When I was a little girl, we used to go with my mom's friend Cookie and her kids to Matzoh Momma's, a deli in the funky post-hippie liberal enclave that the Capitol Hill neighborhood was in those mid-70s days. At first, the joint was hole-in-the-wall tiny, a space narrow as a bowling lane lined with deli cases and two or three rickety tables. The food, though...man, the food. Toasted bagels slathered in real butter--could you get a genuine, decent bagel, anywhre else in Seattle at the time? (You barely can, now; round bread with a hole in the middle doth not a bagel make.) Kosher dogs on poppy-seed rolls. A perfectly golden chicken broth, glowing as if lit from within, afloat with the namesake matzoh balls. Dr. Brown's Black Cherry soda, in bottles...I don't think it yet came in cans. I didn't know from "kosher"; my entire concept of Jewishness came from the All of a Kind Family books (and, thus, I also had a vague notion that New York City was still trapped in the early 1900s, with streetcars and tinkers' wagons). I remember puzzling over some of the Yiddishisms sprinkled through the menu: "Nu, a Sandwich" declared one section. But the food was classic comfort food, suited to a kid's palate, straightforward and pure without messing around. You could get the chicken soup with matzoh balls, or with pieces of chicken, or just a bowl of the plain, luminous broth...aw, man. Excuse me while I get a little verklempt and drool on the keyboard. The proprietor of the place was a big guy named Pip, with a huge, wildly curly black Jewfro. He knew us all by name, at the time. Cookie would call him up, when one of her kids was sick, and he'd deliver, actually appearing at the door bearing soup. I thought of Pip like a superhero.
Matzoh Momma's expanded into a full-fledged restaurant, later, with a full bar and live music. I remember sitting there with friends from high school, still eating that translucent soup and listening to someone navigate "Imagine" on the acoustic guitar, pining madly for the sweet stoner boy I loooooooved who sat beside me but had a girlfriend, not me. (Amusing: a little Googling reveals that Pip Meyerson was a Garfield alum, 1967. Not as amusing: further Googling indicates sweet stoner boy is a strapping, bearded Mac geek who thinks my employer is the AntiChrist. Oh.)
But eventually, the restaurant closed up shop, replaced by a Thai place, which is great because Seattle has only 800 or so to choose from, whew. I grew up and went to college, had to go all the way to New York (which was NOT populated with horse-drawn carts, it turns out) to get my grub on at a proper deli. For whatever random reason, the core group of friends I fell in with at Sarah Lawrence all happened to be Jewish; they assumed I was, too, until someone asked me in our senior year if I was going home for Passover. Nope, sorry--Norwegian-Scots with a multiculti palate, that's all. (I became known as The Honorary Jew for the remainder of our schooling. It's true that I would make an excellent Jew or Catholic, since guilt and shame are pretty much my life's breath.) I came home to Seattle, resigned myself to inferior bagels, occasionally missed matzoh crackers scrambled with eggs but not quite enough to buy a whole box and make them myself.
Today, driving across the bridge to work, I noticed the vehicle next to me: Matzoh Momma Catering. A white van with a logo on the side, a woman, a Momma, lovingly stirring a steaming pot of The Soup! I edged alongside, peering. The driver took a call on his cell, steering with one hand; his hair was steely gray and closer-cropped but still mad curly: Pip. Unmistakable. I nearly drove off the bridge, wanted to roll down my window, shout and wave: Pip! Pip! You knew me when I was in kindergarten! I miss you! I miss THE SOUP!
I didn't, of course. But you can be damn sure I wrote down the phone number.
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
Thursday, October 14, 2004
One foot in the grave
The other night I had a standard-issue anxiety dream about my high school. This happens periodically: I'm wandering the building, unable to find my locker, my classroom, the exit, as the halls and staircases go all M. C. Escher around me...and tomorrow, always tomorrow, the term paper's due or the final exam is coming, and I haven't studied or gone to class in, oh, SIXTEEN YEARS. Pretty basic. They've lessened over the intervening decade or so, thank God.
Anyway. Today I stumbled across Garfield's Web site, inadvertently, and for shits and giggles decided to look at their daily bulletin. Turns out that next week is Spirit Week, culminating in Homecoming; each day of the week, pep-minded students are encouraged to dress according to an inane theme. Hence:
Monday, 10/18—Sports Day
Tuesday, 10/19—Neon Day (I do not know what this means. Bright colors? Clothes that light up?)
Wednesday, 10/20—Twin Day
Thursday, 10/21—70s/80s Day
Friday 10/22—Purple and White Day
Hold up. 80s Day? 80s Day? What happened to the 60s day we used to have? That was plenty, right? Countercultural? All soul-hippie-freaky? So, next Thursday, the kids are going to dress...like we did every day. Because now I AM OLD. Old like MY PARENTS old.
They'll get it wrong, of course. No socks, girls--I don't care if it's October.
Anyway. Today I stumbled across Garfield's Web site, inadvertently, and for shits and giggles decided to look at their daily bulletin. Turns out that next week is Spirit Week, culminating in Homecoming; each day of the week, pep-minded students are encouraged to dress according to an inane theme. Hence:
Monday, 10/18—Sports Day
Tuesday, 10/19—Neon Day (I do not know what this means. Bright colors? Clothes that light up?)
Wednesday, 10/20—Twin Day
Thursday, 10/21—70s/80s Day
Friday 10/22—Purple and White Day
Hold up. 80s Day? 80s Day? What happened to the 60s day we used to have? That was plenty, right? Countercultural? All soul-hippie-freaky? So, next Thursday, the kids are going to dress...like we did every day. Because now I AM OLD. Old like MY PARENTS old.
They'll get it wrong, of course. No socks, girls--I don't care if it's October.
Friday, October 01, 2004
Now we are six
When I was leaving Darcy's the other night, her son, a newly minted kindergartener I'll call...Pancake, flung upon the door and hollered after me:
"Bye, Butthead!"
Oh yeah? "Bye, Stink-Pants!" I shouted back.
"Bye, Dork Face!"
"Bye, Freaknut!"
"Bye, Jerk-Freak!"
"Bye, Fart-Breath!"
And I got into my car grinning madly, joyous all out of proportion at calling playground insults across the night-dark, leaf-turning neighborhood street. Love that kid.
"Bye, Butthead!"
Oh yeah? "Bye, Stink-Pants!" I shouted back.
"Bye, Dork Face!"
"Bye, Freaknut!"
"Bye, Jerk-Freak!"
"Bye, Fart-Breath!"
And I got into my car grinning madly, joyous all out of proportion at calling playground insults across the night-dark, leaf-turning neighborhood street. Love that kid.
Friday, September 24, 2004
Friday, September 10, 2004
Your science minute
Earlier this week, at lunch, one of my colleagues introduced us all to the fact that, if you soak a gummi bear in water overnight, it absorbs the water and expands in size...sort of like those little novelty-shop pellets that turn into foam dinosaurs in the bathtub. I filed this knowledge away for future reference...
...until yesterday, when I was training our newest writer on all the tools and nuances of Our Exhaustive Documentation Process. He was sitting next to me to view my computer screen, but in such a position that he was not easily visible through the window next to the door. So he was even more surprised than I, when Colleague burst in announcing "Here's your entertainment for the afternoon!" and brandishing a gelatinous, four-inch-long gummi mutant, a-quiver on a paper plate.
So, it really does work! As do we, here at BigOlSoftwareCo, though you might not guess that at first glance.
...until yesterday, when I was training our newest writer on all the tools and nuances of Our Exhaustive Documentation Process. He was sitting next to me to view my computer screen, but in such a position that he was not easily visible through the window next to the door. So he was even more surprised than I, when Colleague burst in announcing "Here's your entertainment for the afternoon!" and brandishing a gelatinous, four-inch-long gummi mutant, a-quiver on a paper plate.
So, it really does work! As do we, here at BigOlSoftwareCo, though you might not guess that at first glance.
Thursday, September 09, 2004
Bink
Plenty of people call a pacifier a "binky," but it was the ELOML's baby word for "blankie" instead: binky, later shortened to bink. He still had his, a comforter his mother had hastily sewn into a basic red-white-and-blue sack. He called it "the sick bink," perfect for huddling under when you had the sniffles and were capable of nothing more than lying on the couch watching "Hunter" reruns on cable, sipping Theraflu. It had a matching pillow, too.
I'm kind of a fool for binks. I like quilts, know a little bit about the traditional patterns, even though I'm incapable of undertaking such a project myself--the biggest sewing task I've accomplished in my life was making kitchen curtains out of cut-up IKEA tablecloths, and that consisted solely of being able to pin and hem a few rectangles. I have a couple storebought quilts that I love, even if they were cranked out by some Pottery Barn wage slave...she might be somebody's grandma, after all. I have a Mexican wool throw in the back of my car, just in case I get caught in a meteorologically unlikely blizzard on the way home. I have a designated Hideous Pink Picnic Blanket that's impervious to stains, or at least looks none the worse for them.
In a sealed plastic tub under the bed, I have my bink...half of it, anyway. I couldn't be parted from it when visiting Grandma as a little girl, and at some point she cut it in two and bound the edges, ensuring that a portion of bink in each household would alleviate any sleepless nights. It's just a mass-produced, unremarkable quilt, strips of disintigrating blue-and-pink fabric barely clinging to the batting. The corners, however, are reinforced with tough squares of one of Grandma's old housecoats, due to my penchant for drifting off, mauling the blanket corners and occasionally sticking one into a nostril. If I washed the bink, I'm sure it would simply dissolve, its last molecules swirling out with the final rinse. It smells like Grandma's house, though, like Grandma. After she died, sometimes I'd just hold it and breathe it in, for a moment. Then quick, quick, stuff it back in the box, try to preserve that Grandma scent. I'm not sure it's working. It smells more and more like plastic tub, I fear.
A couple weekends ago I went with Darcy to Burnt Sugar in the Fremont neighborhood--what, funky housewares? fabulous retro purses? magnificent soaps? oh, all right, TWIST MY ARM--and there was...a bink. A magnificent quilt, made up of felted patchwork squares of old wool sweaters, in rich shades of rose and burgundy and purple. It had different textures, ribbed and smooth and cabled. It had lime-green rickrack around the hem. Rickrack! I stood petting it with my mouth open until the clerk swished up to me.
"Isn't that wonderful?" he said. "It's on sale." Marked down to $175 from $250. God. No. Must. Not. I looked at the lilac-bright blanket-stitched trim.
"Look--it has a little pocket," the clerk said. One of the sweater squares had a dainty breast pocket still attached; he wiggled his fingers in it, to demonstrate.
I put the quilt and my Visa on the counter five minutes of hemming and hawing later. "Look what you made me do!" I told him.
But we talked about knitting and crocheting and quilting, while the other clerk rang up the sale. About his grandmother, who specialized in tatting: cranking out lace doilies while smoking a Pall Mall and reading her Bible at the same time. "'I'm studying for my final exams!'" he quoted her.
So. I have a new sick bink. I'm eager for cold weather, though summer is dragging its heels outside. I can't wait for a bout of the flu. I'm gonna get on the couch with that quilt and both cats and a cup of tea; I'll put kleenexes in that little pocket. It's going to be wonderful.
I'm kind of a fool for binks. I like quilts, know a little bit about the traditional patterns, even though I'm incapable of undertaking such a project myself--the biggest sewing task I've accomplished in my life was making kitchen curtains out of cut-up IKEA tablecloths, and that consisted solely of being able to pin and hem a few rectangles. I have a couple storebought quilts that I love, even if they were cranked out by some Pottery Barn wage slave...she might be somebody's grandma, after all. I have a Mexican wool throw in the back of my car, just in case I get caught in a meteorologically unlikely blizzard on the way home. I have a designated Hideous Pink Picnic Blanket that's impervious to stains, or at least looks none the worse for them.
In a sealed plastic tub under the bed, I have my bink...half of it, anyway. I couldn't be parted from it when visiting Grandma as a little girl, and at some point she cut it in two and bound the edges, ensuring that a portion of bink in each household would alleviate any sleepless nights. It's just a mass-produced, unremarkable quilt, strips of disintigrating blue-and-pink fabric barely clinging to the batting. The corners, however, are reinforced with tough squares of one of Grandma's old housecoats, due to my penchant for drifting off, mauling the blanket corners and occasionally sticking one into a nostril. If I washed the bink, I'm sure it would simply dissolve, its last molecules swirling out with the final rinse. It smells like Grandma's house, though, like Grandma. After she died, sometimes I'd just hold it and breathe it in, for a moment. Then quick, quick, stuff it back in the box, try to preserve that Grandma scent. I'm not sure it's working. It smells more and more like plastic tub, I fear.
A couple weekends ago I went with Darcy to Burnt Sugar in the Fremont neighborhood--what, funky housewares? fabulous retro purses? magnificent soaps? oh, all right, TWIST MY ARM--and there was...a bink. A magnificent quilt, made up of felted patchwork squares of old wool sweaters, in rich shades of rose and burgundy and purple. It had different textures, ribbed and smooth and cabled. It had lime-green rickrack around the hem. Rickrack! I stood petting it with my mouth open until the clerk swished up to me.
"Isn't that wonderful?" he said. "It's on sale." Marked down to $175 from $250. God. No. Must. Not. I looked at the lilac-bright blanket-stitched trim.
"Look--it has a little pocket," the clerk said. One of the sweater squares had a dainty breast pocket still attached; he wiggled his fingers in it, to demonstrate.
I put the quilt and my Visa on the counter five minutes of hemming and hawing later. "Look what you made me do!" I told him.
But we talked about knitting and crocheting and quilting, while the other clerk rang up the sale. About his grandmother, who specialized in tatting: cranking out lace doilies while smoking a Pall Mall and reading her Bible at the same time. "'I'm studying for my final exams!'" he quoted her.
So. I have a new sick bink. I'm eager for cold weather, though summer is dragging its heels outside. I can't wait for a bout of the flu. I'm gonna get on the couch with that quilt and both cats and a cup of tea; I'll put kleenexes in that little pocket. It's going to be wonderful.
Monday, August 09, 2004
Are your ears burning?
Because, yeah, I'm talking smack about you.
Dear person who bashed the shit out of my car in the grocery store parking lot and then, apparently, sped off in guilty or oblivious silence: Fuck the fuck off, you cowardly cocksucker. Yes, it is not a fancy car, my 1996 Hyundai Accent, but I'd prefer that it does not look like a total piece of shit, which is difficult to maintain when you smack your ugly-ass blue vehicle all over the driver's side. Thanks a big bunch.
Dear guy at Starbucks, who when I picked your dropped $10 up off the floor and asked if it belonged to anyone nearby, blurted "That's mine!" and whisked it from my fingers: YOU'RE WELCOME, Rude-y McNoManners. Also? Wearing your sunglasses indoors makes you look like an even bigger jackass. Your mother called and said to tell you she's ashamed.
I am in serious need of a karmic top-off. Sigh.
Dear person who bashed the shit out of my car in the grocery store parking lot and then, apparently, sped off in guilty or oblivious silence: Fuck the fuck off, you cowardly cocksucker. Yes, it is not a fancy car, my 1996 Hyundai Accent, but I'd prefer that it does not look like a total piece of shit, which is difficult to maintain when you smack your ugly-ass blue vehicle all over the driver's side. Thanks a big bunch.
Dear guy at Starbucks, who when I picked your dropped $10 up off the floor and asked if it belonged to anyone nearby, blurted "That's mine!" and whisked it from my fingers: YOU'RE WELCOME, Rude-y McNoManners. Also? Wearing your sunglasses indoors makes you look like an even bigger jackass. Your mother called and said to tell you she's ashamed.
I am in serious need of a karmic top-off. Sigh.
Friday, July 30, 2004
Yo
Working here at SupaDupaSoft, we receive--and distribute--a lot of swag, the corporate-logo-emblazoned giveaway crap that's common to conventions and team-building pep-rally stuff. Mugs and mousepads and key rings and great bales of t-shirts and pretty much any gewgaw you can stick a logo or product name on, you can find in my desk or someone else's. Today I went into the kitchen on our floor and found a yo-yo, touting one of our technologies and abandoned (?) by the recycling bins. Losers weepers; I snagged it immediately. Not only was it an excellent yo-yo, nicely balanced; at the apex of its loop, it both lit up and made an irritating sound. Mine! I strolled yo-yoing back to my office, and bumped into Mike and my boss in the hall.
"Yo-yos are for boys! You're supposed to play with jacks," Mike said.
"You have some gender issues, don't you?" asked my boss. (He does--tsks all over the place when one of his female colleagues cuts her hair short or crumples her petticoat or whatever.)
I round-the-world-ed it close enough to his skull to make him duck. Hee.
Anyway. This started a discussion of toys and games and playground fads, whatever craze or chant would suddenly sweep over the schoolyard in the primary grades. Yo-yos were like this for me; when I was in about 4th grade, some...professional (?) ...yo-yo-ists came to a school assembly and performed amazing tricks, spinning and popping and twirling little orbs all over the gym while we sat cross-legged on the floor, awestruck. They gave away four yo-yos to kids in the audience as prizes. The next day, every kid on the playground had a yo-yo, I swear to god. Within 48 hours, a good percentage of us had accessorized the toy with a black eye or fat lip or at least one tender goose-egg rising on the scalp. Within 72 hours, Mrs. Eskenazi had developed a pretty magnificent yo-yo collection in her desk drawer. I wonder if she still has them?
Somehow, I picked up a few tricks over time. In addition to terrorizing Mike with my yo-yo's orbit, I Rocked the Baby, and Walked the Dog somewhat ineffectually on the office carpet. Lucky thing it's annual review time, eh?
What else? Mike suggested "clackers," another nosebleed-inducing toy of the past: plastic spheres on either end of a string that you slung up and down so that, if you managed their parabolic arc perfectly, they'd clack against each other with an irritating sound. If you managed the arc imperfectly, well, later you might have an interesting scar. I never had much affinity for jacks, and marbles were ehhh for whatever reason in most of my childhood, but I remembered jumping rope, both "Chinese" (a loop around two participants' knees, that you hopped in and out of) and regular, with all the chants and ditties. My boss got a sort of "fuzzy memories" look on her face. "Can you still..." she asked, and then simply raised her hands and pantomimed a little hand-jive in the hall. Why, I'll be Miss Mary Mack--I do remember!
It brought up an old fascination of mine...where does that stuff come from? I mean, we all learn it from other kids, the bigger kids...but where did they learn it? Where did it start? I mean, we didn't have the Internet to spread this around. What accounts for the slight regional differences?--I sing, "See See Oh Playmate" and the next kid insists it's "Say Say." And I remember parodies, too, of our own little folk jingles. What little wise-ass came up with this?
See see oh enemy,
Come out and fight with me!
And bring your [something something] three,
Climb up my [uhh...sticker bush? something dangerous]
Slide down my razor blade [my adult self says, eeeeeauuugh]
Into my dungeon door...
When I retire from the software industry and become that goofy senior citizen bothering everyone else in the American Studies PhD program, this is totally my thesis.
Of course, it's been done: One Potato, Two Potato looks like an interesting treatise on the topic. Or you can just start Googling and see where it gets you, which is how I found Julia's blog entry and comments (which alternate between two topics: babymaking, and playground jingles from all over the globe, an unanticipated combo). Plus, there's always the Harvard Dialect Survey; they're no longer taking new entries, but you can look at the results and the maps and it's absolutely fascinating.
This all reminds me of a lifelong burning question--just what were Paul and Julio doing down by the schoolyard?
"Yo-yos are for boys! You're supposed to play with jacks," Mike said.
"You have some gender issues, don't you?" asked my boss. (He does--tsks all over the place when one of his female colleagues cuts her hair short or crumples her petticoat or whatever.)
I round-the-world-ed it close enough to his skull to make him duck. Hee.
Anyway. This started a discussion of toys and games and playground fads, whatever craze or chant would suddenly sweep over the schoolyard in the primary grades. Yo-yos were like this for me; when I was in about 4th grade, some...professional (?) ...yo-yo-ists came to a school assembly and performed amazing tricks, spinning and popping and twirling little orbs all over the gym while we sat cross-legged on the floor, awestruck. They gave away four yo-yos to kids in the audience as prizes. The next day, every kid on the playground had a yo-yo, I swear to god. Within 48 hours, a good percentage of us had accessorized the toy with a black eye or fat lip or at least one tender goose-egg rising on the scalp. Within 72 hours, Mrs. Eskenazi had developed a pretty magnificent yo-yo collection in her desk drawer. I wonder if she still has them?
Somehow, I picked up a few tricks over time. In addition to terrorizing Mike with my yo-yo's orbit, I Rocked the Baby, and Walked the Dog somewhat ineffectually on the office carpet. Lucky thing it's annual review time, eh?
What else? Mike suggested "clackers," another nosebleed-inducing toy of the past: plastic spheres on either end of a string that you slung up and down so that, if you managed their parabolic arc perfectly, they'd clack against each other with an irritating sound. If you managed the arc imperfectly, well, later you might have an interesting scar. I never had much affinity for jacks, and marbles were ehhh for whatever reason in most of my childhood, but I remembered jumping rope, both "Chinese" (a loop around two participants' knees, that you hopped in and out of) and regular, with all the chants and ditties. My boss got a sort of "fuzzy memories" look on her face. "Can you still..." she asked, and then simply raised her hands and pantomimed a little hand-jive in the hall. Why, I'll be Miss Mary Mack--I do remember!
It brought up an old fascination of mine...where does that stuff come from? I mean, we all learn it from other kids, the bigger kids...but where did they learn it? Where did it start? I mean, we didn't have the Internet to spread this around. What accounts for the slight regional differences?--I sing, "See See Oh Playmate" and the next kid insists it's "Say Say." And I remember parodies, too, of our own little folk jingles. What little wise-ass came up with this?
See see oh enemy,
Come out and fight with me!
And bring your [something something] three,
Climb up my [uhh...sticker bush? something dangerous]
Slide down my razor blade [my adult self says, eeeeeauuugh]
Into my dungeon door...
When I retire from the software industry and become that goofy senior citizen bothering everyone else in the American Studies PhD program, this is totally my thesis.
Of course, it's been done: One Potato, Two Potato looks like an interesting treatise on the topic. Or you can just start Googling and see where it gets you, which is how I found Julia's blog entry and comments (which alternate between two topics: babymaking, and playground jingles from all over the globe, an unanticipated combo). Plus, there's always the Harvard Dialect Survey; they're no longer taking new entries, but you can look at the results and the maps and it's absolutely fascinating.
This all reminds me of a lifelong burning question--just what were Paul and Julio doing down by the schoolyard?
Tuesday, July 20, 2004
Wait up! Hey, you guys, wait up! Hey!
One of the televisions at the gym is perpetually set to ESPN, which has been playing coverage of the Tour de France in the early morning hours while I'm there, slugging it out on the elliptical trainer. It sort of motivates one's lazy ass (or shames it), to be treading blankly in an endless loop, flipping through Entertainment Weekly while the fittest cyclists on the planet ride bikes up a freaking mountain, say.
Anyway. Trek Bicycles is apparently sponsoring a Ride With Lance contest, commercials for which air during the coverage; you can sign up to win a private ride with Lance Armstrong. Logically, I know that I am not the target audience for this contest. I have a mountain bike that I lug out of the garage maybe twice a year; I'm a dreamy cyclist who flinches at traffic and is not so much with the balancing. Imagine if they paired me with Lance, he of the freakishly long femurs and A HEART THE SIZE OF A HAM. What could go wrong?
"Hey, Lance, wait up! A bug flew in my ear! Lance! And I rode off the trail into this ditch! And all the sammiches fell out of my basket! LANCE!"
He would not hear me, of course, because he would be two miles away at this point.
Anyway. Trek Bicycles is apparently sponsoring a Ride With Lance contest, commercials for which air during the coverage; you can sign up to win a private ride with Lance Armstrong. Logically, I know that I am not the target audience for this contest. I have a mountain bike that I lug out of the garage maybe twice a year; I'm a dreamy cyclist who flinches at traffic and is not so much with the balancing. Imagine if they paired me with Lance, he of the freakishly long femurs and A HEART THE SIZE OF A HAM. What could go wrong?
"Hey, Lance, wait up! A bug flew in my ear! Lance! And I rode off the trail into this ditch! And all the sammiches fell out of my basket! LANCE!"
He would not hear me, of course, because he would be two miles away at this point.
Monday, July 12, 2004
No my first name ain't Baby
Almost forgot--a graffiti tag I saw yesterday in the University District, that I enjoyed muchly:
Mr. Shit Eye
You might want to work on that handle, son.
Mr. Shit Eye
You might want to work on that handle, son.
Jump back!
Well, it wasn't allergies; turns out I actually had some sort of summer cold/flu thing. I spent the first part of the holiday weekend snuffly and feverish and generally irritable.
But. What did I do in this clammy, grouchy state, you might ask? Well, one night when I couldn't sleep, I sat up and watched every last minute of Footloose on VH1's "Movies that Rock."
And...huh. I seem to remember this movie being deeply awesome, when I was 14. Kevin Bacon! So...squintily tortured, as he leapt emotively about the abandoned warehouse! The kids, they just wanted to dance! DANCE! As I did, prissing around my room to the soundtrack album. I was secretly choreographing a figure-skating routine to "Let's Hear It for the Boy" by Denise Williams.
That sentence says more about my early adolescence than anyone should probably ever have known.
So. Age had not been kind to one of us, and I like to think that I've outgrown at least the most visible dorkiness. Footloose did not fare as well. Honestly, what were they thinking? What were WE thinking? A chicken race...on tractors? To the wailing of Bonnie Tyler? "Holding Out for a Hero," all oooh-oooh-Oooh-OOOOOOOH! in the background? And the tight, tight pants for both sexes--however did we walk around like that? Surely putting on jeans so narrowly pegged defied the laws of physics. And the dancing itself! Man, if you busted out that poppin', lockin', western-line-dance crap at the prom today, I imagine the other kids would simply turn on you and kill you.
It's sort of puzzling, too, because there were good actors in this movie. I am always happy to see Kevin Bacon, the hardest working man in show business...but John Lithgow, as the scary preacher who'd banned the sinful gyrations of dance? Dianne Wiest, his wife? Li'l Sarah Jessica Parker, as...the funny best friend? What did they all bring to the set, I wonder? Did they take it seriously? Did they think they were delivering an important cinematic message about oppressed youth, and the freedom to express oneself in a strangely ceaseless storm of glitter?
Finally...was this movie always SO GAY? I don't mean that in the purely pejorative sense; I'm talking about what the TWoP folks call the HoYay! I realize that Kevin Bacon gamely lampooned himself on "Will and Grace" a season or so ago, even doing that freaking dance...but somehow I had completely missed the thunderous homoerotic subtext blasting from every frame of this movie. Mr. Bacon and whichever nice Penn boy that is rassle, and dance, and cuff each other in the head fondly, and should just kiss already for crying out loud. Gayer than the gayest gay in Gaytown, I'm telling you.
Still, though. The climactic, absurd prom scene, all the kids kicking and stepping and doing the splits and backflips and the Robot and whatnot (um...if dancing's been outlawed for years, how did you all...oh, never mind), Kenny Loggins kicking off his Sunday shoes, all balloons and Christmas lights and Jesus, how much glitter IS that? Shit, y'all. That's fun. Any movie where the lead character's last line is to scream, "LET'S DANCE!" ...well, it gives you a little bit of ants in the old pants, it does.
It can't be just the fever.
* * * * *
I should mention that I myself can get to Kevin Bacon in four moves, if you fudge "in a movie with" slightly to "worked with." As teenagers, my sister and I worked in the same local gift shop for one Christmas. Later, in her first major graphic design job, she worked on a Clint Eastwood filmography CD-ROM and got to meet the man (a photo of the team luncheon shows the designers and computer dorks, hilariously paralyzed by awe, and Clint at the head of the table). Clint Eastwood was in "The Bridges of Madison County" with Meryl Streep, who was in "The River Wild" with...Kevin Bacon.
But. What did I do in this clammy, grouchy state, you might ask? Well, one night when I couldn't sleep, I sat up and watched every last minute of Footloose on VH1's "Movies that Rock."
And...huh. I seem to remember this movie being deeply awesome, when I was 14. Kevin Bacon! So...squintily tortured, as he leapt emotively about the abandoned warehouse! The kids, they just wanted to dance! DANCE! As I did, prissing around my room to the soundtrack album. I was secretly choreographing a figure-skating routine to "Let's Hear It for the Boy" by Denise Williams.
That sentence says more about my early adolescence than anyone should probably ever have known.
So. Age had not been kind to one of us, and I like to think that I've outgrown at least the most visible dorkiness. Footloose did not fare as well. Honestly, what were they thinking? What were WE thinking? A chicken race...on tractors? To the wailing of Bonnie Tyler? "Holding Out for a Hero," all oooh-oooh-Oooh-OOOOOOOH! in the background? And the tight, tight pants for both sexes--however did we walk around like that? Surely putting on jeans so narrowly pegged defied the laws of physics. And the dancing itself! Man, if you busted out that poppin', lockin', western-line-dance crap at the prom today, I imagine the other kids would simply turn on you and kill you.
It's sort of puzzling, too, because there were good actors in this movie. I am always happy to see Kevin Bacon, the hardest working man in show business...but John Lithgow, as the scary preacher who'd banned the sinful gyrations of dance? Dianne Wiest, his wife? Li'l Sarah Jessica Parker, as...the funny best friend? What did they all bring to the set, I wonder? Did they take it seriously? Did they think they were delivering an important cinematic message about oppressed youth, and the freedom to express oneself in a strangely ceaseless storm of glitter?
Finally...was this movie always SO GAY? I don't mean that in the purely pejorative sense; I'm talking about what the TWoP folks call the HoYay! I realize that Kevin Bacon gamely lampooned himself on "Will and Grace" a season or so ago, even doing that freaking dance...but somehow I had completely missed the thunderous homoerotic subtext blasting from every frame of this movie. Mr. Bacon and whichever nice Penn boy that is rassle, and dance, and cuff each other in the head fondly, and should just kiss already for crying out loud. Gayer than the gayest gay in Gaytown, I'm telling you.
Still, though. The climactic, absurd prom scene, all the kids kicking and stepping and doing the splits and backflips and the Robot and whatnot (um...if dancing's been outlawed for years, how did you all...oh, never mind), Kenny Loggins kicking off his Sunday shoes, all balloons and Christmas lights and Jesus, how much glitter IS that? Shit, y'all. That's fun. Any movie where the lead character's last line is to scream, "LET'S DANCE!" ...well, it gives you a little bit of ants in the old pants, it does.
It can't be just the fever.
* * * * *
I should mention that I myself can get to Kevin Bacon in four moves, if you fudge "in a movie with" slightly to "worked with." As teenagers, my sister and I worked in the same local gift shop for one Christmas. Later, in her first major graphic design job, she worked on a Clint Eastwood filmography CD-ROM and got to meet the man (a photo of the team luncheon shows the designers and computer dorks, hilariously paralyzed by awe, and Clint at the head of the table). Clint Eastwood was in "The Bridges of Madison County" with Meryl Streep, who was in "The River Wild" with...Kevin Bacon.
Thursday, July 01, 2004
Bummer
While I was writing that last post, I heard the ice-cream man tinkling and tootling through the neighborhood. ("A Bicycle Built for Two," very GBC!) I feel so lousy, and a simple orange popsicle would be so so good right now. The tootling got closer, and I actually jumped up and grabbed a handful of change off the hall table and flung open the door...
...Christ on a pony, man, slow the fuck down! I'm not gonna RUN.
Goddamnit.
...Christ on a pony, man, slow the fuck down! I'm not gonna RUN.
Goddamnit.
Sneezing; linkage
Having another Allergy Blast! of some sort; feel like crap. I'm taking next week off work--24 hours til vacation, and I can hardly even appreciate it. I don't have any original thoughts of my own, so here's a buncha links to other people's. Eventually I'll migrate them over to the list on the right.
Abbie the Cat has a posse...and a blog. It's strangely poetic, moving, and oddly convincing. For a blog written by a cat. It also features the occasional post from the Other Cat who lives there, Martha. I find it fascinating that not only do they have distinctive voices, but Martha seems to be a better typist. Abbie's more the artist, I think. He's been under the weather and the bed, lately, so send your love.
David Wong was my prom date and first boyfriend. He would probably be appalled that I'm telling you that. At any rate, his global adventures are always interesting and frequently funny. "Pandemic Cookie" is the name of my new band.
Heather B. Armstrong at Dooce writes about life and new motherhood with insight, humor, and a filthy dirty sailor mouth, which I think is completely appropriate. Babies? Cute, but they make a fucking MESS, man.
Seth has suddenly posted a flurry of updates to Eminent Romaine, which is good. I think he sometimes blames his preoccupation on his baby. I dunno, Dooce seems to hold it together. But he has my esteem for purchasing To the 5 Borroughs and Sinatra at the Sands on the same day.
Linda is simply a genius.
Well? Go on, then.
Abbie the Cat has a posse...and a blog. It's strangely poetic, moving, and oddly convincing. For a blog written by a cat. It also features the occasional post from the Other Cat who lives there, Martha. I find it fascinating that not only do they have distinctive voices, but Martha seems to be a better typist. Abbie's more the artist, I think. He's been under the weather and the bed, lately, so send your love.
David Wong was my prom date and first boyfriend. He would probably be appalled that I'm telling you that. At any rate, his global adventures are always interesting and frequently funny. "Pandemic Cookie" is the name of my new band.
Heather B. Armstrong at Dooce writes about life and new motherhood with insight, humor, and a filthy dirty sailor mouth, which I think is completely appropriate. Babies? Cute, but they make a fucking MESS, man.
Seth has suddenly posted a flurry of updates to Eminent Romaine, which is good. I think he sometimes blames his preoccupation on his baby. I dunno, Dooce seems to hold it together. But he has my esteem for purchasing To the 5 Borroughs and Sinatra at the Sands on the same day.
Linda is simply a genius.
Well? Go on, then.
Tuesday, June 29, 2004
Cleanup on aisle 2
How have I gone so long without visiting the Ballard Market? I made my first visit last night. Screw you AND your club card, Safeway! It was so nice--both organic and regular, cheap, possibly toxin-coated produce; chipotle peppers and good ol' Western Family canned tomatoes; Kraft dinner and raw bulghur in bulk. Much less intimidating than Whole Foods, where I fear that all the Hostess cakes and pigs-in-a-blanket meals of my past are visible on my person. Plus, according to this article, the Ballard Market has a motto: "Experience Fresh the Ballard Way." This is much funnier if you know Ballard--sort of the elderly-Scandinavian ghetto.
Anyway, I rambled through the store in happy shopping awe. It smelled good, a positive sign. Actually it smelled kind of zippy. Vinegary, even. Actually, people were starting to sniff and peer around the displays curiously. Actually, it smelled like pickles. Like picklespicklesPICKLES!! right over there, where a weary teenager in an apron was swabbing broken glass and kosher dill slices into a heavy-duty dustpan. Whoopsie.
I was nowhere near the pickles when whatever happened happened, I must insist.
Anyway, I rambled through the store in happy shopping awe. It smelled good, a positive sign. Actually it smelled kind of zippy. Vinegary, even. Actually, people were starting to sniff and peer around the displays curiously. Actually, it smelled like pickles. Like picklespicklesPICKLES!! right over there, where a weary teenager in an apron was swabbing broken glass and kosher dill slices into a heavy-duty dustpan. Whoopsie.
I was nowhere near the pickles when whatever happened happened, I must insist.
Friday, June 25, 2004
Dos gatos
Yeah, I know, it's been awhile. Life, she intrudes.
One of the things keeping me busy lately is the fact that I've acquired a second cat. This is the part where I should probably point out the big "Sucker!" decal on the back of my t-shirt. I am afraid of being That Lady, a little; I've asked friends to stop me before I get to six.
I already had Tulip, a portly gray tabby a friend had gently foisted on me New Year's Day. She is timid and talkative and so mild-mannered that even interactive kitty toys intimidate her: if you poink her lightly on the flank with one of those feather-wand toys, she scurries away in fear. She prefers the passivity of her catnip-stuffed banana, which she can drool and nap on in peace. So I figured it wouldn't be too difficult to introduce another cat...
...especially the one I'd picked out. I'd first seen his picture online, where the accompanying kitty personal ad listed his favorite activity as "hiding" and his name as the peculiar "Baked Bean." I have a soft spot for orange tabbies, and the PAWS satellite adoption center is walking distance from my house. I dropped by to meet this Bean, who crouched trembling at the back of his cage but, even in his terror, was a Slave to the Kitty Brush in my hand. One of us is a sucker.
I brought him home a week ago Tuesday. I was surprised when he hopped out of his carrier and de-huddled: he's twice the length he appeared in kitty jail. In 24 hours, he was squeezing his lanky frame out from under the futon to greet me when I called; in 48 hours he discovered the cache of heretofore ignored kitty toys and threw them all over the living room in drug-induced bliss. Tulip looked on agahst: "What is wrong with that guy?" He chewed on my plants, splashed water out of his dish for fun, and is sitting on the document shredder beside me as I type this. He is not the shrinking violet indicated in his Web profile. (And THAT has never happened to me before, oh, no.)
After a few days of going through every orange soda, snack food, and baked-bean pun I could think of (Frank?), I settled on the moniker Julius. Hee. There's been a lot of trash talking between the cats, but no real fisticuffs that I've noticed. Tulip has voiced her displeasure to me readily ("That guy is STILL HERE!") but seems to have resigned herself to having a big little brother, as long as he observes a few simple guidelines: he may not sit on The Couch, The Bed, or The Mommy. These are her rules, not mine. So far, peace reigns...aside from the 4 a.m. intervals in which Julius has dragged his favorite mousie into the tub and sent it pattering around and around the porcelain ellipse like it's the Seattle International Raceway.
Yes, do stop me well before I ever get to six.
One of the things keeping me busy lately is the fact that I've acquired a second cat. This is the part where I should probably point out the big "Sucker!" decal on the back of my t-shirt. I am afraid of being That Lady, a little; I've asked friends to stop me before I get to six.
I already had Tulip, a portly gray tabby a friend had gently foisted on me New Year's Day. She is timid and talkative and so mild-mannered that even interactive kitty toys intimidate her: if you poink her lightly on the flank with one of those feather-wand toys, she scurries away in fear. She prefers the passivity of her catnip-stuffed banana, which she can drool and nap on in peace. So I figured it wouldn't be too difficult to introduce another cat...
...especially the one I'd picked out. I'd first seen his picture online, where the accompanying kitty personal ad listed his favorite activity as "hiding" and his name as the peculiar "Baked Bean." I have a soft spot for orange tabbies, and the PAWS satellite adoption center is walking distance from my house. I dropped by to meet this Bean, who crouched trembling at the back of his cage but, even in his terror, was a Slave to the Kitty Brush in my hand. One of us is a sucker.
I brought him home a week ago Tuesday. I was surprised when he hopped out of his carrier and de-huddled: he's twice the length he appeared in kitty jail. In 24 hours, he was squeezing his lanky frame out from under the futon to greet me when I called; in 48 hours he discovered the cache of heretofore ignored kitty toys and threw them all over the living room in drug-induced bliss. Tulip looked on agahst: "What is wrong with that guy?" He chewed on my plants, splashed water out of his dish for fun, and is sitting on the document shredder beside me as I type this. He is not the shrinking violet indicated in his Web profile. (And THAT has never happened to me before, oh, no.)
After a few days of going through every orange soda, snack food, and baked-bean pun I could think of (Frank?), I settled on the moniker Julius. Hee. There's been a lot of trash talking between the cats, but no real fisticuffs that I've noticed. Tulip has voiced her displeasure to me readily ("That guy is STILL HERE!") but seems to have resigned herself to having a big little brother, as long as he observes a few simple guidelines: he may not sit on The Couch, The Bed, or The Mommy. These are her rules, not mine. So far, peace reigns...aside from the 4 a.m. intervals in which Julius has dragged his favorite mousie into the tub and sent it pattering around and around the porcelain ellipse like it's the Seattle International Raceway.
Yes, do stop me well before I ever get to six.
Tuesday, June 08, 2004
Unsettling dream
So last night I had one of those extremely detailed, geographically precise dreams in which I apparently was engaged in some classy White Trash Shopping with my mother. We were on Aurora Avenue*, where we intended to do some browsing at Ross Dress for Less...but not before stopping for a meal at the adjacent Burger King, where I was adamant about having "a BK Broiler with bacon." Is that even a thing? I'm scared to find out. Why would I desire this? I haven't been in a Burger King in a decade.
(*For any non-Seattle readers...every decent-sized city has this road: four to six lanes, lined with car lots and motels and check-cashing establishments, coyly named sex-toy stores like "The Love Pantry," and pancake restaurants that started out as a Sambo's or a Denny's but have changed hands at least three times and now have scarily handpainted signage and a big Bud Light neon sign in the window. Yeah, that road. In Yonkers, NY, it was Central Avenue, I remember.)
(*For any non-Seattle readers...every decent-sized city has this road: four to six lanes, lined with car lots and motels and check-cashing establishments, coyly named sex-toy stores like "The Love Pantry," and pancake restaurants that started out as a Sambo's or a Denny's but have changed hands at least three times and now have scarily handpainted signage and a big Bud Light neon sign in the window. Yeah, that road. In Yonkers, NY, it was Central Avenue, I remember.)
Monday, June 07, 2004
They've gone and grabbed old Ronnie
(Bonus points if you can identify that line.)
I suppose I should talk about the death of Ronald Reagan. I don't know that I have much to add to the discourse, though...I mean, I have no love for Reagan, the President; I'm a little flabbergasted at the media hysteria, in fact. The Great Communicator! The most beloved and popular and cherished and adored President of all time, forever and ever, don't even try to argue, amen. Really? I don't get it.
I mean, I was a free-lunch kid. So I had Reagan to thank for the threat of a lot of ketchup. He invented and demonized the Welfare Queen; we weren't on the throne, but we were definitely part of the court. I spent no small amount of time in my adolescence fearing a nuclear holocaust, fearing The Russians, fearing it would be "Red Dawn" in the school-bus zone outside Washington Middle School at any moment. (I also feared algebra, the aliens in the movie version of War of the Worlds, and that my mother would die and we'd be sent to live on the farm with our dad, so take that as you will.) I don't remember gleaning anything in particular from the Iran-Contra scandal except, Politicians lie. All the time, like rugs, lie lie lie.
Reagan was the first President I can remember paying any attention to. The pompadour! The apple cheeks! The scary wrinkles! The "Well..." I mean, I knew who Carter was, but I couldn't tell you a single word he ever said. A kid on my bus in second grade went to Washington D.C. on vacation and returned with a wind-up toy, "Jimmy the Walking Peanut," the buzzing clockwork hilarity of which was the sum total of my political consciousness at the time.
Reagan was the first President I could quote. "Honey, I forgot to duck." The Challenger speech, its ending swiped from a poet I could Google in ten seconds but can't remember now. "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" I've heard that 20 times in the past 48 hours...thing is, it gives me a little shiver still, because...they did. Eventually, they did. A big hunk of it stands in my company's conference center, as art. Holly roves freely about in a unified Germany. I don't lie in bed worrying about The Bomb any more...though as an adult I've discovered that there are things so much scarier that it's better to not think of them at all if you ever want to sleep again. Dubya, I'm looking at you. Whatever Reagan's legacy, he was better than the current guy holding the contract for the big red phone.
But. Forget the President. I can spare a little grief for Reagan, the man. There are more violent, more painful ways, perhaps...but I can't think of a crueler way to die than Alzheimer's, for victim and family alike. Nancy, scary Nancy, tiny and brittle and fierce--she looks like my grandmother, who always loathed the comparison--it was obvious that they adored each other, and that she loved him to the end. I cannot imagine the horror of watching your husband, partner, father, friend, recede into silence, an enormous speechless toddler, mobile but without thought. A windup toy. The Walking Peanut.
I've read a lot of bitter forums today, people complaining that however much the Reagans suffered, they had help: Nancy could get the best medical treatment for her husband available, could have respite care whenever she needed a break, had coverage and concern her husband denied scores of poor Americans. It's true.
But. I saw that clip half a dozen times today, while I chugged away on the eliptical trainer at the gym: Nancy, putting her ferociously coiffed head down on her husband's coffin, bereft. Goodbye. I have said those goodbyes, myself, recently enough. Say what you will of the President, but...I can grieve a moment for the man.
I suppose I should talk about the death of Ronald Reagan. I don't know that I have much to add to the discourse, though...I mean, I have no love for Reagan, the President; I'm a little flabbergasted at the media hysteria, in fact. The Great Communicator! The most beloved and popular and cherished and adored President of all time, forever and ever, don't even try to argue, amen. Really? I don't get it.
I mean, I was a free-lunch kid. So I had Reagan to thank for the threat of a lot of ketchup. He invented and demonized the Welfare Queen; we weren't on the throne, but we were definitely part of the court. I spent no small amount of time in my adolescence fearing a nuclear holocaust, fearing The Russians, fearing it would be "Red Dawn" in the school-bus zone outside Washington Middle School at any moment. (I also feared algebra, the aliens in the movie version of War of the Worlds, and that my mother would die and we'd be sent to live on the farm with our dad, so take that as you will.) I don't remember gleaning anything in particular from the Iran-Contra scandal except, Politicians lie. All the time, like rugs, lie lie lie.
Reagan was the first President I can remember paying any attention to. The pompadour! The apple cheeks! The scary wrinkles! The "Well..." I mean, I knew who Carter was, but I couldn't tell you a single word he ever said. A kid on my bus in second grade went to Washington D.C. on vacation and returned with a wind-up toy, "Jimmy the Walking Peanut," the buzzing clockwork hilarity of which was the sum total of my political consciousness at the time.
Reagan was the first President I could quote. "Honey, I forgot to duck." The Challenger speech, its ending swiped from a poet I could Google in ten seconds but can't remember now. "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" I've heard that 20 times in the past 48 hours...thing is, it gives me a little shiver still, because...they did. Eventually, they did. A big hunk of it stands in my company's conference center, as art. Holly roves freely about in a unified Germany. I don't lie in bed worrying about The Bomb any more...though as an adult I've discovered that there are things so much scarier that it's better to not think of them at all if you ever want to sleep again. Dubya, I'm looking at you. Whatever Reagan's legacy, he was better than the current guy holding the contract for the big red phone.
But. Forget the President. I can spare a little grief for Reagan, the man. There are more violent, more painful ways, perhaps...but I can't think of a crueler way to die than Alzheimer's, for victim and family alike. Nancy, scary Nancy, tiny and brittle and fierce--she looks like my grandmother, who always loathed the comparison--it was obvious that they adored each other, and that she loved him to the end. I cannot imagine the horror of watching your husband, partner, father, friend, recede into silence, an enormous speechless toddler, mobile but without thought. A windup toy. The Walking Peanut.
I've read a lot of bitter forums today, people complaining that however much the Reagans suffered, they had help: Nancy could get the best medical treatment for her husband available, could have respite care whenever she needed a break, had coverage and concern her husband denied scores of poor Americans. It's true.
But. I saw that clip half a dozen times today, while I chugged away on the eliptical trainer at the gym: Nancy, putting her ferociously coiffed head down on her husband's coffin, bereft. Goodbye. I have said those goodbyes, myself, recently enough. Say what you will of the President, but...I can grieve a moment for the man.
Friday, June 04, 2004
Bowled over
My team at AllYourBaseAreBelongToUsCo is having a Morale Event this afternoon. As the fiscal budget comes to a close in June, we're always subject to a sudden flurry of presumably attitude-enhancing activities, ballgames and picnics and harbor cruises. Today's excursion is bowling. I'm a little nervous.
I'm a terrible bowler, for starters. In one of my few prior games, I believe my score was 11. So there is that fundamental humiliation forthcoming. Then, too, it's with your work colleagues, so you can't really prepare yourself appropriately for bowling by getting completely shitfaced and grabbing the Rock-n-Bowl karaoke mike. You still have to see these people on Monday.
But I have some body issues, too. I'm not a tiny girl, and bowling involves a lot of specialized postures. What if there is pants splittage?
Worrying.
Plus, Darcy told me that the last time her team undertook a Morale Event at the lanes, she got a little overzealous and, in hurling the ball at the ol' tenpins, actually flung herself to the floor. It's slippery there. So now I have that to worry about as well. Actually, I admire her self-possession under the circumstances. If that were me, I think I'd just have had to get a new job, possibly in a different state.
I'm a terrible bowler, for starters. In one of my few prior games, I believe my score was 11. So there is that fundamental humiliation forthcoming. Then, too, it's with your work colleagues, so you can't really prepare yourself appropriately for bowling by getting completely shitfaced and grabbing the Rock-n-Bowl karaoke mike. You still have to see these people on Monday.
But I have some body issues, too. I'm not a tiny girl, and bowling involves a lot of specialized postures. What if there is pants splittage?
Worrying.
Plus, Darcy told me that the last time her team undertook a Morale Event at the lanes, she got a little overzealous and, in hurling the ball at the ol' tenpins, actually flung herself to the floor. It's slippery there. So now I have that to worry about as well. Actually, I admire her self-possession under the circumstances. If that were me, I think I'd just have had to get a new job, possibly in a different state.
Thursday, June 03, 2004
Your tone of voice is not very motivating
Whew...that was kind of heavy. Let's move on!
Any 24 fans out there? I hope you've enjoyed Chloe, the social-skill-bereft, slightly Aspberger-y computer genius and new addition to CTU. But have you ever wondered what Chloe dreams, what she'd like to be if she wasn't having to save the world from terrorism and point out everyone else's personal shortcomings all freaking day long? Like, maybe...she'd want to be an indie rock star. (Note: it's Quicktime, takes up some bandwidth, and features some f-bombs, so be careful with the clicky-clicky.)
I actually saw the Girls Guitar Club open for Janeane Garofolo a couple years back, but had no idea that the one on the left would end up my favorite tertiary television character of the year. Mary Lynn Rajskub is totally my pretend television friend now.
Any 24 fans out there? I hope you've enjoyed Chloe, the social-skill-bereft, slightly Aspberger-y computer genius and new addition to CTU. But have you ever wondered what Chloe dreams, what she'd like to be if she wasn't having to save the world from terrorism and point out everyone else's personal shortcomings all freaking day long? Like, maybe...she'd want to be an indie rock star. (Note: it's Quicktime, takes up some bandwidth, and features some f-bombs, so be careful with the clicky-clicky.)
I actually saw the Girls Guitar Club open for Janeane Garofolo a couple years back, but had no idea that the one on the left would end up my favorite tertiary television character of the year. Mary Lynn Rajskub is totally my pretend television friend now.
Wednesday, June 02, 2004
Thanks for the liberty, and stuff
Yes, I know--I'm coming to Memorial Day a bit late.
Anyway. Over the weekend, I saw this Bon-Macy's commercial on television: people in convertibles, kids frolicking in sprinklers. The voiceover lady declared with warm pomposity, "Memorial Day...a time to remember...a time to relax..."
Me, scoffing: "A time to shop!"
VO Lady: "...A time to SHOP!"
And I've been thinking about it since, trying to parse out how I feel...wondering how I should feel. How should this make me feel?
I think first of WWII, I guess: because it was a just war; because the memorial (which, honestly, I find pretty ham-handed) was dedicated this weekend; because all the news sources and Toms Brokaw and Hanks are quick to remind us that members of that generation, Great and Merely Average, are dying at a rate of 1,100 a day. A day! I had a grandfather in each theatre: Dad's dad went ashore in Normandy, though several days after D-Day; Mom's dad roved the Pacific, performing some sort of clerical duties in the Navy; a family photograph shows him impossibly skinny and jug-eared, hunched over a typewriter with a worried look. Neither one lived to see their memorial; neither one spoke a single word about their war, in my memory. My mother told me later that her dad's only request upon returning home was that his wife never serve him stewed tomatoes again. Grampa was a legendary junk food junkie, true--but it wasn't that he'd grown weary of canned tomatoes, out at sea. It was that it reminded him of the carnage he'd seen.
What to make of it, then, the crass commercialism that's turned a day of reflection into a bargain bonanza? Should I be offended on behalf of all our granddads, the teenagers in sailor suits or olive-drab helmets who saved the world or died trying, who came home and golfed and mowed lawns and kept their nightmares to themselves? Should I be horrified, being urged to grease up the MasterCard as if it would "honor" the current crop of America's sons and daughters have volunteered themselves for George's morally ambiguous train wreck in Iraq?
Or...is that the point? Did (do) these men and women fight to uphold our standards of freedom, right up to and including the big-dumb-goodnatured-Golden-Retriever qualities of the American people? Is democracy's best feature the way it entitles us to surfboards and hot dogs and bad television and good deals on bathmats and crockpots and a Free Gift With Purchase at the Clinique counter?
I really am asking, actually. Because I've been thinking about it, and I really don't know.
* * * * *
Hard to tell--after looking at these for half an hour, they're ALL him--but I think that the Wilson in the front row, far left, is my Mom's dad. Have a Snickers or a packet of corn chips in his memory, won't you?
* * * * *
At the grocery store tonight, in their display of red-white-and-blue picnic-type items for either last weekend or the upcoming Fourth of July, I saw a case of what were basically battery-operated, strobing red taillights, like a cyclist would use...except that these had American flag stickers on 'em and were labeled "Spirit of America Patriotic Flashers."
Yep. Expose yourself to democracy!
Anyway. Over the weekend, I saw this Bon-Macy's commercial on television: people in convertibles, kids frolicking in sprinklers. The voiceover lady declared with warm pomposity, "Memorial Day...a time to remember...a time to relax..."
Me, scoffing: "A time to shop!"
VO Lady: "...A time to SHOP!"
And I've been thinking about it since, trying to parse out how I feel...wondering how I should feel. How should this make me feel?
I think first of WWII, I guess: because it was a just war; because the memorial (which, honestly, I find pretty ham-handed) was dedicated this weekend; because all the news sources and Toms Brokaw and Hanks are quick to remind us that members of that generation, Great and Merely Average, are dying at a rate of 1,100 a day. A day! I had a grandfather in each theatre: Dad's dad went ashore in Normandy, though several days after D-Day; Mom's dad roved the Pacific, performing some sort of clerical duties in the Navy; a family photograph shows him impossibly skinny and jug-eared, hunched over a typewriter with a worried look. Neither one lived to see their memorial; neither one spoke a single word about their war, in my memory. My mother told me later that her dad's only request upon returning home was that his wife never serve him stewed tomatoes again. Grampa was a legendary junk food junkie, true--but it wasn't that he'd grown weary of canned tomatoes, out at sea. It was that it reminded him of the carnage he'd seen.
What to make of it, then, the crass commercialism that's turned a day of reflection into a bargain bonanza? Should I be offended on behalf of all our granddads, the teenagers in sailor suits or olive-drab helmets who saved the world or died trying, who came home and golfed and mowed lawns and kept their nightmares to themselves? Should I be horrified, being urged to grease up the MasterCard as if it would "honor" the current crop of America's sons and daughters have volunteered themselves for George's morally ambiguous train wreck in Iraq?
Or...is that the point? Did (do) these men and women fight to uphold our standards of freedom, right up to and including the big-dumb-goodnatured-Golden-Retriever qualities of the American people? Is democracy's best feature the way it entitles us to surfboards and hot dogs and bad television and good deals on bathmats and crockpots and a Free Gift With Purchase at the Clinique counter?
I really am asking, actually. Because I've been thinking about it, and I really don't know.
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Hard to tell--after looking at these for half an hour, they're ALL him--but I think that the Wilson in the front row, far left, is my Mom's dad. Have a Snickers or a packet of corn chips in his memory, won't you?
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At the grocery store tonight, in their display of red-white-and-blue picnic-type items for either last weekend or the upcoming Fourth of July, I saw a case of what were basically battery-operated, strobing red taillights, like a cyclist would use...except that these had American flag stickers on 'em and were labeled "Spirit of America Patriotic Flashers."
Yep. Expose yourself to democracy!
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