The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Way I Feel

Saw a guy at the train station doing tai chi while balancing a vase on his head. Felt momentarily awed.... Ate a Belgian waffle today that someone actually brought from Belgium. Felt cosmopolitan.... Still reading this weird, funny book, All About H. Hatterr. Feel disappointed that the author didn't write any other novels. (I'm into weird and funny.).... Lots of people out sunning themselves this afternoon, and I saw a guy wearing a winter coat and what looked like bermuda shorts. He said he was "coming from the gym." Felt like spring is finally here....

Word of the Day: anfractuosity

anfractuosity (n)

The quality of having many twists and turns.

"There are chance anfractuosities of ruin in the upper portions of the Coliseum which offer a very fair imitation of the rugged face of an Alpine cliff."
--Henry James, Italian Hours

Well, well! This is certainly an appropriate Word of the Day for my little blog cabin....

Speaking of Henry James, he's a pretty anfractuous writer, in my experience. Even the title of his most famous work, "The Turn of the Screw," is twisty. And here's a typically anfractuous Jamesian sentence:

"He fairly caught himself shooting rueful glances, shy looks of pursuit, toward the embodied influence, the definite adversary, who had, by a stroke of her own, failed him, and on a fond theory of whose palpable presence he had, under Mrs. Newsome's inspiration, altogether proceeded."

If you can parse that, you're a better ex-English major than I am.

Weekend Netflix Report: 'Persepolis' and 'To Live'

Two impressive films about revolution and its affects on "ordinary" people:

Persepolis, based on a graphic novel and a true story, is animated, but there's no Disney saccharine. The heroine, who survives, not unscathed, the Iranian revolution, is plucky but not perky. She endures her mostly black-and-white (literally) world for a time, but ends up an exile, living ambiguously ever after. The Oscar-nominated film is in French with subtitles.

To Live explores similar narrative territory in Mao's China. Over three decades, a couple experiences repeated disasters and tragedies, all related to Maoist idiocies, except for the initial loss of their bourgeous home due to a gambling addiction -- though that turns out to be a blessing in disguise under Communism. There was plenty of opportunity for melodrama in the script, but the director avoids it and gets completely convincing performances from the actors. Palm d'Or nominee, in Chinese with subtitles.

Fish Food for Thought

More clip-art philosophy by me (and Thales of Miletus). The original (large) size is here.

Stay True

Finger-wiggling film director David Lynch explains how to make a good movie. (And no, it doesn't involve meditating.)

Much Ado about NOTHING

Sometimes I wonder what exactly it is I'm eating. Case in point: my peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich today. In a moment of arrant boredom, I began to read the label on the back of a jar of reduced-fat, super-chunk peanut butter. The fine print reveals that a serving of this "25% less fat" PB contains 180 calories, of which 110 are from...fat. Now I know why this stuff is called "butter."

Almost as alarming is another ingredient: rapeseed. (No, not grapeseed. Rapeseed.) A little Googling reveals that rapeseed "contains high levels of erucic acid (which makes oils go rancid quickly, is toxic in large doses, and may cause cancer) and glucosinolate (which tastes so bitter and unpleasant that it's undesirable even in animal feed)." Lovely. Apparently, I have more refined taste than...livestock.

Then there are the minerals: magnesium oxide, ferric orthophosphate, copper sulfate and zinc oxide. Everything but the kitchen sink? No, I'm eating the kitchen sink.

Still, I like PB & J on my 12-grain bread, and I'll probably keep eating it occasionally, until and unless the FDA (now trustworthy under Obama?) warns me not too. But now I'm afraid to look too closely at the jelly jar.

All the Lonely People

Looking for companionship? Here's a unique way to meet people:

Craig Needs a Friend

Sad? Funny? You decide.

(I'm not sure what kind of person would show up after reading one of these invitations, but I imagine Craig tends to be a freak magnet.)

Quote of the Day

"He raised his eyes as men against the West once raised their eyes against the shinning ramparts of the mountains. And there before him, at the edges of the marsh, rose the proud heights of Jersey City -- the heights of Jersey City blazing forever to the traveler the smoldering welcome of their garbage dumps - the heights of Jersey City, raised proudly against the desolation of those lonely marshes as a token of man's fortitude, a symbol of his power, a sign of his indomitable spirit that flames forever like a great torch in the wilderness, that lifts against the darkness and blind nature the story of its progress - the heights of Jersey, lighted for an eternal feast."
--Thomas Wolfe, The Web & the Rock (1925)

Wow, I'm living in a flaming token of man's fortitude, complete with "garbage dumps." Who knew?

Brain Dump

When all is said and done with mirrors on the wall of sound waves of grain of sand in my shoe bomber. Six of one, half a dozen of the other things being equal opportunity knocks on the door is open book by its cover your butt of jokes. Love conquers all the time out of mind over matter of life and death warmed over to my house and home sweet home of the brave front or back to where you once belonged.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Way I Feel

Just when I was feeling a little trippy anyway this evening, I found myself sitting across from a dwarf on the PATH train -- a happy dwarf, chatting with a young woman who looked like a 1960s Joan Baez. Felt like I was lucid dreaming.... Received several wrong-number calls on my cell today. Some guy kept calling me "John" and wanted to know if I was a "citizen of Canada." There was talking and laughter in the background. I finally stopped answering. When I looked at the "missed call" number on my phone, I decided to Google it. Turns out it was from someone at Smith Barney, a division of Citigroup. Yeah, they've got a lot to laugh about these days. Felt annoyed, vaguely.... I guess I'm supposed to be angry at mega-insurance breakerage AIG, which has now changed its name to AIU (which kind of sounds like IOU). Can't manage it, though. Too cynical....

Zombie Alert

The undead are on the loose, according to roadsigns in Austin and Omaha:

'Zombies ahead' on Harrison Street

You Can Quote That

Maybe only an editor would find this amusing, but to me the photos at The "Blog" of "Unecessary" Quotation Marks are hilarious. In Case of "Fire" Use Stairways. You can use the stairs if it's a fake fire, too....