, age!

Anyway, I saw this lady in Chanel ads and in those nuts Tom Ford eyewear ads with the blackbirds and thought "Huh! Striking! And what a strong filtrum!"

Of course, a cynic would say, why, it's just another woman who looks like his wife, like that girl from Bats for Lashes! He's just trying to say he's hot for some chick, when really he lives in fear of the bee sting pinches and wrath of his other half!

Anyway, I'm glad Freja is on the scene, whatever my motives in posting this.

Okay, okay

For something that doesn't need to exist, the Chip Kidd-equipped True Prep is fun. And well done.

She's ready

Postcard

In Nashville the other week, it started pouring while we were looking through the Toughest Antique Shop on Earth (too epic!), and Kyle noticed that the proprietress had left a little $80 table out in the gush, so we went out and fetched it for her and wiped it off. She then let me have a postcard from the stack of vintage postcards with writing on them ["made it. The weather is beautiful. Saw Henry Ford and boy, was he ever drzunk! Mabel" - that sort of thing].

This one fried my mind, though:

Dearest Carroll and

Ralph, (write soon)

Thank you for the fine

Texas book. Hope your

new home will be to

your liking. This is a

brief, because I am

busy home nursing

Roy. After a family

and local dr. conference

it was decided it would

be best to keep him at

home with medic. and

treatment instead of

sending him again to hosp.

He is losing ground fast.

Only God knows how

long he may live.

With love to you and

your mother, Jean

Front of card:

"As God as my witness,

I will never do community theatre again!"

Unless I'm asked and the crops are all laid by.

Putting the "mature" in amateur

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

I mean, seriously

Doesn't this hat here look like in one of those old baseball cards from the sixties where they have airbrushed the cap on because the player was traded between seasons?

I also need to start my own business of some sort and have this as my business card...

The Prince contemplates his lines, albeit warily

Of course, when I heard I was to be the Prince, I expect to be beswathed in lots of purple velvet and maybe put some red sequins on my eyelids, in tribute to the strange fantasias of Powell and Pressburger. Instead I was in a civil war outfit with a hat that would look fine on someone else, but which, on my enormodome, actually looked like one of those eentsy orange sombrero-shaped caps on a bottle of tequila...

The wind wasn't all on the stage

What the shit doth occur on yonder heath?

Show lights in the distance from the hillside behind the set!

Weird Gerhard Richter/Seurat confab

Various cast members milling about in the soft evening light!

Barrymore, Olivier, Brando, Eddy

Shakespeare! Say it!

Turns out, see, that Juliet has taken a potion to make her seem dead, but horno Romeo Montague wigs out, offs himself, she wakes up and can't deal and offs herself. Oh, the bitter mirth of this grievous irony!

Anyway, show was this weekend, and here, dutifully, are a smattering of play-related postings!

And, no, I don't know what "cog rats" are. Sounds scary!

Weekend

Fatwa!

Lost in the hubbub about the death-sentence imposed on the woman behind the "draw muhammed" day thing is the direction that her would-be assassins were given: "Get out there and find this Risko drawing of Jeaneane Garafalo!"

Overheard:

Just 'cos she spent that money and went to college for an education -- she
just sits there and does nothin'. I don't know why you listen to her...least you
do something with your time.

Ah! Casting!

I don't know what Ryan Reynolds has been in or what he is all about at all - I've never really seen him until now - but I'm glad he's on the scene, because he will be perfect in the title role of my movie, MoonBret, about Bret Easton Ellis living on the moon in 1989!

Shooting starts Oct 22!

You're so vane

Yes, I do need a weather vane for the shed. Yes. Why do you ask?

If I were a teacher

I would make all the students listen to the fantastically weird new Clientele track "The Green Man," while looking at this:

Also, I mean, like, doctoral level teacher, not second grade. Plus: A's for everyone!