"Now it's dark"

Remembering Dennis Hopper and Blue Velvet

"None of them, even Easy Rider, can top his performance in Blue Velvet. It was the right role for the right actor at the right time. Only David Lynch has been able to really tap into what Hopper was capable of, the level of twisted cruelty and sexuality of Frank Booth. And probably no other actor could have gone there. There still hasn’t been a more memorable character in a Lynch film, and that's saying a lot."

Random Sequence

Scenario 14 (excerpt 1)

At the Dunghill & Oddments Ad Agency

All the career eggs sat at their pathetic desks in over-air-conditioned semi-vexation. One, Adrian Hammerson, wore an Indian derby with a turkey feather protruding from the hatband. He had to amuse himself in some way. Always. He had to move around, too, or his feet would fall asleep. He got up to use the unisex water closet, but there was a conga line at that door -- a bunch of hard-boileds giggling and referring to themselves as the "flush mates". He decided to hold it (not literally). "Clever horrors", he muttered to himself as he returned to his icy cube. He added another line to the ad he was writing for "Lawn Chairs for Less". It mentioned "reinforced grosgrain plastic bands". This reminded him of the Dynamite Cannibal concert from the previous Thursday. He attached his trash cans and clicked to some videos on cheezy.com. There it was: the penultimate rap-star fusion moment, when Higgy MoneyRhyme had screamed, "No more guitars!!" Ectasy. Extasy! Time had seemed to stop. "But life went on," Adrian thought. "And fannies do need lawn chairs...."

It's kugat, ginchy, krunkaliscious, hoopy, bomb diggity, and...bangerang!

The History of Cool is a list of words that have meant, well, "cool" around the world and through the ages.

I've come to dislike the word "cool" when it's used to mean..."fab", as the Beatles used to say, though I admit it's a useful adjective. It's just overused. And really, it means the same thing as the Parisian "that's hot", doesn't it, which is absurd. So now, inspired by this list, whenever I want to express my appreciation for some cultural gewgaw, I will use the Bondian "splendid" or the Lynchian "peachy keen".

Won't I?

Photo of the Week

I like to photograph doors. There's always something mysterious about a closed door, this one more than most. I pass it every day on my way to the Journal Square PATH station, and I always think, What's the big secret?

I had a dream about this door once, in which I opened it and discovered a large, dark, empty room. There was a dead cat in the middle of the floor that looked like it had been disemboweled in a Santeria ceremony. It had a collar with an ID tag, and I remember thinking that I should try to find the owner...but I woke up at that point. It's just as well. I'm sure it would have turned into some sort of Freudian nightmare.

Maybe someday I'll work up the courage to turn that knob.

Word of the Day: distichous

distichous (adj)

Divided into two parts or two rows.

"His eyes? Nor pen nor camera can present them. Imagine a black pearl imprisoning a diamond; imagine a dewdrop trembling on polished jet; add to these beauties life, and you will have the dormouse eye. His tail? Distichous, say the books. Feathers are mostly distichous, hair-partings are distichous, the moustache is distichous. So is the dormouse tail; but the hairs along it do more than merely part. They curl, upwards from the root, downwards to the point, and form a plume."
--Douglas English, Wee Tim'rous Beasties

Do you remember what the dormouse said? (It wasn't "feed your head".) In Alice in Wonderland, he said, among a few other things, "You might just as well say that 'I breathe when I sleep' is the same thing as 'I sleep when I breathe'!" He also told a story about three sisters who lived at the bottom of a treacle well and were learning to draw anything that began with the letter M. This confused Alice, of course, who took everything literally, with comic effect. It's still one of my favorite books.

(Distichous, by the way, is one of the words that the late David Foster Wallace circled in his dictionary.)

Quote of the Day

"Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves."
--Henry David Thoreau

L O S T Finale Recap: Case Closed. Tracie explains it all....

And by the way, what is "dog" spelled backwards?

alternate ending

The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Way I Feel

Saw Taxi Driver tonight at the Landmark Loew's Jersey Theatre. Terrific film, but now I remember why I hate taking cabs.... Someone served me french fries today and asked if I needed a spoon for them. Uh, no...felt confused. Talked to a guy yesterday who used to be an EMT and ambulance driver. He described horrific traffic accidents he witnessed -- people, including children, "messed up", killed, thrown from cars, etc. He also delivered a breach baby on the highway. Felt impressed, somewhat nauseous.... Went to Google today and was forced to listen to Pac-Man sound effects. I hate that....

The T&T List

Willy Wonka
St. Regis
Photo-tropism
Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris
Deepwater Horizon
Sergei Sergeyev
Cold Springs National Wildlife Refuge
Xubyarli
Helmeted Pygmy Tyrant
Queen's Gambit
Ana Lucia
White Noise

Photo of the Week

What is with these trees in my neighborhood that are swallowing up street signs? How does this happen? I sent a similar photo of another tree to Weird NJ magazine a couple of years ago, and they published it -- so this is officially weird. Do trees have mineral deficiencies? Do they feel hunger? It makes me wonder. And it gives me the creeps.

Word of the Day: tohubohu

tohubohu (n)

Chaos, confusion. (This is Wordnik's word of the day.)

"For how long now have we been asleep, drugged by noise and music, unable to see, unable to think? Hermes has taken power over the entire world. Our technological world exists only as an integral of the tohubohu. You can no longer find anything on earth -- not the ground, not a furrow, not a small insect, not the slightest hollow -- that is not covered by the diluvian waters of racket."
--Thomas M. Kavanagh, The Limits of Theory

Depends on what you consider racket, I guess. I'd say there are limits to this theory.

Why do you exist?

Maybe because sub-atomic particles called neutral B-mesons, which oscillate trillions of times per second between being matter and antimatter, go faster from antimatter to matter than they do from matter to antimatter, which creates a little more matter than antimatter. Does it matter? It might have mattered enough to create our universe. So says Fermilab in a new report. Details

Shanghaied

David Lynch's new long-form commercial (it hardly seems like one) for Dior, "Lady Blue Shanghai", is here. It stars Marion Cotillard as yet another "woman in trouble" and features a number of Lynchian tropes, including red curtains, a scratchy phonograph, and...something inside a Dior purse. I won't spoil the surprise. Is Lynch running out of ideas, holding back his new ones for his next feature, or merely winking at his fans? Whatever, as an atmospheric short film, I think this works -- though I'm not sure it would make anyone want to buy a purse.