Two films featuring dreams and Los Angeles and - UPDATE! - Mark Pellegrino

As Aa mentioned below, last night we watched (or tried to watch) Mulholland Drive. On Friday night, we watched The Big Lebowski, another film about / taking place in L.A.

We barely got halfway through Mulholland Drive. At the end of The Big Lebowski, Aa turned to me and said, "We should definitely buy that movie". I don't really know what that says about us as people or film lovers or whatever. But I'm pleased to announce I also don't care.


Update: This dude is in both movies too. As a thug!

mulholland drive makes me want to read comic books

mulholland drive was almost unwatchable.
either i'm too old to enjoy arty films or perhaps i never was.

that said, i just couldn't make it through.

screw art.

north by northwest

On Saturday night, while minty fresh J was having a girls night out on the town i was holed up at home watching movies. classics no less. On The Water Front and North by Northwest (both, as it turned out, starring Eva Marie Saint). Two "famous" films i'd never watched. OTWF was pretty good...but NBNW was fantastic...esp. the dialogue. my favorites..all spoken by a super crazy tan Cary Grant. Seriously, he was the only person in the movie that was super nova tan. Anyways...best quotes:

1. Cary Grant: "Assault with a bourbon, a gun and a sports car"

2. Grant to a cab driver...
"I'm being followed, can you do anything about it?"
Cab Driver: "yes i can"
Grant: "do it."

3. Cary Grant: "Now...what can a man do with his clothes off for 20 minutes?"
Eva Marie Saint: "He could take a cold shower."

1959. the innuendo in the movie was sublime.

Currently, it's snowing outside my window.

This is the second time we've had snow in the last week. I predict my stupid bus will stop running this evening because nobody here has yet come up with a contingency plan for weather like this. So I also predict I will be walking home.

Also currently, Zack's at the dog park. The other dogs have just started running around, tails a-wagging and tongues a-hanging in canine joy. Not my dog. My dog is shivering in his stupid dog coat, trying to hide under a picnic table and plotting the death of every idiot human who conspired to get him outside this afternoon.

Yay For Awesomeness

My friend / co-worker Liz just finished this great series on the Purepecha, who migrate in droves to Tacoma and South Seattle. Purepecha are a culturally distinct group of people who've lived in part of the state of Michoacan in Mexico for 700-plus years. They speak a distinct language (also called Purepecha) in addition to Spanish.

And, totally weird small world. The place that's considered the capitol of Purepecha culture is this small town called Tzintzuntzan. It's up a mountain and next to this gorgeous little lake. And I've been there! I was there like 9 years ago with my cousin Paul. It was sort of random, but we wound up there and met a whole bunch of interesting people, including the real-life version of Tommy Chong and an Israeli who'd just gotten out of his mandatory army service and was traveling the world. Tzintzuntzan means "Place of the Hummingbird". And we were told it's like otomatopoeia - it's the sound a hummingbird makes as it zooms around. Tzin! Tzun! Tzan! I still remember how just utterly delighted I was when I was told that. I probably clapped my hands and I may have even jumped up and down. And this morning, Liz said that she was told the same thing by an actual anthropologist academic person. My delight has been validated by a scholar!

So. Anyway. Go and listen to the series right freaking now! It's just fantastic. Some of the best stuff I've heard on radio.

And! it turns out our county's public health people are actually meeting with local Purepecha leaders early next week. Someone in public health heard the series and learned that a lot of local Purepecha don't go see doctors for various reasons, including a longstanding mistrust of authority. So they're gonna try to start fixing that and making it easier for Purepecha to get health care.

Dinner Parties

One particularly awesome entry at Stuff White People Like.

Oh, Mr. Goodall. Poor, poor Mr. Goodall.

John found this on the corrections page of the Mahoning Valley's own Tribune-Chronicle:

The important part:
It was incorrectly reported in Tuesday’s Tribune Chronicle that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton answered questions from voters in a local congressman’s office.

Reporter John Goodall, who was assigned to the story, spoke by telephone with Hillary Wicai Viers, who is a communications director in U.S. Rep. Charlie Wilson’s staff. According to the reporter, when Viers answered the phone with ‘‘This is Hillary,’’ he believed he was speaking with the Democratic presidential candidate, who had made several previous visits to the Mahoning Valley.

The quotes from Viers were incorrectly attributed to Clinton.

Biblical Plague Lite? Haunted House? You Decide!

So this afternoon I'm coming out of my editorial meeting. I sit down to check my email and I see this message from our dog walker: "Your front window blew out! Call me!!" So, of course, I did. And, yep! Our front side windowpane blew right goddamn out when our dog walker dropped little man off this afternoon. So we called our buddy Matt to come over and help fix it. Below, action shots!

Victor Lord's Secret Underground World Eterna (Was The Case They Gave Me)

Snoop Dogg to remix ABC soap opera theme (thanks, Phyllis!!)

I get that being on a soap opera is probably the selloutiest of all sellout things a guy who did a song called "Murder Was The Case (That They Gave Me)" can do (or it's a really inspired way of diversifying oneself). But still! He's gonna be on One Life To Live(on my birthday no less), appearing at the Peach Pit-esque Ultra Violet Lounge. I love that Snoop Dogg says he's been a fan of OLTL since he "was a baby". This is yet another of the laundry list of things Snoop and I have in common.

One thing Snoop and I did not have in common -- You may remember Snoop being admonished in the "Gin and Juice" video for his name, and how he needed to get a jobby job. I was never told to get a jobby job. Just to get a regular old job. Worth noting that it now seems Snoop has several lucrative jobby jobs. So, you know, yay for him.

Physical Therapy And Vicodin

That was the prescription my doc gave me for the neck pain that's been bugging me off and on for 5ish years (I know, I know - 5 years? But honest to God, it shows up, I can't turn my head, and it goes away...it happens twice a year, max). Usually a good deep-tissue massage makes the neck pain hibernate, and a chiropractor helped for a little bit. But it hasn't disappeared, and after waking up this morning once again unable to fully move my head or gesture (I gesture! LOTS! when I talk!), I bit it and went to my doc. I'm actually looking forward to the physical therapy, and I don't know if I will take the Vicodin but it's a nice thing to have as a just-in-case.

Isn't it exciting to read about my recurring neck pain?! I know I was really compelled just writing this post. I'm the next Kurt Vonnegut or some shit.

Where does he learn this?

Sometimes, when I stop petting Zack, he hits me with one or both of his front paws. My. Dog. Is. A. Space. Alien.

travelling while at home

The J is in chicago...which has me feeling like i'm traveling again but with the dog, the house and my job. very weird when she's gone. when she's home and i'm home then i'm at really at home too (if you get my drift), but when i'm here and she's not i may as well be anywhere.

okay, that's not true, i'm not really in paris when she's not here. unless of course i go to le pichet for dinner. but even then, that's not really paris either. alas.