Underwear Is For The Weak
Yeah, that's right--no matter what "they" do to me, "they" can never take this away from me.

Again, frequent depression impels me to learn (as do the requirements of my job). I've learned a great deal about baking this week, having made a dozen scones from scratch and several quiche crusts. So huzza! for me. Before long, I'll be baking bread and everything.

I'm beginning to find that cooking does a lot to keep my mind occupied (I recently started writing and studying for the GRE again, so that helps, too). For the past several months, I've been in a bit of a funk and haven't been able to write (the fata morgana that was Emily's split-second presence in my life I write off to celestial mockery), but it's gotten a lot better.

Sunday Cinema Guild showed Michael Reeves' masterpiece, The Witchfinder General (1968), with perhaps Vincent Price's greatest performance as real life "witchfinder" Matthew Hopkins, well matched by the always terrific Ian Ogilvy and the gorgeous Hilary Dwyer as a pair of ill-fated lovers during the English Civil War. It looked fantastic on DVD, and the sumptuous Ralph Vaughan Williams-y score by Paul Ferris helped matters considerably (not that they really needed helping). Less a horror movie, really, than an "English Western," everyone should see it; it's fantastic.

I went swimming again yesterday and the pool seemed to kick my ass less than it has the past two weeks. Getting back in the water after you've swum a couple of laps and rested for the same number of minutes (it's been a long time since I swam regularly) is deceptively helpful for the limbs--only after you've swum the next lap do you realize you're in for trouble. I usually do a mole-like breaststroke, like I'm Angus Lennie or Steve McQueen in The Great Escape scooping dirt from the earth and shoving it behind me. I do a couple of freestyle laps every visit, but they're much more tiring. It's exhilarating nevertheless; I forgot how much fun it was to be in the water.

The weather has been remarkably cool and mutable recently--it's supposed to get down to 54 Fahrenheit this evening, but it'll be back up in the 80s for next week. I take what I can get, personally.

Mouse Haters
I stopped into Espresso Royale on Main this morning to have a lemonade before work. As usual, two out of the three computers didn't work and an early customer got to the operational unit before me. I sat at one of the other terminals and waited for her to finish while reading Vanity Fair (funny, but it's hard going--Thackeray is so intrusive with his narration--he makes Dickens look like Raymond Carver). All the while she was doing whatever the hell she was doing, she moved the mouse around in an unusually savage manner. I mean, she was jabbing the thing, slamming it against the countertop like she wanted it dead. It was weird, it was bizarre, it was the perfect start to my day.

I saw a rainbow Monday morning, which was nice. Tonight I'm going to try and make a soup. We'll see what happens, but apparently I'm really good at making quiche crust.

One of these days I'm going to have some kind of interesting experience and y'all will think I'm lying. I did get a hilariously flattering mention in someone else's blog, but I'm holding back on linking to it because it's... well, really flattering.

Cthulhu With 2 Hs
Now Playing: The gnomes in my head--STOP IT!!!
Someone said once (I forget who) that the best cure for sadness or depression is to learn something. I think that's why I seem to be having such a good weekend. I started relearning geometry in preparation for the GRE, and I successfully made four cups worth of a savory vegetable stock for a soup I'm going to make this week. Tiffany suggested that I should try some different soups at home, and I confess I'm rather excited by the idea. I've got enough for two separate soups, which should be interesting.

While making my stock last night, I also watched Thunderball (1965) and found myself giggling uncontrollably during the scene where poor Q (Desmond Llewellyn) shows Bond the gadgets in the Bahamas, as he takes off to destroy Emilio Largo (the great Adolfo Celi) with the help of Domino (the stunning Claudine Auger). I guess the Bond movies really always were that ridiculous--I probably hadn't been looking that closely.

I had a good brunch at the Fleetwood, too, noticing some bathroom graffiti of which I hadn't before been aware (?). The graffiti there ranges from the profoundly idiotic ("New York will always be my primary home, but Ann Arbor will always be second"--I mean, who the hell writes that shit??) to the personally sublime ("Gerbils for Satan" really can't be topped). Today's discovery was the conclusion of a "graffiti thread"--a series of scrawls responding to the most recent one before it (if there's a hipper term out there, somebody let me know). Someone who thinks H.P. Lovecraft was inconceivably greater than a pretty decent writer of 20s and 30s supernatural fiction (translation: "someone who's wrong") wrote some crap about "Cthulhu", his fictional deity, on the walls. Someone wrote underneath "Cthulhu's got 2 H's dumass!" And then the finale--"Yeah, and 'dumbass' has a 'b'." It takes so little, it really does.

Free Clowns At Sparrow Market
Now Playing: Van Morrison--"Jackie Wilson Said (I'm In Heaven When You Smile)"
An interesting weekend already, not as depressing as I'd feared. I gave Sam Peckinpah's blood-letting classic The Wild Bunch (1969) another chance and found I liked it a lot more this time around. I still don't get what the big deal is, but it was a pretty good movie, and Robert Ryan was fantastic. I also watched Yentl (1983--that's right; I watched it and I don't give a shit who knows). It wasn't that bad; I was surprised to find Mandy Patinkin and Amy Irving much more irritating than Babs.

This morning, I was up at six and out walking by six-thirty, doing pretty much the length of the Huron River from Gallup to Argo Park (for non-residents, a fair ways). It was a gorgeous morning (stormed much of the rest of the day), and I wished I could go swimming in the river. I've begun swimming again, once a week, and I was surprised at how exhausted I felt when I finished. I managed six laps last week, and eight this week, which may seem kind of sad, but I really haven't done this sort of thing in four years.

All in all, I walked for about ten miles and then stopped in at the Farmer's Market to get ingredients for vegetable stock (envy my exciting life, you poor bastards). The Farmer's Market shows up at the Kerrytown Shopping Center every Wednesday and Saturday morning. A wide swath of the citizenry appears to pick up some organic veggies or the kind of artsy crap that usually gets sold at these things (many, I suspect, driving one or two miles in their SUVs to "buy organic"--it's like demanding there be no cream in your soup and then stuffing a huge butter cookie in your face, and I've seen that entirely too often). I found most of what I needed at Sparrow Market next door. There was an oblivious old woman in front of me affably yelling at the cashier, and a grim-looking, post-doctoral-type character in sneakers and carrying a New York Times behind me. The old woman suddenly lurched back, shoving me into the guy and my boot on top of his sneaker. "Ow!" he said. I felt bad for him until the cashier said "who's next?" and he bitched "somebody!" Then I felt better. Right outside, too, was a booth advertising the Ann Arbor Greenway, which I oppose (as do many other people--see most of the blogs listed in the "Athens of Washtenaw County" section at the side). I briefly contemplated looking through the literature and then saying in a loud voice "screw that!" but decided against it.

So I'm actually feeling pretty good now, which is odd.

Melt Your Silver Linings Into Plowshares
Now Playing: Saturday Looks Good To Me--"No Point To Continue"
I've been getting a little antsy at work lately, and I should really stop. I nearly snapped at a co-worker, which is not who I am. Part of this is due to life's disappointing nature over the past week, but I need to learn to put things in perspective; I need to remember that it's society telling me that I'm worthless and that it's not the truth. It's not as if the past month was really that awful--I restored contact with some old friends, made some new ones, and heard some really good music. I also finally began studying for the GRE. Yeah, I guess I'm disappointed about certain topics discussed on this blog in the recent past, but... life's too short, really.

Have a nice day.

Please don't say you love me, 'cause you know I'll only kick you out the door...
Now Playing: The Faces--"Borstal Boys"
I recently established contact with my friend Alasha, which is cool. We used to hang out in Akron a lot--one of my favorite memories of the era is of myself, her, and our friend Matt lolling around all night in my apartment listening to the Velvet Underground ("White Light/White Heat"), Television, and the Modern Lovers, all very proto-punk and witty, I imagined. Matt had a crush on me and I had a crush on Alasha. All that needed to complete the cycle of twisted glee would be if Alasha had been hot for Matt, which she wasn't. It doesn't need to be entirely untouched by sorrow to be a favorite memory. Anyway, I'm glad we're back in touch.

I am, however, going to begin studying for the GRE this weekend so I can retake it in July or maybe August. I took it a while back to get into grad school, obviously, but I've naturally gotten dumber since then, so it's all probably for the best.

And I got a little sniffly this morning, but it'll definitely be hard to resist this.

Balm in Gilead? Nah. We got paczkis, though...
Now Playing: Pere Ubu--"Chinese Radiation"
Last night saw a remarkably torrid afternoon in downtown Ann Arbor as I finally got to hear the Great Lakes Myth Society, formerly the Original Brothers and Sisters of Love. They are indeed excellent. I found it a little hard to place their sound, myself. Reading what other people have written and said about them, I was a little surprised at how hard they rocked, maybe expecting introspective little ballads of heartbreak and loss, etc., etc. It was cool, whatever it was. I think that any band with an accordion has a sort of base-level of cool that can't be taken away--that's one of the reasons I like the Decemberists so much (and klezmer music, now that I think about it).

We saw Michael Reeves' The Sorcerers (1967) for Cinema Guild, once more aptly described in British Horror Films as "angry young man made angrier by angry old people" (namely, Boris Karloff and Catherine Lacey). Simply put, an old couple take control of the mind of a young man (the always awesome Ian Ogilvy) and make him do things they "can't allow themselves to do"--kill people, drive really fast on motorcycles, beat people up, etc. It's a lot more fun than it sounds, and the scenes in a nightclub made me think of the Blind Pig the night before. So it was relevant somehow, I guess.

I finished Barnaby Rudge, too. How this book isn't better known is beyond me. The plot's a little weird, and rather simplistic for Dickens, but the characterization and grotesque descriptions of some of the people and events are world-class. The standout is probably the central character of Barnaby, the childlike, mentally disturbed young man with a talking raven who gets caught up in Britain's anti-Catholic Gordon Riots of 1780, where a parliamentary attempt to take away some of the restrictions on Catholics meets with horrifying mob violence. Great stuff, and it reminded me of how awesome Dickens could be (and how much of two minds he was regarding the "common people").

Ships Passing In The Night
Now Playing: Beth Orton--"Stars All Seem To Weep"
"He bade farewell to his friend the locksmith, and hastened to take horse at the Black Lion, thinking as he turned towards home, as many another Joe has thought before or since, that here was an end to all his hopes--that the thing was impossible and never could be--that she didn't care for him--that he was wretched for life--and that the only congenial prospect left him, was to go for a soldier or a sailor, and get some obliging enemy to knock his brains out as soon as possible."

--Barnaby Rudge (1841), by Charles Dickens

I don't actually feel like that, but I have in the past, and was struck by how beautifully Dickens captured the feeling. Barnaby Rudge is cool--I read it in college and didn't quite realize its excellence.

More communications problems between myself and Emily--my phone died yesterday somehow and the phone guy at the Diag is on vacation until tomorrow. I called her to let her know that I'd be at the Great Lakes Myth Society show downtown today if she wanted to join me, so we'll see how that turns out.

I hate it, too, when I get a CD and there's only one song I like on it--but I really like it, and can't stop listening to it. Such is "Saturday Afternoon" off Outrageous Cherry's "Supernatural Equinox" album. I barely managed to stop to listen to Beth Orton. They were really good last night, in a criminally underattended Blind Pig show. It didn't help that I was perched on a stool by the partition wall nursing a Bud and imagining that reading a fictional narrative of the 1780 Gordon anti-Catholic riots in London (such is Barnaby) would keep the black dog away. Fortunately, all the bands, Cherry, the Fondas, who I'd never heard, and the Coronados from No Fun Records were all superb. The show was well worth it. The album wasn't.

Thinking of the beginning quote, I wonder how I'd find an "obliging enemy" in Ann Arbor. I guess I could just walk into the Firefly Club and inform everyone, "jazz and blues are both overrated examples of slave music that only guilty white liberals listen to anymore." I don't believe that for a second, of course, but it'd be fun to see the looks on a few faces.

Whether Emily shows up or not (there may have been an emergency or she may have to work for all I know), I'm looking forward to the GLMS show. Brandon and others rave about them incessantly, and indeed, it's hard to see where marrying Appalachian music and prog-rock could possibly go wrong.

Just Your Everyday Monster
Now Playing: Brendan Benson--"Cold Hands, Warm Heart"
Wednesday afternoon and evening were exquisite. The river looks so much different by the evening light. I ran into Emily again (right as she was leaving a message on my cellphone--the message is consequently hilarious) and we'll probably be doing something this weekend (Outrageous Cherry is playing the Blind Pig and I'd like to check them out; same with the Great Lakes Myth Society at the ghastly "Taste of Ann Arbor" nonsense that'll occupy downtown Sunday afternoon).

Everyone should see Larry Cohen's Q (1982), about an ancient winged Aztec serpent terrorizing New York. Regardless of how you feel about the subject matter, you should stay for Michael Moriarty's tour de misere performance as a loser piano player, David Carradine's detective uttering today's post title, and best of all, for the concluding battle between the monster and the NYPD (and for the brief exchange of views between Carradine and pro beet-faced, plow-nosed Irish cop guy Fred Scollay, who seems to be in all of Cohen's movies I've seen thus far). The latter, perhaps, will have you shaking your head, as I did, and telling the TV screen "un...believable." Really.

The Long Good Memorial Day Weekend
Now Playing: Mick Jagger--"Memo From Turner," from the Performance (1970) soundtrack
Well. It turned out to be a pretty blasted fab Memorial Day weekend after all.

Saturday: The afternoon after the last entry, I sleeved and carded a host of fiction titles in the WRAP library--James Kirkwood through John Rechy. I left a message with Emily's mom--she probably had Memorial Day plans or something, so I think I'll try again later this week. Last but not least, "Saturday Night Live" was showing "The Best of Alec Baldwin." It was rather a poor selection, all told--there was no "The Mimic" or "I'm a Handsome Actor," but they did have his appearance on "Inside the Actor's Studio" as "The Master," Mr. Charles Nelson Reilly (may his greatness never end).

Sunday: I walked about ten or twelve miles, all told. Beginning in the Arboretum, I ended up a third of the way towards Ypsilanti before I'd finished, going through Gallup Walkway, Furstenburg Park, and Gallup Park itself. The morning was glorious and the place positively crawling with geese, both adult and cygnets. Afterwards, I had breakfast, as I'm now accustomed to pretty much every Sunday, at the Fleetwood Diner, which is one of my favorite places in this town, despite its detractors.

Cinema Guild showed March or Die (1977), an old-fashioned French Foreign Legion adventure with Gene Hackman, Catherine Deneuve, and spaghetti western fave Terence Hill. It wasn't all that great, although the beginning was magnificently conceived and shot, and it had an historical importance of its own as it was the first movie ever produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. Many of the themes that would become integral to the later movies he oversaw were there: cocky kid learns the meaning of obedience/ honor/duty, women have no place in a "man's world," etc., etc. I remember reading an interview with Matt Stone and Trey Parker where they discussed how Team America: World Police was a satire on Bruckheimer movies, and I saw a lot of the stuff they talked about in this movie. It was certainly entertaining, I'll give it that.

I also saw Wet Hot American Summer (2001), by some of the same people who were in "The State," the awful, overrated MTV comedy show of the early 90s. The only good thing there was Michael Ian Black, but everyone acquitted themselves wonderfully in this hilarious, unexpectedly twisted parody of "camp movies" like Meatballs and Gorp (both 1980--it's too bad they didn't throw in Friday the Thirteenth for good measure, although there is one reference if you look closely). I won't say anything else about it but that Paul Rudd's comic genius is, in my opinion, woefully underappreciated.

Monday: The centerpiece of Memorial Day was the show put on by Brandon at the Madison House. I had thought about not going, but then I decided on going. Very complicated, to be sure. I met a whole bunch of people, including another blogger, found some great free books at the house next door (including William Morris' The Sundering Flood, a novel he apparently wrote after The Well at the World's End), rediscovered the delights of Washtenaw Dairy, had my quadrennial cigarette, got to tell Fred Thomas how much I enjoyed his music, and just had a wonderful time. Most of the music was whimsical and introspective, with Nick Dykert (whose demo CD I got to listen to after I got home that evening--his music sounds even better supported by a piano, as he himself pointed out) and Fred Thomas (who made creative and entertaining use of a set of bells lying on the ground and any number of "found" percussive instruments and surfaces) offering miniature ballads of various degrees of heartbreak and longing, and some deceptively acid social commentary from Emily Powers and Dustin Krcatovich (the former sang of various down-and-outers whose lives she imagined in Chicago, and the latter delivered a wonderful song called "Middle Management"--which, as a former Barnes and Noble supervisor and one who has no car, I was in a great position to appreciate). The shows played in the tiny backyard, nestled between the house and a rug store on South Main. The latter was graced with a forbidding cement wall with a sinister door in the center. If anything, the setting enhanced the evening, with all manner of birds flying above us against a clear blue sky and the sun growing older behind the trees. Memorial Day was wonderful.

So I guess the bottom line is that I had a wonderful Memorial Day. Thanks, everyone.