Archive for July 23, 2008

You know what’s awesome?

July 23, 2008 / / 6 comments

Pickled garlic.

How did I never know about this? So yummy, so scary to look at, so thrilling to eat.

So my sister and I are having a little soirée, and I said I’d bring the drinks, and the first store I went to didn’t have cocktail onions. Because why? Anyway, the world needs something for people who don’t like olives. So I tried a more exotic and expensive store. And I found all this cool stuff. Cocktail onions. Giant capers the size of olives. And pickled garlic. Great honking cloves in basil & brine.

Also, Havarti cheese.

So that was dinner. Cheese and crackers. A little lunchmeat. And garlic pickles.

Stand back.

Tuesday Trivia: Oops edition

July 22, 2008 / / 13 comments

After two (?) years of Tuesday Trivia, I finally screwed it up. Here it is, late evening, and nothing posted. Evn must be tearing his hair out. Busy, busy day at work, with lots of eyes over my shoulders, then an evening out with coworkers and The Boss’s Boss.

Okay, so here we are. Let’s continue our theme of the past weeks and do Quotes of the 1960s.

1. I’m walkin’ here!
Solved by Hogan (comment #1).

2. I know I’ve made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal.
Solved by Hogan (comment #1).

3. Your father never laid a hand on me until we were married. Then I… I just gave in because a wife has to. A woman doesn’t enjoy those things the way a man does. She just lets her husband come near her in order to have children.
Solved by Ben (comment #2).

4. I already know an awful lot of people and until one of them dies I couldn’t possibly meet anyone else.
Solved by Trevor J (comment #6).

5. Power is not a toy we give to good children. It is a weapon. And the strong man takes it and uses it.
Solved by George (comment #7).

6. I can eat fifty eggs.
Solved by Melville (comment #3).

7. She has the face of a simpering sheep. And the manners. But not the morals. I don’t want her near me.
Hint: Spoken by a queen.
Solved by Hogan (comment #12).

More non-movies

July 21, 2008 / / 12 comments

I didn’t watch a single movie this week. Nor did I write up a God of the Week, only a couple of weeks after starting the feature.

Arthur and I are deeply, deeply committed to So You Think You Can Dance. That’s three hours of TV a week, so that definitely cuts into the movie-watching. I love the show. I love the beauty and excitement of the dance, and I love that it’s committed to dance as an art form. It doesn’t “tart up” the dancing too much to make it crowd-pleasing. I mean, sure it does. But the producers and judges also pay attention to the technical and artistic integrity of dance; this ain’t no Dancing with the Stars. And I find that I care about it; about the people and about the pure artistry. We talk about it all week long.

We’re also catching up on our Angel DVDs. I bought all five seasons. Many of the shows we’ve seen only once, so this is a real pleasure. Except when it isn’t. Some episodes really don’t hold up. I’ve watched the 14 episodes of Firefly four or five times straight through, and none of them get tired, but the whole Pylea excursion in Season 2 is mostly only fun once. Don’t get me wrong, there’s great stuff here, but rewatching it is educational.

Speaking of the Whedonverse, I am probably the only Whedon fan who is unimpressed with Dr. Horrible. Neal Patrick Harris is awesome, but it’s a whole lot of mildly amusing for me.

Little bug brain

July 18, 2008 / / 5 comments

So, in case you’re wondering, I got the bad photo software uninstalled, and the good photo software installed, and then I was too tired to fuck around with pictures of the Gang of Two.

They’re still cute.

Anway, I saw a bug. This is not, like, a major event. It was very small; so small it was hard to tell what it was. It was black and somewhat ovoid and it hopped a little like a flea, only it wasn’t a flea because if it was a flea I wouldn’t be calming describing it, I’d be FREAKING OUT.

It was, as I said, miniscule, and hoppy. And in my bathroom, showing very black indeed against the cream tile. So I tried to kill it. (And if you have a soft heart for this sort of thing, keep in mind, in my bathroom. This is a home invasion and I have a right to defend myself. Just saying.)

I reach out with my foot. Hop away. Reach again. Hoppity. Try with my thumb this time. Hop hop hoppity disappear.

So now this is interesting. It knows I’m after it. How does it know? Does it see a shadow? Sense temperature or movement? It’s the size of a pencil erasing, where does it store this sensory system?

Obviously, entymologists know all about these things. I don’t. I have never studied or, indeed, been remotely interested in, little bug brains. But now I am. Because the little bug is outsmarting me. And his little outsmarty brain takes up very little room and in fact is small enough to hide under my tile. Necessitating a future engagement with its little bug brain.

I’m all blogged up

July 17, 2008 / / 3 comments

First thing this morning, I had to deal with a very large post on my Mad Men blog, because we got 16 Emmy nominations! Whoo! Hoooooo!

And now I’m going to do some actual paid-type work.

When I get home tonight, I’m going to try reinstalling photo software so you can get catblogging tomorrow. It’s been very frustrating.

50s Quote Trivia: All Solved

July 15, 2008 / / One comment

Smooth work, kids!

» Read more..

Tuesday Trivia: Quotes of the 1950s

July 15, 2008 / / 10 comments

…might as well continue the theme.

1. “This may come as a surprise to you, but there are some men who don’t end every sentence with a proposition.”
Solved by George (comment #3).

2. “I never faint because I am not sure that I will fall gracefully and I never use smelling salts because they puff up the eyes.”
Solved by Tom Hilton (comment #2).

3. “You know, I’ve often thought that the gangster and the artist are the same in the eyes of the masses. They are admired and hero-worshipped, but there is always present underlying wish to see them destroyed at the peak of their glory.”
Solved by George (comment #3).

4. “I believe a man is as big as what’ll make him mad. Nobody around here seems big enough to get you mad.”
Solved by Amy (comment #7).

5. “An old lady on Main Street last night picked up a shoe. The shoe had a foot in it.”
Solved by Melville (comment #1).

6. “Audiences don’t know somebody sits down and writes a picture; they think the actors make it up as they go along.”
Solved by Melville (comment #1).

7. “Don’t you know that a man being rich is like a girl being pretty? You wouldn’t marry a girl just because she’s pretty, but my goodness, doesn’t it help?”
Solved by Tom Hilton (comment #2).

Monday Movie Review: Hellboy II: The Golden Army

July 14, 2008 / / 3 comments

Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008) 7/10
Hellboy (Ron Perlman), a demon foundling raised by humans, works for a secret US government agency that combats supernatural threats. Together with Abe Sapien (Doug Jones) and Hellboy’s girlfriend Liz Sherman (Selma Blair), they must prevent Prince Nuada of the Fairy (Luke Goss) from raising the indestructible Golden Army in a final war against humankind. Written and directed by Guillermo del Toro.

The first Hellboy movie created a conventional Judeo-Christian universe of evil demons and dark forces that must be battled by warriors of light. Hellboy is a demon struggling with a massive nature vs. nurture conflict. This is almost invariably how the supernatural is portrayed in movies and on TV; anything supernatural is either evil or deeply conflicted, and has a connection to Hell. The original movie also connected Nazis and demons, which is a comforting way of viewing evil; it is large and colorful and Satanic, rather than banal.

This movie drops all of that and posits a mythic, even Pagan, worldview. There are mythic beings and there are humans, and they war because they are different, with neither being evil. Hellboy II explores the nature of these worlds living side-by-side, and the anger in the mythic realm at the increasingly destructive presence of humans. Again, Hellboy is asked to choose sides; he sure doesn’t look like he belongs among the humans. This is all much more interesting than the same-old-same-old Dark Evil Forces™ storyline, so I wish it had occured in a better movie.

Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed myself; Hellboy II brings a lot to the table. But it’s also cliché-ridden, and del Toro doesn’t know how to construct a plot worthy of his premise. Hellboy’s conflicts with Liz are lowest-common-denominator stuff—they fight because he’s messy? Really? She claims it points to a deeper problem, but can’t articulate what that problem is. Instead, the conflict devolves into a (very, very funny) comedic scene of the two guys (Hellboy and Abe) getting drunk and whining about relationships. Most of the structure is on the too-easy-to-write side; meet the new boss, encounter with villains from a childhood story, supernatural artifacts at an auction, Liz has a secret that Abe knows and doesn’t know how to tell Hellboy, the sidekick gets smitten with the beautiful new character. Some of the folkloric elements are absolutely delightful, but the elven beings bear too much resemblance to Tolkein, and the garbled Irish mythology (Nuada is the son of Balor? And has a twin sister?) doesn’t help.

What does help is a fantastic cast and great visual beauty. Ron Perlman is, again, perfect. Something about him is so much larger than life that, in the monster makeup, he’s life-sized and utterly human. Selma Blair can bring depth and complexity to a shampoo commercial, and newcomer Anna Walton is haunting as Nuala. These are well-drawn and interesting characters, and the actors really embody them.

So, yeah, it’s a summer blockbuster. Stupid plot tricks are easy enough to forgive. It’s a fun movie a cut above the typical fun movie. And by the way? Two silly scenes that seemed like they would get old and never did; I laughed and laughed.

Goddess of the Week: Sarasvati

July 13, 2008 / / Comments Off on Goddess of the Week: Sarasvati

Sarasvati is the Hindu goddess of knowledge, music, and art. She is often depicted holding the tools of all of her powers; holding a pen, holding a book, and playing the sitar. She also holds a mala (prayer beads).

Sarasvati

Her colors are white and yellow. Her creature is the swan. Often she rides a white swan, or is seated on a white lotus next to a white swan.

In India, schoolchildren worship her to help with their studies and teachers to help with imparting knowledge. Her birthday, Vasant Panchami, is a school holiday (it falls next on January 31, 2009).

She is part of the triplicity of great goddesses (Tridevi) that consists of Sarasvati-Lakshmi-Kali. These goddesses are paired with the triplicity of gods: Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva. In general, Hindu myth will marry these six in neat pairs, but there is a story that Sarasvati and Lakshmi (goddess of abundance) are both wives of Vishnu. As co-wives, they bicker and compete, and this is why you can have either a life of abundance and plenty, or a life of art and creativity, but not both.

Brady’s “Fox Hunt Inn”

July 10, 2008 / / 6 comments

Brady’s “Fox Hunt Inn” (complete with quotations) is a restaurant not far from my office. I’ve never been inside, but the other day the deli’s parking lot was full, so I parked at Brady’s and walked over.

It was like I was in Language Hell. And Restaurant Hell. And Restaurant Language Hell.

First of all, the quotes around “Fox Hunt Inn” are confusing, but perhaps not fully unnecessary. Perhaps there was once a place called Brady’s that was known colloquially as “Fox Hunt Inn.” What that place was doing in Bergen County, New Jersey defies logic, but just suppose. It has thin but real plausibility.

Around back, in the parking lot, the sign says (among other things) “Great Food!” Now that bothers me. The quote marks are not only unnecessary, the phrase itself is beyond insipid. It’s as purely generic as if it just said Food. Or, y’know, “Food.” I imagine a restaurant reviewer somewhere saying that Brady’s has “Great food” and the proprieters thinking, “Wow, fab pull quote, but let’s not attribute it to a real reviewer because we might get sued.”

I spend too much time thinking about these things.

Finally, as I was walking back to my car with my gyro, I noticed the sign out front with today’s selections. They included an Enchilada Special and Sweet & Sour Pork. And now I’m mad. Brady’s “Fox Hunt Inn” should have fish & chips, bangers & mash, and Yorkshire pudding. Not, I repeat NOT enchiladas. What is the world coming to?

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