Friday Night Baking
Now Playing: Black Keys--"Grown So Ugly"
Well, it might have been if I hadn't been so tired. I chose to forgo the inaugural Halfass show of the season (Dabenport, playing with the highly-regarded The Recital and the Dollfaces, the latter in their final performance) so that I could sleep early and rise likewise, in order to get the baking for work done. I'd planned on doing it Friday night but was way too exhausted to do much of anything besides sleep. The party hounds living on either side of our house woke me at about midnight. I really do not understand beer pong. I reminds me more than anything of the old "Grand Prize Game" on The Bozo Show, so I guess it's encouraging to see it continue its existence in such a sozzled form. I don't understand the obviously strong emotions of joy it apparently evokes in people when they score (however they do so), and I still can't believe I witnessed a fight break out over a game a couple of years back (from the shouts and yelling, the dispute apparently revolved around "respect" or some such). Two of my housemates were up and doing God knew what in their rooms--I think Gary was watching television while drinking (somehow I missed the beginning of college football season this year) and Roman's activities remain a total mystery. While nonplussed to find, on trying to take a shower at four in the morning, that someone else was using the bathroom, I read my way out of it.*

I like working alone. By "alone," I mean "without my boss." It helped that I walked to work at four-thirty this morning, not a soul in the streets, in possibly perfect weather. The stars were still out and the clouds on offer turned the sky into a melange of violets, a light breeze completing the ensemble. My job was to fill the quota of muffin mixes, quiche crusts, and cookie doughs for the next week; it took me about three hours, all told. I made sure to provide the soundtrack--Bowie, the Black Keys, Pretty Girls Make Graves (not really that into them, but they were somehow on the tape), Rocket From The Tombs, and Starling Electric. It always helps to give the place a psychic cleansing of sorts after so much 107.1 FM, "The Same Variety All The Time." There are few more enjoyable experiences I've found than working alone in a downtown kitchen at five-thirty on a Saturday morning (the day's important, too--I suspect it's a hangover from Saturday morning cartoons) with good music and no pressure. It actually feels like I'm working, and not just "being employed."

An outdoor breakfast at the Fleetwood afterwards finished off a perfect morning. The server saw me bring my dishes in from the outside.

"You work in a restaurant, don't you?"

"How'd you guess?"

*I realize that such tales open my blog to accusations of petty navel-gazing, of the sort that so exercises national and regional journalists as to the self-absorption and destined-for-hell status of younger people and particularly bloggers. To these I say "fuck you," especially as they should probably be more worried about the shitty state of their own media, its corporate dominance, and its repulsive subservience to the present state of things. Thank you.

In any case, I love this guy.

Dandelion Kill
Now Playing: David Bowie--"Width of a Circle"
Labor Day Weekend: Much less eventful than last, but not much less enjoyable.

After taking a break from writing for the past week (I wrote three whole stories in August--a personal record--so I was ready for one), I'm ready to go at it again. On what I'm not sure, other than my library school statement of purpose, in which I'm trying to fit career goals, social conscience, and previous experience. There's that and then there'll be a story concerning the undead. Shawn, the filmmaker contracted to capture Madisonfest on video last weekend, took leave of me by suggesting we work on a zombie flick at some point in the future. I'm going to assume, however cavalierly, that he wasn't joking and write some sort of necrophagous barnburner if at all possible. It's a good excuse, anyway, and it'll keep me going until a more serious topic crops up.

My house is now chock-full of people, every room occupied, and a more pleasant little Spanish-Peruvian-indeterminate Slavic-American place you can't imagine. Gloria's from Murcia, Virginia's from Cuzco, Ted's from... somewhere in Michigan, and I'm guessing Gary's the same. He used to live on State Street, anyway. As for Roman, the guy who lives next door to me, we see very, very little of him. Does he walk the streets at night like a lame bat, I wonder? My guess is that he's Polish, but I have very little to go on. Gloria speaks rudimentary English, and Virginia even less, so it'll be fun (for me, anyway) to navigate the linguistic minefields for a while. It's even more pleasant when I think of the yahoos who used to live with me (they thankfully lasted about four months of my moving in; the Mormon kid left for undisclosed reasons, Sed got sick of Tim, Tim was evicted, and the crackhead who worked at Gratzi--Gratzi! Maybe I should apply there!--foolishly got himself caught "feeding the beast" in the basement bathroom, an event I sadly wasn't present to witness).

Sunday, we actually had an impromptu movie night! I'd just finished watching Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974) as Gloria came in to eat. Ted showed up and wanted to watch What About Bob? (1991). We had no problem with that (I hadn't seen it) and watched for about an hour until Virginia walked in. So all four of us watched What About Bob?, I reading Philip K. Dick's Our Friends From Frolix 8 (1970) in the meantime. It was a really nice, homey gathering, with some lively Spanglish conversation. I've been known to enjoy my solitude, but it's always nice to have friendly people to watch movies with you. Alice? Scorsese successfully pulls off a gentle, slice-of-life comedy-drama and inspires a beloved 70s sitcom along the way. I wasn't old enough to know if Ellen Burstyn was a genuine star back in those days, but she should have been (and I'm too big a man to care that she's playing the Christopher Lee role in that Wicker Man remake). Bob? Personally, I'm a little skeptical of the whole Bill Murray career-reinvention hype, but he's undeniably delightful as the panaphobic Bob. Dreyfuss is perfect as his tightassed psychiatrist nemesis. Frolix 8? Bemused by the Dick cult, I read his late 1950s novel The Cosmic Puppets a few months ago, and wasn't impressed; it seemed like a middling Outer Limits episode. Frolix 8 is an absolute stunner, the story of an oppressed, drug- and television-sedated America in the mid-22nd century in which apparently intelligent people are relegated to menial occupations by the more genetically advanced via standardized testing and educational placement. A resistance force builds up, but is powerless until the return of its exiled leader from space, accompanied by his new, super-advanced pal, a glop of protoplasm weighing ninety tons. Quirky, action-packed, and thought-provoking, Frolix was an instant favorite (the humor was right up my alley), and encouraged me to pursue more of Dick's work.

Monday morning, I rose bright and early and ventured into the "wilderness" (um, the parks bordering the Huron River), something I really haven't been doing very much lately. Intending to trek through Argo and Bandemer Parks, along the western Ann Arbor stretches of the river, I wound up exploring Barton Nature Area, accessible from Bandemer by walking northwest along the train tracks of the Michigan Central. It's always a treat to find part of Ann Arbor that I haven't seen yet (I've been here over four years now and there are still major blind spots). Barton's gorgeous: a mix of dark undergrowth admitting little or no sun, pleasantly wooded riverbanks, and light-drenched meadow. The weather was splendid, a perfect and paradoxical mix of spring and autumn, best enjoyed by the various path openings onto the river itself, where you can observe the steep rise of the south bank to Huron River Drive. There were a couple of transcendent moments, two of which punctuated by great music: working my way up a hill in Argo, woods all around me, the rising sun poking its way through the canopy, to Starling Electric's "She Goes Through Phases," and then amid a prairie patch of tall grass (along a twisting series of paths that reversed themselves about five times) to the Super Furry Animals' "Gathering Moss." At one point I nearly stepped on a tree frog (which didn't seem to realize how close it had approached extinction) and I believe I actually saw a cardinal (something else I haven't done in a long time), although it may have just been an unnaturally red other bird.

The best part was finding Barton Dam, possibly the most picturesque spot I've yet seen on the Huron. The Barton trail eventually brought me to the Huron's effluence from a higher elevation, managed by the dam, which I reached through a path that led past the stately old Barton Powerhouse (c. 1912). To my right lay the still-rising sun (it was only about ten-thirty) through the trees, and a green expanse of rolling pasture and farmland, with little houses along a dirt road lined with dusty mailboxes that turned into Barton Shore Drive. To my left was Barton Pond, the dam's child, its surface rippling with a faint breeze and a path continuing to lead northwest, following the river. A more compelling evocation of Americana I haven't seen in years (outside of Madison House season finales); it was almost intoxicatingly bucolic and agrarian. The path northwest along the pond, according to the phonebook map, goes much further than I had, almost to the end of Maple Road, and fairly close to the Huron River Drive bridge, which continues on into the mysteriously named village of "Delhi Mills," midway between Ann Arbor and Dexter. If I can make it to Gallup, I can make it there, without the aid of a bicycle, too. Next weekend, or the next...

Kings To Me, Fernand
Now Playing: Super Furry Animals--"Don't Be A Fool, Billy"
"...There are not many childrens' books... that involve a... serial poisoner, two cases of infanticide, a stabbing and three suicides; an extended scene of torture and execution; drug-induced sexual fantasies, illegitimacy, transvestism and lesbianism; a display of the author's classical learning, and his knowledge of modern European history, the customs and diet of the Italians, the effects of hashish... the length would, in any case, disqualify it from inclusion in any modern series of books for children."

Of course, it's been my favorite novel since I was a child. Robin Buss, in the introduction to his translation of Alexandre Dumas pere's The Count of Monte Cristo (1844-45), manfully tries to correct the impression many "serious' critics have of this outrageously entertaining and exciting piece of literature. I've read it in the tiny pocket Moby Books "Illustrated Classics" edition in the mid-1980s, the Bantam Classics abridged version in the late 1980s, and found Buss' Penguin Classics translation for five bucks at the Ann Arbor Book Fair last year. This last, to my knowledge the first truly unabridged English-translation ever, restores several scenes that fill out the story, adding depth and color I never thought it needed.

The bare bones of the plot, if you're unlucky enough not to have read it: Edmond Dantes, a young sailor from Marseille, returns home from a sea voyage in 1815, during the first Bourbon restoration, to marry his Catalan fiancee Mercedes. Framed for treason by two jealous "friends" and a public prosecutor with a guilty secret, he's thrown into the horrible Chateau d'If prison to rot for the rest of his life. Escaping with the help of an old Italian priest, he signs on board a smuggling ship, finds buried treasure, and uses it over the next decade as "the Count of Monte Cristo," exacting an elaborate and delicious revenge on the people who put him in jail. This summary does tremendous injustice to even the synopsis of a wonderfully rich and adventurous plot, one that had an incalculable effect on my growing imagination.

It's been filmed several times, as you might expect, and after watching the prestigious 1998 miniseries made by the Bravo network, in association with French television, I've come to the conclusion that it will never be properly portrayed on celluloid. I suspected that going in, and that's a good thing. I've never seen the 1934 version with Robert Donat (who I love; pretty surprising), or the 1961 version with Louis Jourdan (an ideal actor for the Count, if not Edmond). I have seen the sunny 1975 TV movie with Richard Chamberlain and the surprisingly entertaining 2002 movie from former Kevin Costner henchman Kevin Reynolds, with Jim Caviezel as the Count. Of this last, I remember my friend Karen freaking out as to its awfulness, mainly due to departures from the book. I think these are fine, as long as they produce a good movie (if you're going to make a movie version utterly faithful to the book, why make it at all?). I think all three versions of Graham Greene's The Quiet American--the novel, the 1958 Joseph Mankiewicz movie with Michael Redgrave and Audie Murphy, and the 2002 Philip Noyce movie with Michael Caine and Brendan Fraser--work very well, and they're all rather different. Caviezel was good in The Thin Red Line, Ride With The Devil and, yes, The Passion of the Christ, but no freaking way was I buying him as the Count of Monte Cristo (he was all right as Dantes). I did find his miscasting more entertaining than anything else, and Guy Pearce and Luis Guzman were genuinely great fun as the villainous Fernand and loyal sidekick Jacopo.

The miniseries looked expensive and sumptuous, in French with English subtitles, and it ran longer than two hours (eight or so, it turned out), which meant that it might get at some of the more specatcular plot twists (check your skepticism at the door, by the way) that other versions missed. I'm now familiar with some of the cast I might not have known when it was first broadcast (Jean Rochefort as Fernand, for example), but there was one player who actually made me want to stay away when it was first shown: Gerard Depardieu as the Count of Monte Cristo. The Count of Monte Cristo is a dark, saturnine figure whose public image calls to mind a vampire in at least one character's fevered imagination. Gerard Depardieu... isn't. He's a fantastic actor, the reputed De Niro of France (I actually wondered what the young, 60s or 70s De Niro might have made of this role), and I've loved his work in such historical flicks as The Return of Martin Guerre, Danton, and (best of all) Cyrano de Bergerac. He also looks like a boulder with shaggy blond hair, enough to play Obelix in the Asterix movie that was made not too long ago. As I watched, though, through the first episode, I came to realize that maybe I should see it as opera. Take La Boheme: you'd never actually mistake Luciano Pavarotti for Rodolfo (among other things, the latter probably hasn't seen a crust for a couple of days). Depardieu made me look past the physical, just as a good opera singer would have.

The rest of the cast does a pretty good job. As with Reynolds' film, the roles of Jacopo and Bertuccio are wisely blended, this time into Bertuccio; Sergio Rubini is the wiseass sidekick every good hero needs. The most interesting character in the novel, the public prosecutor Villefort, is wonderfully rendered by Pierre Arditi, who brings to life the character's haunted hypocrisy. Rochefort's Fernand chews as much scenery as time will allow; I could watch the scene unmasking his villainy in front of the entire National Assembly again and again. Flash Gordon's own Princess Aura, Ornella Muti, does well in a difficult role as the older Mercedes. The female characters in the book are mostly rather hysterical or vapid (one of the few strong women in the book doesn't even show up onscreen), but the actresses manage to make up for it. Depardieu's stunning daughter Julie, as Valentine de Villefort, brings a substance and even ballsiness to the character that was totally lacking in the novel.

Most of the plot's there; my favorite scene gets compressed a lot, but I can deal. The writers did a great job of switching up the plot points so that they're still there, but in more easily filmable forms. The surrounding events generally imply the late 1830s (Halley's comet, Queen Victoria's accession in Britain, Meyerbeer's premiere of Les Huguenots, the July Monarchy of Louis-Philippe, and so on). The atmosphere is appropriately moody and brooding--plenty of mist, darkness, and at least one incredibly creepy scene that would do your average horror movie proud, all set to an effective score by Bruno Coulais. I was glad I got to check this out, and I'd advise others to do the same, but make sure you get your hands on the real deal first. Thankfully, the miniseries still doesn't come close to the original for all its opulence, nor should it. If I wanted the original novel... I'd read it.

Triumphs of Hydraulic Glory
Now Playing: Manuel de Falla--"En El Generalife" from Noches en los jardines de Espana
I came dangerously close to snapping at my boss a couple of days ago, in a real-life "kitchen-sink drama." Ha! I'll continue my usual practice of leaving the location anonymous, even though many of you know where I work and some of you have even eaten there (sometimes with annoying co-workers yourselves). Our dishwasher has given us no end of trouble through my time on the job. It's a relatively primitive model, with a single washing "chamber" (I don't know if that's the actual term, but it worryingly pleases me to think of the dishwasher as a ballistic weapon) that can only fit one rack of dishes. Besides cooking soups and fixing up sauces and dressings, I also do most of the bussing and dishwashing (as Pacino or Kristen Bell might say, "just when I think I'm out, they pull me back in again!"), so I probably use the dishwasher most. When washing dishes in the sink before using the machine, I use a plastic standup colander to prevent most of the debris from draining into the plumbing. The latter possibility is more fraught with danger than in most restaurants, even in Ann Arbor. Our restaurant stands in an allegedly--therefore, officially--historic block of downtown Ann Arbor (the claim is that performing any sort of alteration whatsoever to the buildings will not only spoil the ambience but will also prevent "walkability," the sort of argument only someone who spends most of their time sitting in offices and driving cars and forgetting how to walk could make), along with several other restuarants, whith which it shares a complex, almost incestuous set of relationships, generally in terms of past or present co-workers. We're located directly above one of these restaurants, a particularly classy and elegant establishment which, though frequently pretentious, has a genuinely sweet happy hour, one I've often enjoyed. When something goes wrong with our pipes, they suffer.

The last time we had a major leak, the building manager took me (identified, once again, as the de facto "dishwasher expert") down below to look at the rather picturesque crusting and shit that clogged up one pipe they were trying to clear out. He wasned me to make sure no debris got into the system. I didn't tell him that I always made sure that was the case, and that once I wasn't at the sink, other workers, usually La Jefa, took over and acted like rabid children with attention-deficit disorder, throwing the colander aside like it was Play-Doh in which they'd lost all interest and doing ther same with the pots, pans, and dishes, until the latter were all gone, and one sink was stopped up and overflowing with scummy water (while doubtlessly leaking debris into the pipes below). I tried to warn my co-workers to use the colander or, if they resented that particular item for some reason (backsass, maybe), to use something else. After the eighth or ninth time I stopped caring. I'd get blamed for it in any case and I'm really not getting paid enough to take "ownership," as La Jefa puts it. This is hardly the worst restaurant I've ever worked (at my last one, one of the bartenders got actual shit all over his shirt after cleaning out an overflowing gutter in the basement). I just sat back, embraced the path of least resistance with grateful lust, and waited for the next big water crisis.

It wasn't really all that big, but it did strike home that I was basically living in the Flint, Michigan, of Wonderland. The pipe opening that takes in excess flow from the dishwasher somehow got clogged up and had been overflowing for the past two days. I showed her the overflow that day at about ten, and then she saw it again later. At the end of the day, she asked me if the overflow continued.

"Oh, yeah," I said. "It's been going on all day. Not anything catastrophic; I was able to mop it up."

"Why didn't you tell me?" she asked, with a manipulative, almost betrayed look in her eyes, of the kind I've learned to resist from any source, "forgetting" that I had showed her earlier that morning.

I opened my mouth and didn't make a sound; this was kind of a waste, so I closed it again. I should have kept it there. "Well, I did. It was overflowing yesterday, wasn't it? Were we able to get it fixed?"

"No."

"Well, see, it's overflowing today." Many will probably find this simple cause and effect stuff. I wasn't pissed off, mind you. I had just come off one of the best weekends of my life, as previously described. If anything, I found it rather funny. It was a bemused, wondrous exasperation--why wasnt' she seeing this? In my mind, I was rapping her sharply on the forehead and asking "McFly" if anyone was home.

"Okay, I'll call the guy and see if he can take a look at it tomorrow," she moaned like a hurt puppy, as if this had all been my fault. I just drifted off into the rest of the day, wondering at my circumstances.

The next day, of course, she advised me, among other things, not to let the sink overflow. I had the temerity to let the gargoyle "I cannot believe she just fucking said that" smirk in my head touch my face very briefly. She left off her admonitions, pondering my face for a second.

"You're looking at me real condescending." If there's one thing condescending people hate, it's people being condescending to them (similarly, if you negatively react to a person's snobbery or bigotry, you're apt to be called a snob or bigot yourself): real pot-kettle-black stuff I hadn't encountered in a long time.

I got out of it with "I just don't understand" (which was also true on a certain level where I might have cared), but should have said "that's condescending-ly." Under the circumstances, it might well have been the funniest thing I'd ever said in my life.

I expect it also would have gotten me fired, but I'm not that reckless. My spirits are still high, too. I just thought I'd give everyone a nice little service-industry snapshot before I go into partial hibernation this weekend in order to make up for last weekend.

Red, Red River Roar
Now Playing: Franz Schubert--"Tranenregen" from Die Schoene Muellerin (I don't know how to do umlauts on this thing)
Goodbye, Madison House.

This past weekend saw the MadisonFest, three days of the best music in Michigan as a salute to the end of summer and the departure of Brandon Zwagerman for New York. Brandon, some of you will know, is the booster sans peur et sans reproche for the local music world, arranging and promoting shows in every conceivable place for the past couple of years. I met him over Ann Arbor Is Overrated, bonded over fondness for such local bands as the Avatars and Saturday Looks Good To Me, and attended nearly every show he put on at the Madison House and many elsewhere. It's safe to say that he enabled a social and artistic revolution in my Ann Arbor life; I wouldn't know nine-tenths of the people or local music I presently enjoy without his zeal, and this city would probably have turned into a fucking hell for me otherwise. That's just what he did for me, too; viewing it in terms of the local arts scene, his achievement is so much more impressive. Brandon, thank you from the bottom of my heart, and the best of luck in the future. This place will definitely be poorer without you, but will also be much better for your efforts.

It was, as John told me at Leopolds', a bittersweet weekend. It passed in random images, which shouldn't be much of a surprise. I'm still a little dazed myself: Sari Brown and Annie Palmer at West Park Friday, Great Lakes Myth Society later that night at the Blind Pig; cooking and a nap Saturday, then door duty at the Madison (where I stunned myself with my own enthusiasm; I had no idea it was possible for me to be that chipper while taking money and stamping hands), then music, music, music, and drinking, drinking, drinking, from the Madison to Arbor Vitae for the afterparty and home again; more cooking Sunday morning and a deceptive stealth hangover, lots of leisurely strolls, more music, a standing ovation for the Madison and Mr. Zwagerman, then a rollicking afterparty at Leopold Brothers' to close out a wonderful time that will always remain precious in my memory.

Random images:

--Passing by a bike-jousting tournament on the way to the West Park bandshell Friday evening; bike-jousting's entertaining enough, but when you couple it with musical accompaniment (in this case a guy on accordion pumping out "The Girl I Left Behind Me"), it gets so much better. Also, anyone who uses the exclamation "huzza!" in regular palaver is already halfway to heaven in my book.

--Running into Jess and Ricardo at the Great Lakes Myth Society show at the Blind Pig later that night. I had barely started drinking yet, but was in such a nostalgic mood (and was still so chuffed after getting my First BHF Book of Horror Stories in the mail) that I grabbed them both in a huge bear hug, which I think might have bemused Ricardo. I'm extremely proud of my volunteer work for Planned Parenthood, but it's always good to see her out on the social circuit.

--A couple of lovely little ending flourishes from some of the bands: the bassist for Dabenport ending their set with the opening lines to the Barney Miller theme tune, and Tania closing a song for Great Lakes Myth Society on her violin with the music for Pac-Man.

--The Madison front porch finger puppet show, starring Sara, Kristy, and Tania. I think there's actually film of it somewhere.*

--Stopping off at Village Corner on the way to the Arbor Vitae afterparty. Chris Bathgate had asked people for dance music, and I went home first to get some (the Go! Team, the Faces, the Pretty Things, and the Undertones). Figuring I might as well do some grocery shopping on the way and save some time Sunday, I grossly overestimated my capacity for recovery and grabbed a bottle of wine, imagining I'd "need" it the next day. I couldn't even look at a beer can without feeling queasy for much of Sunday afternoon.

--"Glen," the mysterious intruder of the Arbor Vitae afterparty Saturday night. This dapper young chap escaped from a nearby wedding dressed to the nines, stank like a French cathouse, and somehow worked his way into the Arbor Vitae loft. Curious, that, as it lies up a forbidding flight of stairs from either State Street or the back alley. He initially accosted Adam and I, taking us for a gay couple, and either (a) asked us for weed, (b) tried to "horn in on it," as it were (I only found out about that one the next day), or (c) both. The best part is that Adam's actually getting married this weekend (not to me, although I really want to check out Toronto). We never found out which of us was the "better half," by the way (his answer almost certainly would have been whichever of us looked more "street valuable"). Not taking no for an answer, he followed us around, and then other likelies, and capped his exploits by grabbing beer from Bathgate's fridge, a fatal error which apparently led to his discovery as an interloper. Hey, at least it wasn't dull.

--Finally properly hanging out with Ryan Balderas at the same party. I've been a fan for some time (Ryan was keyboardist and vocalist for the Casionauts), and we had a great conversation, ranging across film and music and eventually taking in the issue of his friend, who was attempting to generate romantic interest in a yong lady who had come down with them from Lansing. My "advice" (worth every penny, I guess, from someone who hasn't been in a relationship for at least six years) led to the fellow calling me sensei, which was cute.

--The smells from my house Sunday morning. As a going-away present for Brandon (famously proud of his Batavian heritage), I tried my hand at olliebollen, a literal "Dutch treat" from dough flavored with cinnamon, nutmeg and raisins and then fried in oil. I was planning to try frying, but hadn't done it before and didn't want to essay it while nursing a hangover. I went ahead and just baked the things, measuring them out with a spoon. They seemed to turn out well; I didn't see any left at the end of the night (they'd been "marketed" with Caleb's fruit, which he sliced at the table). After I finished baking, the first floor filled with the scent of warm cinnamon. Just upstairs lay the aroma of my housemate's shampoo, a weirdly pleasing olfactory schizophrenia.

--Sunday afternoon strolls through the Old West Side, in between (and often during) acts, smelling the trees, picking up walnuts, kicking them, sniffing them, throwing them at toddlers (not really), occasionally placing a finger to the sticky pine sap on my back (I'd sat against a tree in the front yard that turned out to be "sweating"), and reveling in the unaccustomed August cool.

--The final set ever played at the Madison, Bathgate's (ending with "We Die Most Every Night," to which just about everyone sang along in accordance with tradition), found me sitting on the rear banister, watching the lighted backyard with its packed crowd, filled with people and stilled activity, and then turning a glance to the sky, where one could see a plane far above, its lights blinking, coursing through the moon, the stars and a few stray clouds on its way to Detroit or Toronto. It was a lovely contrast: the homespun quilt of warmth, feeling and heartbreak on the ground, and then the vast violet blanket of the night and the ant of a tiny metal flying machine, all calling out the cold invitation of space beyond. Madness.

--The Howes family in general, and Maria in particular. Just fabulous; I've known her now for a few months, and she and her twin brother Tommy in effect formed their own sub-party for much of the night. We all had a splendid afterparty at Leopolds' (with nothing in me but a Coke), and... words fail me, really. Y'all are awesome.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is thank you, everyone, for everything. It was the best weekend in at least a year and definitely one of the absolute best on record.

*Pictures other than my terrifying Marjoe Gortner-like countenance Saturday evening will be made available for the curious once I learn the links.

Those African Love Rays Are Safer Than The Pill
Now Playing: Johann Sebastian Bach--"Buss und Reu" from the St. Matthew Passion
I've been published this month! Some may know that I frequent British Horror Films, a website devoted to what one might imagine, which combines hilarious film and television reviews (the review for 1974's Craze--with Jack Palance as a gay antiques dealer--is perhaps the funniest I've ever read) with a terrific web community, which comment on the width and breadth of the site's given purview and then just about anything else. Why am I so interested in British horror films? It almost certainly resulted in the beginning from my (ongoing) devotion to Doctor Who (countless lead actors and guest stars of the latter had appearances in these flicks), but I came to realize that there was a certain something to those classic numbers like some of the Hammer Dracula flicks (featuring the dynamic duo of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing) and lesser known gems like Quatermass and the Pit (1968) that American horror films from John Carpenter and that wretch Wes Craven lacked (Larry Cohen and George Romero are still awesome, though). One cherished childhood memory, "Commander USA's Groovie Movies," which showed Saturday afternoons on the then-fledgling USA cable network ("Commander USA," a paunchy, middle-aged dude with a resemblance to Charles Bronson in a baggy superhero outfit, lived below a shopping mall and carried on Senor Wences routines with his left hand--"Lefty"), ran many of these movies (I still remember bits and pieces of Vampire Circus--which I still haven't actually seen, dammit--and sadly all of Land of the Minotaur). I was a huge fan of The Wicker Man (1973--one of my undisputed top ten favorite films of any sort; finally seeing the previews for the Nicolas Cage/Neil LaBute remake will not change that one iota) as early as high school, and through discussions on the board have managed to track down other gems such as Death Line (1973), Vampyres (1974--chilling despite the godawful ending), and, of course, the magnificent Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter (1974).* There's no dearth of print recommendations, either; had it not been for the board I may never have discovered the joys of the master of literary horror, M.R. James (Lovecraft may use bigger and fishier words, and Poe has more English-class cred, but I suspect James tops them both). The members are tremendously friendly (there have been differences, of course, but given the actual horror stories I've heard about other message boards, it seems a model of etiquette and literacy), opinionated, and well-versed in matters cultural and political, so it's rarely a dull moment when I check the posts.

BHF's head honcho, Christopher Wood, won a contest a couple of years back put out by the BBC in which participants were asked to supply an ending to a beginning written by horror writer Shaun Hutson (described very amusingly in the anthology's introduction). Talk about his win on the forums and the literary aspirations of some of the board's members led to the establishment of a new subforum devoted to creative horror and/or speculative horror-tinged fiction writing. Chris was so impressed with the results that he decided to put nearly twenty of the stories into an anthology, published by a small print-on-demand firm that specializes in this sort of thing, the profits to go towards the running of the website. Two of mine, "Brierley Day" and "Hotel Naiade," were chosen, and my copy finally arrived in the mail yesterday. It's lovely; Paul Mudie's illustrations on both shiny covers purposefully evoke the old Pan paperbacks to which the anthology was partly intended as homage. The illustrations in general are first-rate. Lawrence Bailey's dark visions alternate with Paula Fay's macabre children's-book pictures, giving a visual heft to the thing that many regular paperbacks just don't have. I'd read all the stories before, but was pleased to remember how good they were on rereading them. They range from M.R. James-style Victorian ghost stories (Daniel McGachey's "They Dwell In Dark Places") to seventies rural nostalgia (Billy Turner's "Fresh Souls," complete with Ford Cortina!) to an annoying, punchable hero like many in British horror films themselves (Chris' own "Edward"), to the nasty, occasionally fatal travails of the present-day homeless (James Stanger's "Beggar's Banquet"). All are good (although one of mine could really have used a hard scrubbing) and some are excellent, the standout for me being Neil Christopher's "Surface Tension," a maritime horror combining the tang of the sea, infernal imagery, haunted islands, a thrillingly imaginative (and comprehensible) use of physics, and a doomy, apocalyptic dread throughout. Thanks to Chris and everyone who came together to make this thing; it's terrific!

*Available at Liberty Street Video in Ann Arbor: Death Line, with its U.S. title of Raw Meat, on DVD, and Vampyres on crappy yet now quaint VHS (old, too--there are upcoming video previews from the late 1980s, of the kind I used to see on SelectEvent, what I think was the "Betamax of Pay-Per-View"), both in the horror section.

My Brand Is Danger
Now Playing: Gabriel Faure--Overture from Masques and Bergamasques
At least, I'll start saying that to women in bars.

Soon after I thought out loud about discussing politics more often in the blog, an interesting-looking political documentary comes to the Michigan Theater. And then I go see it. We get quite a few of these around here, none of them simplistic (or simple-minded) enough to garner the kind of audience managed by Fahrenheit 9/11. Thursday night's show was Rachel Boynton's Our Brand Is Crisis (2005), a video record of the Bolivian presidential campaign of 2002. Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, popularly known as "Goni," was running for a new term as president (he'd already served from 1993-97) against more populist opponents Manuel Villas Reyes and Evo Morales (the latter, of course, becoming president in December 2005). To shore up his declining poll numbers, he hires a hotshot polling firm from D.C., Greenberg Carville Shrum, to refurbish his image and help him win the election. The result is a cautionary tale of what happens when the US brand of democracy (or at least its attending machinery, like Greenberg Carville Shrum) is let loose on Third World countries. The firm's pollsters, particularly Jeffrey Rosner, find that transplanting the kind of "Third Way" centrism made popular by Bill Clinton and Tony Blair onto an extremely poor country with near-intractable economic problems is a very tall order. Among the usual developing economy woes (asphyxiating national debt, little industrial infrastructure), Bolivia's farmers are heavily involved in coca plantation, a situation that the US flat-out opposes because of its own problems of drug addiction (Morales was able to win last December due to widespread popular anger at the willingness of Bolivia's leaders to toe the line without attempting to ameliorate the situation for their own people). The pollsters have to sell Goni to both the campesino majority and the "white" upper- and middle-class who are understandably terrified of populist reform. Watching the familiar barrage of focus groups and meetings to keep Goni "on message" is rather cringe-inducing, especially when you realize that these guys actually seem to have Bolivia's best interests at heart. Rosner openly sees Morales and Reyes as con men who will sell Bolivia's poor down the river (and I somewhat sympathize, being instantly suspicious of regrettable leftist tendencies to praise Latin American "populist" leaders like Hugo Chavez regardless of their dedication to open government), but doesn't understand the depth of popular anger at the corruption inherent in the main political party, Goni's MNR. Goni wins, but only to have bloody riots break out a year later after his arrogance and highhandedness have brought the country to a standstill. I'm still wondering whether it was worth $8.50, but there's a refreshing latitude to the various perspectives. It would have been all too easy to caricature the pollsters as hidebound imperialists, with the noble campesinos marching silently to Andean flute music, but there's very little of that. Everyone gets their due; the pollsters' good intentions, the seriousness with which the Bolivians take the focus groups, and the opposing plans of each presidential candidate to do the best he can for his country. Okay, maybe it was worth it.

Yankee Doodle Dandy In A Gold Rolls Royce
Now Playing: The Kinks--"Nothing To Say"
As I've mentioned before, this blog doesn't generally discuss politics (as such). There are much better written ones out there that go into the issues in great detail, and have the time (and occasionally money) to dig into the news and root out the nuances that the mainstream media too often ignores. One excellent and impassioned commentary, Beer Volcano, I've recently discovered, comes courtesy of my friend Jason from high school, now a grad student at Vanderbilt. Reading it, I've started to think that maybe I should jump into the fray on occasion, but it's been way too depressing since Election Night 2004 (when I stumbled out of Leopolds' half-drunk and close to tears--of course, I've had much better times there since). Anything larger-scale politically in blogging terms than Ann Arbor has an understandably bad local reputation (among myself and others), due to some crank who keeps plugging up Arbor Update in particular (and occasionally City Council meetings) with demands for "discussion" (i.e. total and unquestioning agreement with his ideas) on a wholly symbolic city divestment from Israel (one day, they can look in the history books and read of the actions of the one third- or fourth-tier American city that finally turned the tide in the Middle East! Huzza!). I think about world politics and their place in them almost constantly, though, and perhaps I should start blogging about it more often. Of course, there are many things I think constantly about on which I don't blog, "if you know what I mean" (all of it, sadly, either long past or imaginary). I will comment, though, on a couple of today's local primary elections. Maybe it'll get me started, or at least warmed up.

John Hieftje for Mayor. I teetered over this one for a while. Challenger Wendy Woods doesn't have a great deal of experience, but Hieftje, for me, tends to embody the ossified nature of local liberal politics; the best example is his support for the "Greenbelt," a nonsensical attempt (that passed, not that a whole lot seems to have been done with it) to surround Ann Arbor with city-bought open country for a certain distance to protect it from the sprawl stretching from Detroit westward. The ultimate aim--a citadel of enlightened intellectual types shielded from a sea of grey industrial barbarism by a protective barrier--may sound familiar to fans (or otherwise traumatized viewers) of John Boorman's 1974 sci-fi film / apparent Yes video / acid trip Zardoz. It makes about as much sense, too. What I do like about Hieftje, and part of what made me decide for him, is his relatively steadfast support of public transit, both within and without Ann Arbor. The other part involves Woods' support for the "Ann Arbor Greenway," an epically dopey idea that would create a wan, pointless strip of greenspace this time separating the grey industrial barbarism of downtown Ann Arbor from the Old West Side, and almost exclusively benefiting the latter's homeowners (and that only if the aesthetic benefits are fully realized, a laughable idea when you look at one of the sites proposed, the present parking lot between First, William and Liberty; again, see Zardoz). Actually, that doesn't remind me of Zardoz so much as it does Metropolis (horizontally rather than vertically, but you know what I mean). So, with my nose wrinkled a little, I will be voting for Hieftje.

Rebekah Warren for State Representative. Warren, executive director of MARAL Pro-Choice Michigan and a former state legislative aide, faces Ann Arbor City Councilman Leigh Greden for the Democratic nomination. I know little of Warren apart from her impressive list of endorsements, including Planned Parenthood. When I think of Greden, on the other hand, I think of his prominent role in the "Porch Couch Ban" fiasco, our local equivalent of such federal stupidities as the proposed "Defense of Marriage" and flag-burning amendments. Local homeowners, living in proximity to students, decided that the frequency of couches on the latter's front porches was a direct threat to their way of life, and spent time, energy and taxpayer money attempting to ban them in City Council, occasionally dragging out specious "safety" arguments to do so. They may as well have been designing transparent plastic ice-cream swirl tops for fountain drinks for all the good it did anyone. Full disclosure: Before the fracas, I lived in a house in the Old West Side (or at least its immediate orbit, with the same unfriendly, ersatz bohemian neighbors*) with Phill's old black leather couch sitting on our porch; it practically became a member of the family. Only one of us was actually a student at the University. Theoretically, these alleged menaces actually have a mildly beneficial effect on what I understand "people in the know" call "social capital": increased socialization with neighbors and passing strangers (assuming they don't treat you like plague bacilli) creates more street life and a better sense of community, and porch couches simply increase the level of comfort. I've nothing against homeowners as a rule. I don't care for sport utility vehicles (more obnoxious and infinitely more dangerous than porch couches which, let's remember, don't move and use little to no gasoline), but I haven't suggested banning them (although watch for initiatives to get going once the oil starts running out for real). This discussion may seem ludicrously trivial to non-Ann Arbor residents, and, compared with a lot of the violence and degradation loose in the world, it is. Much more ludicrously trivial, though, is a resolution that aims at banning "porch couches." Along with the porch couch nonsense came intentionally sketchy moves toward depriving students of political access through scheduling important hearings on those and other issues during the summer break. Call them over-educated iPod addicts if you will, but the city would be nothing without students, and they've as much right to a stake in the system as an antique store owner with an immaculately restored Victorian 2-bedroom on West Jefferson and an "IMPEACH BUSH" sign in her yard (the local equivalent of a Triple-A sticker on the car). On a more pressing personal note, anti-student initiatives often play hell with the lives of renters and tenants (not sure which sounds better), and I obviously don't care for that at all. Greden played a shabby role in all this, and one has to wonder about his behavior once he "makes" the State House (of which I was given a guided tour along with some Planned Parenthood people by our state senator, Liz Brater; it was sweet). What trivial crap might attract his attention as our congressman? Will he suddenly leap from his seat during a debate on, say, selling Detroit to Ontario, and yelp "It's the gnomes! They need our help!" then jump on his unicorn and sally forth to make sure justice will never again fail wizened horrors in red dunce caps, that they've got a friend in Lansing who won't back down (before reaching the door and realizing he's just pretending to ride a unicorn)? Anything could happen. The level of official contempt in this town (and state, and country) for tenants, students or no, is awful enough without letting one more exemplar thereof into a higher position of power.

So vote today if there's a primary in your town; they're just as important as the "real" elections (and, if you live in a one-party-dominant town, as I do, occasionally are the real elections).

*On leaving our beloved house on Spring Street, we also took leave of our sniffy neighbor who lived just west of us on Hiscock, the same one who probably called the cops on our party that one time--Mike had left and Sean was nowhere to be found, so guess who (a) knew practically no one there--at the time, anyway--and (b) had to promise the AAPD to quiet it all down?? I was chatting with Sean's parents in the kitchen the day he moved out when the neighbor showed up. She presented us with a gorgeous bag of fresh tomatoes just picked from her garden, as a welcome present for the new tenants. It swiftly became apparent that she believed the latter to be Sean's parents. We, of course, "looking like students," had received no such welcome the year before. I accepted the tomatoes, told her the truth, and happily sent her on her way.

Cahiers du Merde
Now Playing: The Roots--"Star/Pointro"
I went to see The Descent at Showcase Cinemas on Carpenter Road, the first time I've been to see a movie at the googolplex in just under two years (and it'll probably be at least that long before I go again). The near hourlong bus ride there did much to put me off. I'm as much of a public transit booster as the next progressive type, but I suspected that a mere movie maybe wasn't enough to warrant the time and expense of going to see it. The "going" part, of course, only set me back a couple of bucks. I spent the forty-five minutes or so jotting down story notes, listening to an annoying old man outline a projected policy for East Asian peace to a half-Taiwanese, half-Thai cluster of students toward the front, and reading some of Laurie Notaro's humorous essays (picked it up on a whim at Kiwanis this morning and she's already turned into a favorite).

"Seeing?" Tracy unexpectedly pulled up next to me and said hi as I walked towards the theatre. She'd actually just been to see The Descent and liked it, so I took that as a good omen. Afterwards, though, I delivered a series of low moans (the bad kind) on seeing a poster for The Wicker Man... starring Nicolas Cage (I'd actually no idea it was so close to opening). Neil LaBute comes highly recommended, to be sure, and it'll be interesting to see how his sensibilities as a practicing Mormon will impact one of the ultimate cinematic tales of religious fanaticism, but come on--this has got to be one of the most pointless remakes ever, the most pointless since...probably the last one that got made.

A ticket and refreshments cost a medium-sized grocery bill. The refreshments in question included an extra-large Pepsi, which I bought after being told it only cost a dime extra than the large. The counter girl presented me with a cup upon which was fastened a transparent plastic model of an ice-cream swirl. Who comes up with this shit? On leaving after the movie, I felt bad for throwing it away (okay, no I didn't, if we're talking about the lid design and not the plastic) but what would I have done with it?

The movie began at more or less the right time. When I say "the movie," I mean of course the commercials, which took up at least a good ten minutes. I think Kevin Murphy posed the question in A Year At The Movies regarding the relationship between these ads and the rising prices. Are they the reason we're paying so much? Does that mean that we're all officially subsidizing the advertising agencies by seeing these movies? I prefer to do so through buying the products advertised (and as little of that as possible, thank you). We had an ad for the theatre, of course, but that was after I'd already bought my fucking ticket: "Sir, we appreciate your business. Here are some of the additional features you may enjoy. You've sat through the rest of the commercials, why not enjoy the previews as well?" Kevin James showed up in the last of many cloying, obnoxious ads to remind us all how to behave in a movie theatre. After what I'd just seen, that was kind of an insult. I'm guessing the Powers That Be knocked the previews together based on the "horror demographic" (divide and conquer, I guess), so we then saw a lot of purposefully grainy footage with screaming people running around amid various metallic noises. There was one preview that made me think "oh, how many times can they remake Texas Chainsaw Massacre?" It turned out to be The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning. Tobe, I hope you're milkin' it for all you're worth. Saw III??? I suppose studying art direction by locking yourself in a room and watching incessant loops of Tool videos is one way to go. But three movies out of that? At one point, I began to realize that I'd come to the theatre for a reason.

The Descent is actually pretty good, although not worth the trouble it took to go to the theatre. I mean that: I probably would have been just as scared watching it at home (although, in fairness, our television's fairly large). I could have waited until it showed up at Liberty Street and paid $1.11. But no, these movies aren't the same unless we see them on the BIG SCREEN, as the Academy President (I still don't care what his name is) and poor Jake Gyllenhaal told us at the Oscars. A mixture of Bridget Jones' Diary, Deliverance and C.H.U.D., The Descent follows... the descent of a group of young women (refreshingly in their mid-to-late twenties and probably professionals or grad students, unlike the usual psycho-bait) into a cave complex in North Carolina (my guess from the license plates), where they encounter a colony of humanoid cannibals. Before I forget, are they actually cannibals if they're a different species from homo sapiens sapiens? When does cannibalism begin? If a human (for whatever reason) got hold of a Neanderthal (again, for whatever reason, alive) and ate it, would that count? Probably, which is why I find it an interesting question. The "cannibals" show up rather late in the movie, and it's impressive how many of the scares and shocks revolve around the natural dangers one might find (I assume; there's no way you're getting me into one of those narrow passages) in the natural course of rock-climbing and spelunking. At times, I thought it might be interesting if the caves themselves turned out to be the horror, like an homage to Picnic at Hanging Rock (an homage, not a remake). The women have a better backstory than you usually find in these flicks, and the fates of most are genuinely disturbing. As in Dog Soldiers, director Neil Marshall has quite a way with the grimmer aspects of the great outdoors (like Dog Soldiers, The Descent was actually filmed in Scotland). The performances are generally good, especially Natalie Mendoza, who plays the pushy Juno (Juno??). Perhaps not coincidentally, she's the only American in the group, and I suspect a little satire in the way the script makes her some kind of postmodern imperialist. She goes on about "discovering" and "naming" the cave complex as therapy for Sarah (Shauna McDonald), the death of whose husband and daughter provide much of the backstory and emotional heft for the plot. Coronation Street fans may recognize Nora-Jane Noone (the Irish lass who briefly came between Steve and Tracy Barlow before the latter's malevolent lunacy encouraged her to make herself scarce) as Holly, Juno's punky... best friend with benefits? It didn't seem clear to me. There's been talk about a final plot twist, I understand, but it's not really a twist so much as it's a plot strand that's allowed to lay decently at rest, surfacing at odd occasions, until its time arrives. That's the way to handle plot twists, Mr. Shyamalan, and an effective ending for the movie. If only the surrounding experience was as enjoyable.

Motions of Going
Now Playing: Starling Electric--"A Snowflake"
Starling Electric, discussed earlier, released their CD, Clouded Staircase, at a lively Blind Pig show Friday night. The fact that it was finally out in its finished form made my week, but the show itself and its aftermath made for one of the best Fridays on record. The openers were rather interesting, an ascending ladder of quality, starting with Lazy Sunday (a great Small Faces song for a name, good beat and decent vocals but little melody), running through the Dardanelles (again, a great name for a band; they started out a little blah but suddenly shifted into proper gear halfway through their set), then the Satin Peaches (a local batch of relative younglings who nevertheless managed to rock out, even when the lead guitarist's tuner broke), and then Starling Electric. The show was fantastic, as most of their shows were that I've sen. I hung for the most part with Sara, then Adam and Margot, talked with Brandon and John, and managed to dance a good deal, even though I thought I might be too tired after that week. The afterparty at the band's house in the Old West Side was maybe the most pleasanlty weird I'd attended in a good long while. The living arrangements, with all members but one living there, put me in mind of Traffic. There were two DVDs of Once Upon A Time In The West I counted, which in turn put me in mind of the last place I lived, with Mike and Sean; all three of us owned Belle and Sebastian's The Boy With The Arab Strap. I'd actually been to that same house a couple of years before, following bad directions given by my friends to a party of theirs; it turned out there was a party at the house, just not the right one. It being Ann Arbor, I milled around nevertheless for about ten minutes just to see if I could do it. One guy actually did come in off the street and struck up a conversation. I employed my own example in persuading him to remain. Through the course of the early morning, I donned a baby mask and wielded a toy submachine gun (what they were doing there remains unexplained), talked regional accents with Jessica, a friend of Caleb's, soaked up Sara's exuberant chipperness, watched Adam and Margot flaunt their screwball-comedy chops by knocking over an outdoor bookcase while making out, traded secondhand Saturday Night Live impressions of Charles Nelson Reilly and Harry Caray with Adam, dipped into a discussion on musical showmanship and artistic integrity (it had to do with pacing the sets and the songs to draw an audience, and there were good points on both sides; I trust the lads not to do anything extreme, like staging an ice-skating Arthurian musical a la Rick Wakeman), and finally left at four-thirty in the morning. I had an hour of sleep, but didn't really feel it.

The album itself is a marvel, encapsulating the lush sounds of 60s and 70s sunshine and jangle pop (references to a later era, but I think the phrases still fit) while including darker textures. It never becomes too airy, or an exercise in futile nostalgia. I've thought for some time that pop music's reached the fail-safe point in terms of artistic progress--this may, of course, be a symptom of age, but it seems like all the musical styles have come around once or twice already and are now being put together and pulled apart like Legos.* I think Starling Electric are simply more honest about the situation than others, without becoming unoriginal or obsessively referential. The grandeur of the arrangements and melodies breaks through any possibility of cheap irony, surging and swelling with a sincerity you don't often see nowadays. It works like a classic album of the old school, at time, evoking Pet Sounds or early Pink Floyd (even the Allman Brothers) while retaining its own character. You can dig the obvious singles like "Camp-Fire" or "Black Ghost/Black Girl" early on and later wallow in the more leisurely pace of "She Goes Through Phases" or the third title track. The loveliest moment, though, is the first vocal gap on the second title track, where the guitars and percussion suddenly meet a gorgeous little swirl of harpsichord and organ (I think--the effect ended up sounding something like a flute). The latter continues throughout the song, but as usual, it's the first encounter that's the beauty (and the most ephemeral). It's pop music for thinking, and prog-rock that actually remembers it has an audience to delight.

*There's nothing wrong with this; in my view, orchestral music hit a wall after Schoenberg pioneered atonalism with Pierrot Lunaire early last century (believe it or not, I used to have it on vinyl back when I still had the capability). After that, it seemed like everything new hearkened to something done before without any serious breakthroughs like Orfeo or the Eroica. Good music was still there, though--Gershwin managed to combine late romanticism with jazz, Vaughan Williams and Delius did the same thing with English folk music (more in the former's case), and someone like Arvo Part does very well with his modern stuff (I don't care for Philip Glass myself, but he's got an audience). The same thing seems to be happening with postmodern pop music. The whole idea of artistic "progress" implies a teleological narrative of the kind I learned to distrust before I left my teens, like Marxism or Christianity. The fact that I even used the phrase "teleological narrative" suggests that this whole entry's gotten way too serious, and now I'm off to watch Captain Kronos or something.