Dwelling On Trivial Skirmishes
Now Playing: Nick Drake--"Poor Boy"
Yes, it's one of those "2006 retrospective arts blog posts with an Italian soup recipe" things.

Stracciatella: 3 cups chicken or vegetable stock
(simmer in medium saucepan)
1 large egg
1 1/2 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese
1 tbsp dried breadcrumbs
2 tbsp chopped parsley
1 small clove garlic, minced
(stir mixture rapidly into simmering stock and continue until egg sets, 30-60 secs.)
Ground nutmeg or grated lemon zest (for garnish)

Music: My favorite new album of the year was the long-awaited final release of Clouded Staircase by Starling Electric, my favorite local band, who recently toured with Guided By Voices and can hold their own against any other act in the country, especially now that Sleater-Kinney's broken up. That, by the way, was the most unwelcome musical development of the year. I'd found One Beat to be a little shrill, but understandable given the political winds at the time it was released. It took me a little time to get into The Woods, but once I did, I was eager to see what they'd do next ("What's Mine Is Yours," "Modern Girl," and "Rollercoaster" were magnificent). Though they're no more, they left some great memories, and I salute them anew as the best American musical act of the nineties. I thought outside the music box more last year than at any point in the past five. Much of my musical tastes in Akron came from outside influences (with wonderful results; I owe Pere Ubu, Television, Rocket From The Tombs, pretty much all the pre-punk and new wave stuff to Matt Hiner, and the Super Furry Animals to Matthew Keller). Once I'd discovered the local scene in Ann Arbor, I pretty much delved into area music, exploring whatever took my fancy at house shows and other venues, and only really came up for air last summer. Probably my favorite album of any sort I heard besides Clouded Staircase was The Go! Team's mindblowing Thunder, Lightning, Strike. Honorable, less recent mentions go to Bowie's Hunky Dory (I would drunkenly belt out "Life on Mars?" in the company of others at full blast twice before the year's end--oh, and happy 60th, by the way!), Aimee Mann's thirteen-year-old solo debut Whatever, Margot and the Nuclear So-and-So's with The Dust of Retreat, some of which I heard the year before when they played the Blind Pig, and Brian Eno's Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) , which, being released in November 1974, actually shares my own age (highlights: "Mother Whale Eyeless," "The Fat Lady of Limburg," and especially "The True Wheel," on which Eno shares guitar with ex-Roxy Music colleague Phil Manzanera).

Cinema: I've been trying to avoid going to the actual movie theatre for both financial and aesthetic reasons. My boss recently came through on my Go!Pass (which allows certain employees of downtown Ann Arbor businesses free travel on city buses to alleviate the parking situation in the "city center"), so getting to the googolplex will be slightly easier. The days are over when I would go see 24 Hour Party People four times (twice at the Michigan and twice at the State). Most of the movies I saw last year were on DVD. The only three I can remember seeing in the theatre last year were The Descent, Borat and Casino Royale. The first two were okay, and I greatly enjoyed the third. I always thought Craig would do fine (he did), but was disappointed in the somewhat lackluster villain and the sheer wastage of Jeffrey Wright (who usually saves otherwise lugubrious movies like Ride With The Devil and Basquiat or just-plain-unfortunate ones like the Shaft remake from being complete timewasters). The greatest movie I probably saw last year was Visconti's forty-three-year-old The Leopard--a huge visual canvas, majestic scenery, towering performances, and a nifty little twist towards the end that (a) works great and (b) isn't absolutely integral to the plot. Spoiler alert: We do not discover that Burt Lancaster's Prince di Salina is an alien intelligence whose ill-health furstrates his plans to conquer Earth. Many directors, Mr. Shyamalan, think that the twist is the whole point of the movie--I occasionally find Mario Bava tiresome as a result--probably because they hear "twist ending" and think "cool! I'll be compared to Hitchcock!" No.

Literature: Reading is pretty much like eating or drinking--actually, more like breathing--to me, and so I don't think I take as much notice of the books I read as of the purely visual or audio media I ingest, which is something I ought to work on. The best novel I read this year? Angela Carter's Wise Children, published right around her death in 1992, a funny and moving saga of two sisters and their adventures on the stage in 20th century Britain and America. Browsing through the Kiwanis bookshelves one Saturday morning brought me into contact with the hilarious Laurie Notaro, whose The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club, based on the author's experiences as a twenty-something ne'er-do-well in Arizona, was one of the best examples of written humor I'd found since Mike Nelson or David Sedaris. I relearned that reading can be addictive after working through Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond Chronicles and House of Niccolo historical fiction series (with refreshingly weird, twisted central characters and supporting cast) of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. I can't pass this way, of course, without mentioning the stuff on the British Horror Films forum, particularly the work of Neil Christopher, whose novellas "Test of Faith" (post-apocalyptic trial by ordeal) and "Cerberus Rising" (Cold War werewolves) blew most of the rest of us out of the water. Last but not least, I finally knocked out Robert Hughes' superb biography of Goya (my own favorite visual artist of all time)--as the (rightfully) obsequious book jacket put it, "one genius writing at full capacity about another."

Television: I got a DVD player this year, and have been trolling through the ages...I owned a VCR for over a decade, and only began to buy movies five years or so into that time. I've owned the DVD player for a little under a year, and I already own eleven movies, four individual epsiodes of the old Dr. Who, two seasons of Family Guy (thanks, Slater and Kenissa!) and the complete series of Blackadder the Third and Firefly. Our local library has masses of stuff, too. I've made it through the first series of Deadwood and part of Rome ("Brutus, me old cock!") and am really unsure which of those I prefer--the last scenes of the former's final episode were so beautiful to almost wrench tears. They've also all three series of Father Ted, some of them with commentary from Graham Linehan and Ardal O'Hanlon, which is great. I'm planning to watch the entire Wire at some point to see if it's as good as everyone says it is.

And there'll be more, I'm sure. I mean, "I'm afraid."

Resolutions and Revolutions
Now Playing: Brian Eno--"Mother Whale Eyeless"
First, I'd like to apologize--the actor who played Greg Brady is in fact Barry Williams and not Barry McDonald. God knows where that came from; Angelfire's being dicky and won't let me edit my posts.

The title will actually make some sort of sense for a change. One uneventful holiday just over, and another rears its ugly head. I suspect my own New Year's Eve will be rather low-key, much unlike the past two, an idea which rather appeals to me. I got out of the habit of making New Year's resolutions some time ago, but will venture a few this year. Couldn't hurt.

1. Treat other people better.

2. Get other stories published. I had two last year in The First BHF Book of Horror Stories and might have two this year in the Third. There are two others that I'm planning to send to other venues; I just need to get off my ass and do it.

3. Write other stories; I've fallen into a slump over the past couple of months, I fear.

4. Find a job in which I'm not considered retarded and at which I make more money. It's not as important as happiness, obviously, and I'd probably be relatively happy in this job (I like cooking, I like interacting with customers) if my boss wasn't so shallow and manipulative, but those student loans and prospective travel costs won't pay themselves.

5. Try and learn a different recipe each weekend. I'd planned to do this some time back, and can now fix cookies (doesn't sound like much, but I made the dough from scratch and without a scoop), biscones, olliebollen (after a fashion), quiche provencale, tomato and goat cheese quiche (no fancy name of French or Italian geographical derivation, so far as I know), and pan-fried steak. This weekend (hopefully): sirloin in Basque cheese sauce (chuleton al Idiazabal).

6. Get into a library school program at Michigan (or Wayne State) or somewhere that offers a lot of financial aid. If it all falls through, move somewhere else and pursue the cooking. Anywhere, probably a large city in which I don't need to drive (preferably New York or Chicago, but I wouldn't rule out Detroit or Cleveland). It's been a decent past two years, but wanderlust begins to knock again...

7. Exercise more and eat better. This includes drinking more wine instead of beer. Life is too short, but I may as well give it a go.

8. Read all those doorstop novels--Ulysses, Rememberance of Things Past, The Man Without Qualities, A Dance To The Music of Time... I might as well get them out of the way. I will be at death's door, though, before I attempt Finnegan's Wake.

9. Volunteer more. While I'm here (or anywhere) I should do my best to be a good citizen. Having put up the library at WRAP, I'm hardly there anymore. I still potter around Planned Parenthood, but feel conscious of the need for another vol-venue. Sara suggested Food Gatherers a while back. I seem to remember Arbor Brewing does some sort of volunteer thing. I just need to get off my ass and make arrangements. A lot of getting off my ass needs to be done all round. Speaking of which...

10. Spend less time on the internet. It's only about half an hour to an hour a day, all told, but it still feels like too much, and I don't even have access at home. I suspect part of my slight leeriness about the career path I've chosen (and will embark on with a second choice standing tall in the distance) is due to its present reliance on the internet and computer search engines and data collections. All very well, but what happens when the power runs out?

The Cetan Clawson Revolution: The new CCR were an area band who asked me to come to their Blind Pig show Friday night with flattering aggression. I was rather intrigued, largely because I'd be hearing a group with whom I had no personal connection whatsoever. I'd also get to hear Chrome Mali again (hadn't heard them in a while--band member Frank occasionally visits Chateau Fluffy and knows our much-missed business consultant/one-time manager). I dressed down for the occasion (I'm usually ludicrously overdressed, although a friend flatteringly referred to the results as "casual elegance") and hopped on down only to find that the show had been cancelled (God knows why). After a beer at Babs', I drifted into Ashley's on my way home. Ashley's was my bar of choice for about the first year I lived here, and though it's out of favor with some of the local intelligentsia (probably because of all the Michigan students and the meat-market aura it sometimes exudes), their beer selection really is out of this world (and when I was there, they had the friendliest and most attractive staff in town). Brian still works there and it was good to see him again. I also ran into John Fossum at Borders, where we had a chat--probably the most effervescently pleasant person I know in the Ann Arbor music scene (hell, in Ann Arbor period). All in all, despite the disappointing cancellation, Friday night was a happily low-pressure time, when I could flit hither and thither, etc. I do hope, though, to hear the Cetan Clawsons at some point.

Feliz Ano Nuevo!

A Bargain In Infants
Now Playing: Aimee Mann--"Jacob Marley's Chain"
Holiday Festivities:

1. The Gray-Jones party, thrown by Matt and Carol, where I got in touch with my inner cookie-cutting demon. Hopefully he'll stay in the box until next year; quite frankly, I'm frightened of the forces I've unleashed.

2. The McLay-Ross party, thrown by Jess and Matt (another one), at which I proudly flaunted my low-techery (there was supposed to be a CD exchange; I don't have a CD burner--nor do I think I need one, any more than I need an iPod--and misunderstood the concept, so I showed up with a cassette tape, when everyone else arrived with 14 or so mix CDs--each), as well as a quiche provencale (another of which I cooked for Christmas Eve dinner--the next day it was pan-fried steak and Caesar salad). It was good to see Jess and Matt again, and I departed with a memorable gift from Jess' cousin Paul--namely, a sidesplitting alternate interpretation of the Doors song "L.A. Woman" which still has me giggling at every other moment.

3. Mittenfest at the Corner Brewery in Ypsilanti. Brandon, on leave from New York, organized an all-day folk fest at this location, a sort of Ypsi branch of the Arbor Brewing Company, and it was wonderful to see him again, as it was Annie, who I also haven't seen in a while. The whole thing was set up as a benefit for 826michigan, a writing program aimed at teens and younger for which many local musicians have done benefits in the past. I finally got to check out the resultant writing in the published collection Vacansopapurosophobia (described as "the fear of a blank page"), and was reminded again of my envy for children's sense of whimsy and surrealism that we adults must sometimes strain to achieve. It was an especial pleasure to come across Aja Bamberger's story "The House on Cherry Street," which had earlier appeared in the Current and which is crying out for a sequel. I also finally got to sample the Hungarian Cream Cheese Spread available from Zingerman's Creamery, and listened to Emily Bate's set and half of Need-Based Paint's. The former was particularly good; I'd heard her at one of the shows at Arborvitae and found (and find) her a rather more soulful Joni Mitchell. I sadly had to leave early to prepare for the aforementioned party.

The rest of Christmas pretty much involved me staying at home, drinking, eating, and watching movies...

Let's Scare Jessica To Death (1971): I last saw this when about ten, on the much-missed Commander USA's Groovie Movies, and was even then struck by how light was used to create a sense of dread, something too few horror movies do these days (one expects scary things in the dark). Jessica (Zohra Lampert, one of ther early pioneers of Second City and Warren Beatty's ravishing Italian wife towards the end of Splendor in the Grass) has just been released from an asylum and "returns to the country" to farm with her husband and their best friend. On discovering Emily, a mysterious drifter, already living there, Jessica also finds weird voices that may or may not be all in her head. This was a good one, with a refreshingly offbeat take on the townie-country hostility so beloved in post-Easy Rider cinema, and a frustrating yet ultimately successful performance by Lampert. It's very easy to believe that she was just let out of "supervision", and yet I find myself wondering if any drugs were taken on set (given the time, likely) and if so, what kind and how much. Her performance keeps one on edge, but it's a situation that actually increases the likelihood of getting into the movie's flow.

God Is Great And I'm Not (2001): There's a dark suspicion in the back of my mind that Audrey Tautou is the Meg Ryan of France. I mean, look at the evidence--huge, glowing eyes, a winning smile, and oversaturated adorability that leaves the viewer feeling dazed and, frankly, a little used (and I haven't even seen Amelie yet). She even stars in movies with Tom Hanks. I didn't have it in me to resist this flick, which doesn't steer as dangerously close to sentimental mawkishness as the other Tautou movie I saw, A Very Long Engagement. Of course, I saw both films for the exact same reason: Julie Depardieu, my latest actress fascination. I think it's the combination of beauty and battiness that work for me (first seeing her opposite her father in The Count of Monte Cristo as Valentine, a saintly, drippy character that she managed to redeem with her performance). Here she plays the "wacky best friend" and housemate of Tautou--who in turn plays a model falling in love with Francois (Edouard Baer), a non-practicing Jewish veterinarian who gets pissed when his new girlfriend treats the religion with which he has a love-hate relationship as her latest spirituality craze. In this country, nutty hijinks would ensue (and there are a couple of those) but everything's shaded just a bit darker, with a wonderfully inconclusive ending. Baer in particular is the most amusingly hangdog actor I've seen in a movie since "Sweater-vest guy" in Night Watch.

Wild In The Streets (1967): I actually fell asleep during this one when I first saw it about fifteen years ago, odd when given its reputation as one of the most batshit movies made during the sixties. I think the problem is that it takes itself way too seriously for a movie in which the voting age is lowered to fourteen. Pop star Max Frost (the phenomenally irritating Christopher Jones) comes from a troubled childhood (his screwed-up mother played by Shelley Winters and one of his younger selves played by Greg Brady himself, Barry McDonald) and decides to use the new cultural power apparently given him through musical success with his band (including drummer Richard Pryor, in his first screen role) to front slimy, "with-it" California senator Johnny Fergus (Hal Holbrook) in a bid for political power (to the great suspicion of the latter's wife, played by a lusciously repressed Millie Perkins). At the end of the movie, all those over thirty have been sent to reeducation camps and forcibly fed hallucinogens, Frost has his own stormtrooper division of prepubescent youngsters (so he's basically a combination of Elvis, Mao and Joseph Kony), and some of these latter begin to plan the seizure of power from all people over ten. The best scene: loopy band member--and former child star!--Sally (Diane Varsi) is elected to fill a congressional seat and shows up in the hallowed halls wearing little more than a bicorne hat and shaking a tambourine. The most ridiculous aspect: we're asked to believe in the band's initial success in the California music scene. Forget Moby Grape--the Mike Curb Congregation could blow these people out of the water. But then, I'm taking it too seriously, and Wild In The Streets already does that way too much for anyone.

Shattered Glass (2003): I'll always remember Shattered Glass for one thing--a criminally underappreciated parody sketch on Saturday Night Live when guest host Peter Sarsgaard upbraids his Cat Fancy magazine underling Seth Meyers for making up stories: "This is CAT FANCY magazine! We have a responsibility to every elderly recluse and shut-in in America!!" The weird clannishness suggested to me by the world of political journalism and (these days) political blogs comes through brilliantly in this enjoyably squirmy portrayal of Stephen Glass' downfall. Glass (Hayden Christensen), a young reporter in a field full of the type, habitually fabricated stories for The New Republic (which, to read Eric Alterman among other commentators, had been declining anyway under the ownership of Marty Peretz since the early Reagan years) throughout the late 1990s, eventually paving the way for Jayson Blair in the pantheon of journalistic "shame"--not that Glass himself seems to understand such behavior. Christensen is great at getting the viewer to feel awkward and embarrassed despite the enormity of Glass' actions; Sarsgaard is excellent as his unpopular colleague and then editor, who takes the brunt of the fallout with the revelation of Glass' lies. The cast all-round is terrific; the always welcome Melanie Lynskey (see above mention of Julie Depardieu, etc.) shines as a policy wonk drudge trying to escape into Glass' more rarified world, and Steve Zahn and Rosario Dawson (see Lynskey, Depardieu, et al.) are fun as Forbes Digital reporters who begin to unravel Glass' paper trail--or lack thereof (although the screenplay slips a little, I think, in presenting the story too obviously, too "Hollywood," as a conflict between well-established journals--The New Republic's been around since 1914--and newer media like the internet and print media about the internet). Even Chloe Sevigny doesn't annoy me as much as usual. The most alarming thing I gleaned was the speed with which everyone in this supposedly sophisticated bubble was taken in by Glass' frequent (and hilariously portrayed) overselling, although with the media's sorry performance these days in the face of so many horrific challenges, it probably shouldn't surprise me.

Fat Girl (2001): Rather grim fare for Christmas Eve, I should say; a baffling, gripping movie with a shocking and unsettling ending. I suspect if I squinted really hard, Catherine Breillat's story of adolescent jealousy and longing might resolve itself into a creepy modern-day fairy tale. Twelve-year-old Anais (Anais Reboux), the title character, spends her vacation at a beach with her family and her much more conventionally attractive older sister (Roxane Mesquida), who in turn becomes enamored of an Italian college student and loses her virginity to him. Much of the action centers around Anais' interpretation of events (Reboux is hypnotic), which range from affection to jealousy and horror and back again. The acting is low-key but effective, with the two young actresses especially good at conveying the love-hate feelings many siblings feel towards each other, especially when younger. At an extreme, the finale can be seen as a kind of Freudian wish fulfillment, but I'll have to think on it. A lot.

Gas-s-s! (1970): The other side of the Wild in the Streets DVD (one of MGM's "Midnite Movie" releases) contains Roger Corman's utterly berserk satire of generation-gap politics, a sort of cross between John Christopher and the Firesign Theater, when (in an inventive little animated sequence at the beginning, courtesy of Murakami Wolf) U.S. military scientists accidentally release a gas into the atmosphere that kills everyone over 25. In the ensuing mayhem, a group of free spirits (the two alternately annoying and endearing "did we ever see them again?" leads are backed by Ben Vereen and Bud Cort, as well as Talia Shire--billed here as Tally Coppola--and Cindy Williams in their first film roles, so far as I know) try to make it across the Southwest to a mystical pueblo with the "answer." I often find sixties satires to be somewhat dated, but many of the jokes and sight gags in this one are still funny (Edgar Allan Poe riding aroudn the desert on a motorcycle, football players establishing a fascist empire in west Texas, the voice of God heard over a Country Joe and the Fish show as an elderly Jewish man); sometimes hilariously so. There's nothing funnier, I think, than the way lead actress Elaine Giftos (the more "endearing" half) introduces herself: "I'm Dr. Harvey Murder's mistress... and lab assistant." Given time, though, I'm sure people can find their own favorites.

Claire's Knee (1969): Watching a smug, "intellectual" middle-aged jackass (Jean-Claude Brialy) attempt to seduce two teenage girls and then talk about it (and talk about it, and talk about it) with his affianced best friend proved much more interesting and educational than I figured. One of the chapters in Eric Rohmer's "Moral Tales" series (which include 1972's Chloe in the Afternoon and a bunch of movies I've never seen), Claire's Knee is a mercilessly talky attempt (admittedly, with some stunning location footage of the Savoyard countryside around Geneva and Annecy) to dissect the anatomy of human (okay, male) desire. It sounds ridiculous, and I might have found it so had I seen this in a different mood, but the whole subject can become so utterly insane that it's good at timets to hear things thought through in a movie rather than acted upon.

The Leopard (1963): I was worried about watching a movie centered on a Burt Lancaster lead performance dubbed into Italian, but found my fears groundless after experiencing what may be the perfect cinematic example of style married to substance. Luchino Visconti's masterpiece brilliantly interprets Giuseepe di Lampedusa's 1958 novel of the Risorgimento (Italy's struggle for unification during the 19th century; I read the book due to my fascination with the subject some years back but stayed away from the movie until now) as seen through the eyes of an ailing Sicilian aristocrat (Burt). Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale, possibly the best-looking onscreen couple in film history, costar as his nephew and niece-in-law. It's over three hours long, but it's one of those rare movies that actually deserves to be. There's both epic sweep and intimate perspective, battle scenes and private moments, political and personal savvy (especially when the two are one and the same), and above all a problematic and tangled perspective (like Lampedusa, Visconti was an Italian aristocrat of ancient ancestry, but like many Italian filmmakers of the period--Pasolini, for example--he was also a Communist) that adds immense richness to this already fascinating tale. I forgot Burt was being dubbed after about twenty minutes; it's that good. This one's begging to be re-released in American theatres on the big screen, if it hasn't already.

My Son The Fanatic (1997): The late, great Om Puri was one of those actors whose presence was always welcome and helpful, even when it was in crap like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (in which, I'm afraid, he played the high priest of Kali). In this involving little slice-of-life drama set in northern England, Parvez (Puri) is a taxi driver who hasn't found much in the way of success over twenty years after he first arrived from Pakistan with a young family to support. Worse than that, his son Farid has grown tired of the rituals of modern Western life, turning to fundamentalist Islam, complete with a "charismatic" imam. Parvez, after being disgusted with the hypocrisy of his own religious upbringing, has his own take on life, which includes drinking and listening to jazz, as well as befriending Sandra (Rachel Griffiths), a prostitute who frequents his cab. Encounteres with Sandra and Schitz (Stellan Skarsgard), a visiting German businessman, lead to a violent rearrangement of his own life that's tragic, inevitable, and inspiring all at the same time. The 87-minute running time should shame many Hollywood movies of the aughts (which all seem to be two hours minimum at present).

The Earth A Common Treasury
Now Playing: Arcade Fire--"In the Backseat"
I can't seem to get enough of the cinema these days. It's a chore to go to the googolplex, especially with some of the crap that's been coming out (stop with the remakes! There's no fucking excuse and you know it!!), but that's no reason to ignore the art entirely. First in reverse chronological order, three on British politics:

The Queen (2006): I actually saw this shortly after Prime Suspect 7, so it was pretty much the whole Helen Mirren experience this month (now all I have to do is see O Lucky Man! again). I'm not a big fan of royalty or this particular family, but this was a sympathetic portrayal by Stephen Frears that recounted the week after Princess Diana's death in 1997, and really belongs to the actors. I don't think I've ever seen Mirren bad in anything... seventeen film and TV productions that I've seen off the top of my head, and she was great in all, even Teaching Mrs. Tingle, which sucked--as, of course, did Caligula. The family's good for laughs--James Cromwell is somewhat out of place as uber-chode Prince Philip, but Sylvia Syms and Alex Jennings are good as the Queen Mum and a dopey Prince Charles. The most entertaining turns come from Roger Allam as the Queen's faithful secretary (the man's destiny to play the "late model" in a Christopher Hitchens biopic is hopefully not far off) and Michael Sheen, whose deadly performances in okay (but why the sequels?) stuff like Underworld and gloriously insane crap like Timeline have apparently led to his casting as Tony Blair. Nailing the man's too-eager, shit-eating grin to perfection, he's probably best in his scenes with the great Helen McCrory as Cherie, when she realizes he's just a sellout like the rest of them.

A Very British Coup (1988): Ray McAnally had a long and diverse career, but probably had his finest hour shortly before his untimely death as Harry Perkins, steelworker turned British Labour Prime Minister in this excellent miniseries whose main drawbacks are (a) its relative tameness in this Bush 'n' Blair era when elected politicians think it's barely worth trying to conceal their contempt for democracy and (b) the overbearing, tinny synthesizer music so common to British TV of this era (and that made the late classic period of Doctor Who so occasionally excruciating). Once in power, Perkins tries to phase out U.S. bases, nuclear power, and restore the power of labor, and is opposed every step of the way by his own secret service and the Americans. The generally downbeat trend to the story, which makes one think it's all been seen before, is redeemed by a gripping, inspiring, and strangely inevitable ending, one of the best I've ever seen for a TV movie.

Winstanley (1975): Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo wrote a strange chapter in movie history by producing and financing their remarkable alternate history film It Happened Here (released in 1966) which looked at the effects of a German occupation of Britain during the Second World War. Ten years later, they told the story of the Diggers, a group of dissidents who grew out of the English Civil War and established various communes throughout the countryside after the war's end in 1649. Pressures from without and within forced their collapse within a decade, but not before leaving a legacy of folk memories (described in detail in Christopher Hill's 1972 analysis The World Turned Upside Down). It's a simple story, shot in brooding black-and-white, but features a weirdly moving central performance from non-actor Miles Halliwell as the title character, as well as an impressively handled low-budget battle sequence of the beginning that looks at times like it might have come from an Eisenstein movie (and unsurprisingly uses Prokofiev's score from Alexander Nevsky). Perhaps even more interesting than the actual movie is the behind-the-scenes documentary on the DVD, which painstakingly details the directors' efforts at historical accuracy (using period armor and weapons from the Tower of London, as well as varieties of pigs and chickens kept up only by historical breeding enthusiasts).

And the others...

Batman Begins (2005): I really like Christian Bale, and find him all the more impressive for recovering from stuff like Newsies and Swing Kids (even his wasted performance in Shaft was neutralized by everyone else's wastage, with the exception of Jeffrey Wright). I also enjoyed director Christopher Nolan's Memento. I don't really have anything invested in the Batman "mythos" (at least the non-Adam West versions), but I had to admit that it was pretty good. The strong cast helped--Michael Caine as Alfred, Morgan Freeman as a reclusive weapons expert, Liam Neeson as Bruce Wayne's onetime spiritual advisor, Gary Oldman as a Serpico-style anathematized cop, even Rutger Hauer as a crooked businessman. I'm not into Katie Holmes, but was pleasantly surprised to find she became less unbelievable as the movie progressed. The Chinese scenes at the beginning were gorgeous. I'm less a fan of the Gotham stuff, as I tink the melodramatic urban hellhole-ness so beloved of these movies (no, not a Crow fan) is generally expressive of anti-urban undertones that haven't done much good for recent human settlement patterns, especially in this country. Still, for a movie so intent on wallowing in arty urban miasma, Batman Begins carries itself well.

A Very Long Engagement (2003): I never saw Amelie, and didn't know what to expect from Audrey Tautou in this post-WW1 flick based on Sebastien Japrisot's novel that I feared would turn into an English Patient lite, with Tautou as a French girl who goes looking for her fiance, the latter missing in action at the front. She was good, and the movie, though I found it a little longish, was better than I expected, with murderous hookers and lots of quirkiness (even if the latter too often veers towards the cutesy) to balance out the "our love is stronger than death" stuff that always makes me think of Daniel Day-Lewis in Last of the Mohicans. The visuals are sumptuous and filling--both the scenes in the trenches and those of civilian life--with at least one surprise cameo making me jump in my seat (as will you, probably, if you didn't know about it). My main beef is that there should have been much more Julie Depardieu. I won't go any further, but really. That aside, Engagement is one of those I probably should have seen in the theater. I hope there's no lesson there.

Novembrage
Now Playing: Guided By Voices--"Tractor Rape Chain"
1. Twelfth Night: I decided to check out this U-M "Rude Mechanicals" Shakespeare production on a whim. I'd seen them do The Merchant of Venice, and as the Royal Shakespeare Company Patrick Stewart-Harriet Walter juggernaut was (a) expensive and (b) sold out, this was a more than acceptable alternative. I'd seen a British TV version of Twelfth Night from 1970 in high school, with Alec Guinness as Malvolio and Joan Plowright as Viola (and developed a crush on the latter that probably would have mystified most of my peers had they known of it) and remembered it being rather fun. This time it was more ambiguously funny than laugh-out-loud; it's not The Merry Wives of Windsor. Most people fall in love for the wrong reasons (or at least unexpected ones) and most people are out to swindle each other in some way. Actually, that is my kind of romantic comedy. The cast was terrific, especially Lara Vanderheiden as Maria, and the set created a believable Illyria with minimal fuss.

2. Election Day: Much better than the one two years past, at the end of which I staggered out of Leopold's three sheets to the wind and half-suicidal, as did much of the country (not out of Leopold's, but still...). Fortunately, sanity seems to have caught on more generally. It got to the point of personal superstition; I voted for John Kerry and, a year later, losing 2nd Ward Democratic primary challenger Eugene Kang while being first in my precinct to vote. That didn't happen this year. I stayed at home that evening and listened to the fracas on NPR while polishing off a six-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Granholm was reelected governor, which was a relief, as Dick DeVos was a joke (and, as certain of my friends can testify, is exquisitely creepy in person); "intelligent design" is the least of his problems.* On learning of the circus in other parts of the country, I was disappointed for the first time in years that I didn't have cable. Whether it was reading of the hilarious mass demoralization on Fox News or of Chris Matthews' consternation that his personal friends--"good guys!"--were actually losing, it would have been fun to watch.** It was a joy to learn that the ludicrous abortion ban in South Dakota was voted down. And good for Sherrod Brown, winning the Ohio Senate seat! He became the Democratic primary winner for Congress in my district, I believe, right after I left Akron four years ago (just in time to not be able to vote for Lynn Rivers in Ann Arbor, so there were two genuine progressives I never got to support). I voted early in the morning, worked all day, and decided to celebrate Election Day after work by going to see...

3. Borat (2006): It's wildly overpraised, which isn't a surprise, as respectable critics like Rolling Stone's Peter Travers and Entertainment Weekly's Lisa Schwarzbaum have been stopping just short of crediting it with curing scrofula. That doesn't mean it isn't funny. A lot's been made of the nasty American archetypes Borat encounters along the way, but there are fairly benign episodes as well--leaving merriment in his wake at a Jackson, MS TV newscast, bemusing an unflappable etiquette tutor, and browsing a garage sale he mistakes for a gypsy camp. It's not so much generally satirical as gross-out funny, but that's fine with me. I kept giggling at Borat memories the next day at work, but then the same thing happened with the Father Ted episodes "Flight Into Terror" and "Chirpy Burpy Cheap Sheep,"*** so I can't say I was as blown away as many others seemed to be. I was glad I went, though.

4. "Work": The same day, I had the alternately troubling and delicious realization that my boss would be nowhere near as annoying if she, say, smoked crack. "Hey, can you get me... some 'stuff'?" is something we hear too rarely around there.

5. Thanksgiving: I went home to see my family, hung out with my relatives, and had a good time, although I may have eaten too much seafood. No. No, that's ridiculous. I was reminded of how much I love airports (not kidding), rolled in Louisiana culture by drinking Abita Amber while watching the excellent LSU-Arkansas football game (as well as the insane original 1967 Casino Royale on BBC America), and found that one can never quite escape Ann Arbor music--a Canada song came on my brother's satellite radio while he drove me to the airport Saturday morning. I also read Left Behind, which was surprisingly tolerable, but still not good enough to follow through. Next up on my list of stuff I never thought I'd find myself reading: Marx's Capital (that's the plan, anyway).

6. 32nd Birthday: I can't believe it either. Actually, I can, which is "worse." I flew back to Detroit, roaming around Memphis Airport on my layover, and then Detroit, doing the same with Ann Arbor in general once I returned. Though strangely invigorated, I took things fairly easy, and was tickled pink to find a whole gaggle of birthday wishes on the net from the BHF folks (thanks, guys!).

Decent month, all told.

*Now, I am willing to support the teaching of intelligent design in biology classes under certain reciprocal conditions: alchemy should be taught in chemistry classes and necromancy and divination offered as electives.

**To paraphrase one poster on Tapped, "gee, Chris, you don't think that maybe it's because of actual positions these candidates espouse, rather than that they're your friends?" This proves that it apparently pays to watch Chris Matthews. I also missed the eight-years-in-the-making moment last month when Bill Clinton gave the towheaded blowhard the works for being a right-wing noise machine shill. It was apparently splendid; in a lot of ways, Matthews is a likable goofball and he does seem to have a knack for making an entertaining show. They should get him to host Family Feud.

***ALAN: Should I call the police, Father?

TED: No. He's lost the trust of his sheep. And that's punishment enough... for a farmer who deals primarily... with sheep.

Parallel Lines On A Slow Decline
Now Playing: Tyrannosaurus Rex--"King of the Rumbling Spires"
"Tolstoy would have us believe that every happy family is happy in the same way. I for one don't buy it. It's impossible to imagine a family happy having learned their father will be released from his ten-year imprisonment in a gulag sharing the identical emotion with the family that has just won a meal for six at Pearson's Big Steer Restaurant. Tolstoy's an idiot for even suggesting it. Does he really expect us to believe that the happiness shared by the Marx Brothers, having just pummeled Margaret Dumont with their body blows, is the same as that shared by the Howard brothers, Moe, Curly, and Shemp, having just extracted their dear friend Larry's head from a tight mine shaft? Tolstoy's starting to look like more and more of a jackass with each fresh example."

--Michael J. Nelson, in "The Baldwins" from Mike Nelson's Movie Megacheese (New York: HarperCollins, 2000).

Things are finally starting to cool up (?) in Michigan. We had (so far as I know) the year's first snow on November 2. The skies are more generally overcast and the stars seem brighter and more distant when perceived from Wurster Park on a clear night while en route to a friend's house to watch old Brian Clemens Thriller episodes from 1973.

My life's been relatively staid recently; Gloria moved back to Spain and we haven't gotten a "replacement housemate" yet. Gloria was fun, but there's a silver lining in her departure in that I won't be tempted to watch Grey's Anatomy anymore. The always excellent combo of Starling Electric and Great Lakes Myth Society gave a terrific show at the Blind Pig last weekend, after which the former gave a party at their house, one at which I promised myself not to be too outlandish. This promise worked out as well as any of them, as it did when a bunch of us met at Leopold's two nights later to celebrate Amy's birthday.

Guided By Voices are generally terrific, as I got to discover last weekend. I've somehow managed to slip out of the general American musical continuum in my love for most things local in the past year and a half, and am usually only able to keep up with new stuff through the spotty 107.1 FM. After hearing stuff from Beck's new album, The Information, I'm going to try and try and make more of an effort.

I've fallen into a writing slump, mainly due to all the reading I've been doing--Kevin Starr's Americans and the California Dream: 1850-1915, Jan Morris' Fifty Years of Europe, Eric Rauchway's excellent Murdering McKinley: The Making of Theodore Roosevelt's America (a splendid microhistory of the "Major's" 1901 assassination by Leon Czolgosz, and what I think would make a fantastic American Experience documentary), Neil Christopher's story "Cerberus Rising", and I'm about to start on George Packer's Assassin's Gate: America in Iraq.

"There was the Bush/Rove/DeLay revolution, a brilliant perpetual plan for winning elections, raising money and concentrating power. Even if they were never verbalized, everyone implicitly understood the revolution's prime directives: support the president blindly, demonize the opposition and never break ranks. It wasn't hard to be this kind of Republican. If you could read at a fourth-grade level, pray to Jesus and exhibit genuine terror before photos of men holding hands, you could ride the revolution all the way to Washington with a ten-point cushion."

--Matt Taibbi, in "Ohio Burning" from Rolling Stone, 16 Nov. 2006.

There's voting everywhere in the country, as far as I know, on Tuesday. Don't forget to vote!* I think there's a good chance things will go better than they did two years ago. Of course, that's also what I thought two years ago.

So... not much going on, really. Again.

*Although I don't think it's a good idea to assume a snotty know-it-all attitude towards those perceived to be relatively uninterested in voting, as some did when putting up flyers in downtown Ann Arbor reminding "those stupid kids" of the midterms in needlessly arch and condescending terms--"maybe you can 'Google' it!" I suspect their civic virtue would have had more effect had they correctly identified Election Day as November 7 instead of November 5. I usually refrain from defacing other people's flyers, but this was sort of a moral imperative.

Sir! Playing That Funky Music, Sir!
Now Playing: The Clash--"Lost in the Supermarket"
Monday's radio in Ann Arbor (for me, anyway) ran hot and cold--as anywhere, it's a mess of different stations, some good, some bad, all of which inspire me with imaginings I'm sadly impelled to share with other people.

1. Technically not radio, but my colleague Adelito's 100% Funk CD. One of the more pleasant thoughts I had Monday was that Rick James' "Super Freak" should be made into an opera. I've been getting into opera recently (a drawback of local radio is the intermittent access to CBC Radio 2; Saturday afternoon's broadcast of Mozart's La clemenza di Tito fuzzed in and out with what sounded like a mixture of Jessica Webster's jazz show on the Ypsi NPR station and Ted Nugent--way to go, Nuge! that'll show those opera-lovin' pussies!), and maybe this is the inevitable result. You could cobble a libretto out of the title character's eccentric proclivities (think Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor) and various 80s movie cliches: rugged loner from the wrong side of the tracks loves spoiled rich cutie in leg warmers with secret lunacy issues (eating live squirrels?). It's all really an excuse to see Placido Domingo in full Lohengrin getup take the stage to belt out: "Sheeeee's a veeery kinky girl, the kind you doooooon't take home to maaaaamaaaaa..."

2. I plan to brush up on my knowledge of Proposal 5 well before the election in two weeks, but I'm leaning towards "yes" by the idiotic "no" commercial being run by God knows who. A man and a woman are sitting clinking crockery and silverware together in an unexplained fashion (are they eating? is it breakfast, lunch, or dinner? are the man and woman together, just friends, or in a server-customer relationship? who's who?) and I believe the man brings up Proposal 5 (something to do with financial set-asides and the Detroit teachers' union, apparently). It is hilariously awful. The woman begins to assail him with a variety of contentions that aren't really contentions at all but simple denials with no evidence supporting or refuting them. And why did they include the crockery noises? They add no versimilitude and the thing probably would have been more effective if it had just been the two people shouting. Now, I know that practically all political commercials are artistic pollutants, but this one scratches the chalkboard mainly due to the woman's prissy, hectoring, self-righteous manner. "New classrooms?" the man asks. "Nooooothing in there!" she replies in a voice that sounds like she's being done up the rear by a satyr. The man's pretty funny towards the end when he tries to be righteously indignant: "Why, that's not what they say at all!" Once I find out what "they" say, I'll know more. I'm guessing.

3. I stopped listening to WCBN largely due to the vast stretches of ambient agony that seemed to create their own radio orthodoxy, but also because half the time one can't understand what the DJs are saying. This is particularly true of one or two of the female DJs, who sound like they're ordering the domestic affairs of a dollhouse mansion. I heard one of them Monday night, though, and found her comprehensible and even charming. Maybe I'm the problem.

I certainly have nothing at all against the female voice, but these two happened to converge that day, which was bizarre. I'd grab that for the most exciting weekly event thus far. As for the commercial, it seems intensely trivial, but this is how our political process is organized these days. I wouldn't buy a fucking thing from those people.

Dangerous Soups
Now Playing: The Go! Team--"Huddle Formation"
The curried lentil's got it in for me. But meanwhile...

Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphonies 6 and 11

I hadn't been to an orchestral performance, really, since I heard the AASO play Berlioz' shortly after I moved here. My indiscriminate, wanton listening pleasure from CBC Radio 2 having recently rekindled my love of orchestral music, I decided I should probably take the opportunity--the $10, mezzanine opportunity--to check out a world-famous orchestra when one finally hit town. As a resuly, I decided Friday to go hear Valery Gergiev and the Kirov Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra play Dmitri Shostakovich's Sixth and Eleventh Symphonies (the latter entitled "The Year 1905", in honor of the abortive rebellions against the czarist government) at Hill Auditorium. I've been meaning to go there again for some time, as the local University musical societies often put on shows there. After last night, I suspect I'll become something of a regular visitor.

The Kirov dates from the early 1700s, when Peter the Great put together the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra as part of his westernizing programs. It achieved great prominence in the world of European music (Verdi's La forza del destino premiered there, as did the Russian production of Wagner's Ring cycle) up to and into the Soviet era, when it was renamed the Kirov (presumably after Stalin's "mysteriously" murdered henchman-cum-rival of 1934). Valery Gergiev has been conducting there for some time, having performed some of Shostakovich's other symphonies here last year to great popular acclaim. Many of the stories concerning the maestro focus on his intense, bestubbled appearance, and I'm afraid I can't let it go without observing that he does look like he should be threatening Vin Diesel in a number of straight-to-video minor action masterpieces.

I'm not actually the world's biggest Shostakovich fan, but I was glad I went. With all the orchestral stuff I've been listening to lately, it was good to get a picture of how an orchestra actually works, although the place of the conductor therein is still a bit of a mystery to me. At the last minute, the order was reversed, with the Sixth coming first. Call me cynical, but I suspect it was done in order to prevent mass desertions in the second half, as I believe the Eleventh to be more popular and famous. The Sixth was a sprightly little number with only three movements that tended towards neoclassicism in the lack of a programmatic background or any sort of atonal muckery, and was all right, but it was good to get to the Eleventh. Held in the program and in various musical histories as a ringing condemnation of tyranny everywhere (still up in the air, I understand, whether Shostakovich included his own bosses in the statement), it began with a chilling portrayal of the square in which the "Bloody Sunday" masacre of January 1905 took place, the warm sterility of the music recalling some of the passages from Dune, in which Duke Leto muses to Paul about their new life on Arrakis. The propulsive nature of the ensuing movements (concluding with the "Tocsin," in which a bell is struck repeatedly on stage to end the thing) actually got me moving in my seat like I was dancing at a show, which didn't come as a big surprise as much of the stuff I've been hearing lately includes orchestral arrangements, usually strings. A couple of others were doing the same thing, and it all went down terribly well. There were several curtain calls after it was all over, and I managed to beat the frenzied rush for the exits and move into the increasingly cold night.

The Lost Continent (1968)

Every time I see waht I think is the craziest damn movie ever made, I have to revise my opinion a week or so later. Last time it was Zachariah (1970), which I watched to get the Eurosleaze stench of The Sinful Dwarf (1972) and Tintorera (1977) out of my nostrils, with future 80s TV stars John Rubinstein (Crazy Like A Fox)* and Don Johnson (what else?) as hippie gunfighters in the Old West, with a supporting cast including Country Joe and the Fish, Doug Kershaw, Dick Van Patten, and the James Gang. But enough.

The Lost Continent was a good Hammer movie. For someone who loves British horror movies so much, I'm not a big fan of Hammer Films (the words I suspect most aficionados hear when they think "British horror movies"), and think they were at their best when getting away from the tired old Dracula and Frankenstein formulas and coming up with stuff like Quatermass and the Pit (1968), Captain Kronos (1974), and The Lost Continent. The latter is based on the novel Uncharted Seas, by that racist old curmudgeon Dennis Wheatley. His novels are generally awful (he was sort of the fictional equivalent of Paul Johnson) but they had some good stuff made out of them, like this and The Devil Rides Out of the same year. The plot of The Lost Continent sounds like something I might have come up with when I was in my early years of high school (and one may ask why the hell I didn't): A tramp steamer escapes from Sierra Leone with a bunch of sketchy, horny, insane drunk people on board, as well as a cargo of explosives that will detonate when coming into contact with water. A hurricane and a mutiny later, the remaining crew and passangers drift into the Sargasso Sea, encountering bloodsucking vines (the second Hammer effect I've inadvertently copied in one of my short stories), a creature variously described in other synopses as a giant octopus or jellyfish (it doesn't get a lot of screen time, so the question's probably moot), giant crabs and scorpions, a lost "civilization" descended from Spanish conquistador and Inquisitor castaways, and a gutsy female freedom fighter with great Renaissance Fair fashion sense and what I can only describe as Cyclopean cleavage.

It's completely batshit but awesome, and this is all due to the cast. Eric Porter manages to be heroic, thoughtful, and gloriously crass at the same time as the captain, and, while I know he was a big television name in the UK (Soames Forsyte in the first Forsyte Saga, Moriarty in the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes, and Count Bronowsky in The Jewel in the Crown), I don't recall seeing any of his film work before (note to self: see Hands of the Ripper). Tony Beckley, as the merry drunk Tyler, gives one of his best performances (and I've seen him opposite Orson Welles' Falstaff in Chimes of Midnight as Ned Poins, Michael Caine's Charlie in The Italian Job as Camp Freddy, and Tom Baker's Doctor in the 1976 Doctor Who story "The Seeds of Doom"--see what I mean about this cast?). The movie's debatably greatest moment arrives with Porter's announcement that the ship is taking on water: Beckley grins cheekily and starts playing the "Dead March" from Saul on the piano (while I almost snorted up my beer, I think one of the characters hits him immediately afterward). Suzanna Leigh, she of the clingy dresses, entices various male crew and passengers, most of whom meet suspiciously sticky ends--the radioman in a comically gruesome termination (The Lost Continent has a fair number of these, some of which foretell Return of the Jedi and Dead Calm) and the sleazy con man Ricaldi (the hilarious--and wonderfully named--Benito Carruthers) being dragged off the screen by the aformentioned unidentified tentacled invertebrate (UTV--it just looks better than UTI--and if it's unidentified, how do we really know it's an invertebrate at all?). Her crass, possessive father, played by Nigel Stock, also gets it at some point. So stay the hell away from her, I guess. Hildegarde Knef, as the past-hampered Eva, brings most of the run-of-the-mill pathos to this movie, but apart from some good scenes with porter, and a healthy, bracing "we have to do something!" ethic throughout the movie, there's not much of that. Jimmy Hanley and a refreshingly spirited James Cossins are wonderful as crew members, and Dana Gillespie is not only gorgeous and well-endowed but also does a good job on the acting front, as she would nine years later in The People That Time Forgot. The whole thing unfolds against a backdrop of eye-catching, mildly psychedelic (alternately impressive and laughable) set design, as well as a soundtrack that oscillates between stiff-upper-lip action-adventure orchestral and organ-laden soft-porn. Great stuff.

This was my first ever Netflix movie, by the way (not counting Quatermass and the Pit, which I ordered earlier this month but which turned out to have an inexplicable gash down the middle); while I'll still probably rent from Liberty Street, I can't deny how great it is to have such a service available. The selection alone makes it worth subscribing, and at $6-10 a month, it's gloriously affordable.

*With Slavic composers still fresh in the mind, I found out that Rubinstein is the son of Arthur Rubinstein, legendary pianist and one of the most iconic interpreters of Chopin.

Marche Macabre
Now Playing: Felix Mendelssohn--Nocturne from A Midsummer Night's Dream
This past weekend I took a little stroll through the worlds of the undead. My thighs still hurt.

Friday evening, Tracy and Dan held a zombie/medical themed party for the latter's birthday, and as an early celebration for Halloween.* I decided to go along, sans costume, having made a quiche provencale for the occasion (I don't know if anyone's used that name yet, but it's a quiche with Dijon mustard, Gruyere, and herbes de provence, so I'm running with it).** Their house lies across the Huron River to the north, an area of town I've been strangely negligent in exploring. I took the bus at first, and walked some way past their house into the further reaches of Jones Drive, set on a ridge above Plymouth Road and concealed by a thick range of trees that give the impression of some far-out suburb (complete with buckyball-style residence towering over the rest), rather than in an actual city. Tracy and Dan dressed up as, respectively, a zombie nurse and a mad scientist, and their house is at once a very well-done, muted celebration of kitsch and a comfortable zone for conversation, dining, and, as I found, partying. I was the only one with no costume, but I took advantage of my Inspector Gadget-style beige overcoat (thank you, Vince) to play the role of Doug's drug dealer (he was dressed as a mental patient, complete with stylized dribble down his shirt). Sara, Amy, and Maria were there (Sara dressed as an undead clown in hospital scrubs), as were several people I'd never met before, but it was a lovely time, and I stayed far longer than I intended. The walk back was very enjoyable, as once again, I'm not too familiar with that part of town, and it's always a treat to find somewhere genuinely new to walk in Ann Arbor. Jones Drive at night, bending towards its southern extremity, has a picturesque Maurice Sendak quality, with dimly-lit houses sparsely placed behind trees, that would probably vanish in daylight.

One of the reasons I hadn't come in costume and meant to leave early was to save my energies for Saturday, when Adam and Margot put the (First Annual?) Ann Arbor Zombie Pubcrawl into action. The idea was to dress up as zombies and hit about eighteen different bars in the downtown area, staying around twenty minutes in one spot and then moving on to the next. We ended up with nine people by the end of the night (Adam, Margot, Sara, Maria, Amy, Adam's friends John and Noelle, myself, and this guy John that Margot met at Babs'), which was something of a blessing considering some of the bars we visited (only eight of those, too, as the small number of people meant that we could better adjust to our collective stamina level). I took an old chef shirt of mine, gashed it in a few places with (fittingly) a server key, employed red marker in several strategic locations about my face and torso, wrote "I'm not your fucking server" on my undershirt, donned my chef pants and doo-rag, and probably thereby anticipated my eventual destiny. Everyone else's costumes were cooler, but I'm not really good at that sort of thing.

Starting at Casey's, we gradually worked our way south until hitting Leopold's later that evening, stopping at the /aut/bar, the Heidelberg, Grizzly Peak, the Old Town, the 8-Ball, and Babs'. It was a lot of fun--great conversation, good laughs, meat-and-potatoes style alcohol, an unexpected literary commission of sorts, and the presumed amusement of onlookers. Adam had put a lot of thought into it, bless him, and almost didn't deserve our occasional giggles as he tried to keep amending the schedule as we decided to cut various bars from our itinerary. The only dodgy part occurred when we entered Grizzly Peak at a sensitive moment in the Detroit-Oakland baseball game going on and got al these gimlet stares from the massed horde of sports fans at the tables. We found a relatively secluded spot towards the back and watched the game ourselves, only to be verbally assaulted (in a well-meaning fashion, I'm convinced), by this drunk woman who demanded to know from what sort of wedding we had escaped (I think; Margot was dressed as a blood-spattered bride and Adam was working serious Mr. Peanut mojo in top and tails). Unsatisfied with our answers, she went to pee, saving us a lot of embarrassment (I think). We relaxed afterward at the Old Town with some Stroh's, tasty gossip, and the effects of a lovely sunset visible through the window, the game forming a sort of audiovisual wallpaper in the background. I chatted with Amy and Maria (zombie lumberjack and lunchlady, respectively) at the 8-Ball while Adam and Sara (God knew what, really; she bore a slight resemblance to Clara Keller in The Sinful Dwarf--and no, you don't want to know what that means--except for "Sweetums," the open-brained, undead pooch with a slight resemblance of its own, this time to "Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog") played darts, all of us witnessing the game's glorious climax as Tiger batter Magglio Ordonez hit a home run in the bottom of the ninth, sending two more of his own across the plate and stealing the game from under the As' noses. I now like Babs'--it took a while for me to get used to the loss of the old dive on Liberty Street (now the lackluster Alley Bar; the fuckers didn't even bother to give it a name)--but the new place has its own kind of faux-sophisticate charm, and the happy hour apparently lasts all week. By Leopold's, I found my stamina flagging (heaven knows what would have happened had we decided to hit all eighteen original bars), and left after a glass of IPA, taking care to snag some of the delicious smoked Gouda on my way out.

I got home to find Ted and Gloria watching The Aviator and went to bed. The next day, Lou showed Abel Gance's Le Grand Amour de Beethoven (1936) at Cinema Guild, pretty much the epitome of the silly, self-important biopic--whenever Beethoven has some grandiose turning point, the opening bars of the Fifth Symphony play with a brutal lack of subtlety that I now find funny. If you just watch it for the visuals, it's pretty good. Harry Baur is terrific in the title role ("Beethoven," not the "grand amour") although the movie's nowhere near as good as Gance's earlier Napoleon (1927).

*I'm not sure how I'll be celebrating the actual holiday. I've no idea if trick-or-treaters come around my neighborhood. They'll all probably be at parent-approved, state-licensed candy-dispensing houses in the early afternoon run by religious organizations or Amway, but I'll still put out a jack-o'lantern.

** The full name is "Provencal Tart with Gruyere and Herbes de Provence," from Frank Mentesana and Jerome Audureau's Once Upon A Tart... Soups, Salads, Muffins, and More (New York: Knopf, 2003), a cookbook the people who lived on Spring Street before I did left behind.

Bootstrap Blues
Now Playing: Margot and the Nuclear So-and-Sos--"Barfight revolution, power violence"
One of my least favorite things to do in the world is to seek employment. As the only jobs I seem to be able to find are restaurant jobs, the situation grows doubly depressing. There are, however, a number of factors that lighten my load in this instance. 1. I don't really need the job; I already have one, and I'm hardly starving or anything. 2. I'm having a fairly good life otherwise: I hang out with friends every now and again, I've been writing my ass off, I've been published, and it's relatively likely that I'll be so again either at the end of this year or the beginning of the next. 3. While filling out this particular application, I realize that all three of the places I worked previous to my present "posting" no longer exist, which I find grimly amusing. I am become death, etc. etc.

Because of point 1, I was able to relax a little while filling out the application, as it's hardly a matter of life or death. I suspect some cultural anthropologist wil one day bust a gut (if they haven't already) at our employment applications. I remember a Sunday morning conversation at the Fleetwood some time back in which Kathy and Aviva discussed the hilarious "why do you want to work here?" question (usually begging the answer "because I need a fucking job" rather than "I expect to find great spiritual and material fulfillment scrubbing pots or scraping the gum off parking lots"). Sadly, on this present specimen, it's been left off somehow. There's also the "what is your greatest strength/weakness?" question. The expected answer (and the one I suspect practically everyone else puts, as do I) is "I get along well with people and am a good worker, but I'm also kind of a perfectionist and am too hard on myself." All right, I didn't put that second part on there. Once I get another one of those, and if I don't need the job, I've composed an alternate response: "well, over the years, I've come to hate people to the point where I've grown into a borderline sociopath, but at the same time, I'm pathologically lazy, so there's not really a whole lot I can do about it--one way or the other." Not really true, but it has a certain contrapuntal charm in this case, and maybe someone'll get a good laugh out of it.

Fortunately, there's always the cinema.

Deathdream (1972): Also--blasphemously--known as Dead of Night, but only shares an alternate title with that British horror classic. I as intrigued to learn that the movie was written by Alan Ormsby, who wrote and starred in the contemporaneous Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things, already discussed in this forum. Andy (Richard Backus), reported killed in Vietnam, returns home to his surprised family, who begin to fear that something is wrong once people and animals turn up horribly killed in the vicinity. Light years ahead of Children (which had its own goofy charm), Deathdream was somewhat groundbreaking, as it portrayed the effect of the Vietnam War on the homefront in a compellingly sensitive and poignant way for what's basically a combination vampire and zombie movie. Backus is excellent as the moribund Andy (he would play another returned veteran, this time of the First World War, in the PBS American Short Stories production of Hemingway's "Soldier's Home", with Nancy Marchand, four years later), and John Marley (the horse's-head guy in The Godfather) and Lynn Carlin (Cassavetes' Faces, also with Marley) play his parents in a way that suggests Andy's problems began well before he enlisted (Carlin in particular; her creepy possessive feelings for her son drive a lot of the tension). A few Children alums show up: Jane Daly (Terri) is charmingly annoying as ever as Andy's loopy girlfriend Joanne, and I was delighted to see Anya Ormsby (Anya) as Andy's sweet, knowing sister Cathy. The quality chasm between Deathdream and Children piques my curiosity to see Ormsby's Deranged, about serial killer Ed Gein. Maybe one of these days...