September 21, 2015

It's taken me a while to get around to this post because I've been channeling my energy into my other writing. I'm basically a monotasker when it comes to creativity. (I haven't even been to the gym lately, because, like I said, it's hard for me to do two things at once.) I don't want this blog to just sit idle, though, so here are some random thoughts about this and that and the other thing and this thing over here. . . .


The Seattle Seahawks are 0-2 this week. I think this is a good thing, because as a fan I get tired of all this win, win, win stuff after a while. It's nice of Pete Carroll to mix it up now and then.

I thought I knew what the most unintentionally hilarious bad movie was, but I was wrong. It's something from the 1960s called "Manos" The Hands of Fate. This movie is such a gutbuster that the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode it was featured in was only marginally funnier. Both versions are available on YouTube. You have been warned.

Possible title for a horror movie: If You Lived Here, You'd Be Dead Now.

The best teriyaki restaurant in Boise just closed its doors for good. Yokozuna Teriyaki on 8th Street downtown is no more, and gourmands have been leaving wreaths and lit candles out on the sidewalk all week. Of course, there is another Yokozuna Teriyaki farther south on Vista, which is only, what, a couple of miles away. That's not the point, though. I can't eat there and still watch the browsers strolling by the 8th Street Public Market on Saturdays. Maybe I should feel fortunate that this is the biggest tragedy in my life right now.

Does Lorne Michaels really think he can make Donald Trump any funnier when the new season of Saturday Night Live debuts?

Best artificial scents: jasmine incense, Yankee Candle Spiced Pumpkin, Glade Cashmere Woods room spray.

I read in the news this morning that a female motorist who saw a spider on her shoulder in the rear view mirror leaped from the car in terror while it was still moving. I didn't read the rest of it carefully, but I believe the spider took the wheel and was last seen doing 95 in a school zone (or was it doing 25 in a school zone and the kids were doing 95?).

The GOP is once again threatening to shut down the government if it doesn't get what it wants. That's a simple declarative sentence based on numerous news sources; you can't refute it. What I want is for presidential candidates, Democrat and Republican, to promise this: "If elected, I will never shut down the government if I don't get what I want." Anyone who doesn't gets a time out until November 2016.


OK, that's it for now. At this length, I think I can handle one of these every week or two. See you then.

September 4, 2015

I woke up this week to find it was too chilly outside to read or write. I'll miss that quiet time as the days grow colder (I'll have to go to The District to keep up my routine), but hey, I still love fall! Pulled out my long pants and my hoodie. Slept without the a/c.

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Reveling in Turner Classic Movies at the house where I'm cat-sitting; I haven't watched it since dropping cable. Two standouts:

 

He Ran All the Way, with John Garfield and Shelley Winters. It was Garfield's final film, and it's a real nail-biter. I doubt a female screenwriter even then would have been comfortable with Winters' character, but I quibble. Garfield's a wanted criminal who hides out in Winters' apartment with her parents and young brother. His gift as an actor was getting us to feel for this cop killer even as we loathe what he's done. The last scene, outside the apartment building where they live, is unforgettable. Unfortunately, this is on a DVD that won't work in American players. Best to keep an eye on TCM's schedule, as it pops up now and then.

 

A Patch of Blue, one of my favorites since I was a kid. Elizabeth Hartman (her first film) plays a blind girl in an abusive (to say the least) household who befriends a kind businessman (Sidney Poitier) in a park. The girl is white, and this was at the height of the civil rights era. But the story is timeless, like Hartman's performance. Shelley Winters (again) won an Oscar as the mother from the pit of hell. She makes Hannibal Lecter look like a charm school instructor. Three things are indelibly etched in my brain: the girl's sheer elation at using a pay phone for the first time, her farewell scene with Poitier, and what he does with a music box after she leaves. I didn't understand what that music box bit meant when I was a kid, but I knew it was a perfect movie moment. Wonderful score, too, by Jerry Goldsmith. Sadly, Hartman battled depression all her life and committed suicide in her 40s, jumping from a five-story window.

I know he's not a household name, but Wallace Ford, like Winters, was also in both films, and also terrific in both.

 

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My friend Ang posted this funny observation on Facebook:

The pros and cons of making food

Pro: Food

Con: Making

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I've always liked the James Taylor song "Never Die Young," but I never knew what it was about. After learning this week that he doesn't know, either, I'm able to enjoy it more.

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You know what word's misuse bugs me? "Arguably." "This is arguably her best column." "He is arguably the best painter of his generation." Well, of course it's arguable. Any opinion is arguable. You know what's not arguable? "The sun is hot." "The sky is blue." Can you imagine someone saying, "That was arguably the first time the U.S. celebrated a bicentennial"? If it's an opinion, it's a given it's going to be arguable. Sheesh. I understand that people use it this way to let others know they're not being dogmatic, but it still rankles. (Apologies to Tami, who has already heard me rant about this.)

Don't even get me started on "literally."

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The pros and cons of cat-sitting:

Pro: Sitting

Con: Cat

I jest. Actually, Lucy is a great cat. (That's in case she's reading this.)

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I've worn a hole in my shoe from all this walking I've been doing, but I'm not paying $150 for a new pair. Off to Walmart!

 



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Can't say I've done much beach reading this summer. I meant to, but somehow I ended up reading two books about the Holocaust, a book-length poem about crimes in the U.S. at the turn of the last century, and a bio of Charles Manson, who, it turns out, was not a nice man. I'm not hopeless, though -- all this time I've been dipping into a couple of Get Fuzzy collections. In my opinion, it's the second-funniest comic strip going these days, right behind Pearls Before Swine. Arguably.