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Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - 12:21:54
Maybe Scrooge was Just Misunderstood
I'm not sure what happened. Maybe I miscalculated or maybe I forgot to pace myself, but I ran out of Christmas cheer a few days early. I think the main problem is that for the last five years, I've had a minimum of two weeks off for Christmas, and this year I got two days. So, for the better part of December, I've been preparing for my two week vacation without fully getting that that wasn't happening this year. I began stockpiling books and movies. I thought about what I would buy when I had a few days off to go shopping. I've been spoiled, gone soft; I'm a bit of a candy ass around the holidays, and this year, that created a bit of a problem.
That's how I ended up spending the Saturday before Christmas waiting in lines. I wasn't the only one, of course, and as we watched some ladies explain all about the items they were returning and why, the older gentleman behind me grunted and said, "I don't think anybody gets in a hurry anymore." I smiled and tried to make a little small talk, but when he continued to complain, I politely began studying the contents of my purse. I wanted to tell him, "Look, it's my fault I'm here this late in the holiday season. And if it's my fault, then it's probably your fault, too. The truly smart and/or impatient among us have already finished their shopping by now, and they wouldn't come anywhere near this place."
I knew that if I wore a holiday shirt, I could wear jeans to work on Monday, and suddenly the idea of wearing anything other than jeans seemed too much. I bought a shirt that said "Bah Hum Bug," which seemed just right, and steeled myself to work the night shift. When I got ready to work in the computer lab that evening, I couldn't help but notice a couple who had a poor concept of the term "inside voice."
Sunday, December 21, 2008 - 23:21:28
Coming to a Book Shelf Near You
I was reading a few weeks ago about book trailers, which are basically the same as movie trailers except for books. I thought it was an intriguing concept, so I decided to check out a few. This one--made by the author himself, I believe--is easily my favorite one:
Soon I Will Be Invincible trailer
The term "Dirigible of Doom" alone is truly enough to get my attention because I don't think dirigibles get used enough as words or as military vehicles. Is that because they seem a bit cumbersome and slow and lack a certain amount of stealth? Because those could be valid points, but I think they fail to consider the dramatic potential inherent in battling from a giant balloon.
As if the trailer isn't awesome enough, this is the cover. Added up together, there's something so delightfully cheeky and pop-tastic about the whole thing that I immediately ran downstairs at work and grabbed our copy. It turns out to be pretty fantastic. Austin Grossman has a real sense of humor to be sure, creating an evil genius who ruminates on why superheroes don't worry as much as they should about security, but is quick to note that they do have nice office chairs. More impressive, though, for me is the fact that the characters are actually fleshed out nicely. I would have been satisfied with a cheeky send up of guys in tights, but instead Grossman explored what it's like to be an evil genius, what makes one choose to be a villain instead of a hero, what kind of pride a mad scientist might take in being a man of science. Much like in Paradise Lost, it's surprisingly easy to find yourself rooting for the villain.
The book is narrated from two alternating perspectives. That of Dr. Impossible, who delivers the monologue seen in the trailer and of a cyborg who has recently been added--on a trial basis--to a team of superheroes who have lost a key team member. The cyborg, who chose the name "Fatale" from a list of possible hero names (later regretting she didn't pick "Cybergirl" which is easier for people to understand and pronounce). Both of them are outsiders, giving the reader interesting perspectives on a group of people who have superhuman abilities, but around the lair, they call each other "Ellen" and "Jason."
I have to say, I'm happy to have discovered the book trailer, which did a nice job of convincing me in a minute and a half to move the book to the top of my reading pile (a stack that is growing tall enough that I expect it to topple over and kill me any day now), and this week I was a few minutes late to work because I was finishing the book as I drank my morning coffee.
Saturday, December 20, 2008 - 20:27:39
The Mayor of Castro Street
Somewhere around my senior year of college, I used to joke that I was "the last stop on the way to gay." There'd been a brief rash of guys who asked me out or flirted with me quite a bit, and then several months later, they were all happily dating men. One of them was dating a guy from my biology lab that I'd had a crush on, so that street went both ways, I guess. It never really bothered me. I choose to find it flattering that if they were going to take one last shot at dating girls, they'd consider me. Truth be told, I think there are ways in which my gay friends appreciate me more than most straight guys do.
I finished reading The Mayor of Castro Street before going to see Milk on Friday, and I found both of them really powerful. The book, much like Randy Shilts' other book And the Band Played On, was smart and funny, impeccably researched and incredibly sad. Shilts has a way of not just focusing on one story, but bringing in a lot of different people's experiences to give a sense of how seemingly small things fit into a bigger picture of what was happening in the country at that time. They are amazing works of journalism. I found myself outraged over and over and by the end I was exhausted.
It's hard to separate watching the movie from reading the book. I'm not one of those people who insists the book is always better than the movie or who always insist on reading the book first (although I did want to do things in that order for this one because I wanted a refresher course on Harvey Milk and because I was so in awe of And the Band Played On). Lately, I'm more interested in how books and their film counterparts relate to one another. But because The Mayor of Castro Street is so dense, it was hard to watch it without calling to mind a dozen or so facts that connect to each moment. It's hard not to feel a little thrill when Emile Hirsch introduces himself as Cleve Jones and it's hard not to tear up when Harvey goes to see Tosca. I actually went to see the movie on a date, and when we were discussing it afterwards, I caught myself talking a little too much about the types of bullets that were used and about the defense that got Dan White the minimum sentence for killing two people. Um, you guys, it's possible I'm a terrible date.
Look, I mostly like to tell weird stories about blood-hungry spleens and the horrors of chocolate covered bacon. I should have another post ready soon about a fantastic little superhero novel. But I've had friends who were gay since I was in high school, and being straight, I have the luxury of forgetting sometimes that it's still a big deal. It blew my mind how little regard there was for homosexual people as people. The idea that it's perfectly okay to beat someone to a pulp or to deny them a livelihood just blows my mind. And while I used the past tense just then, it's obviously an ongoing issue.
Sunday, December 14, 2008 - 20:00:29
If it's the Thought That Counts, What Do These Gifts Say?
Over the years, I've learned the unexpected joy in getting a truly weird gift. It's similar to the joy I get from watching some really bad movies, but there are times when you get something so wrong the only thing to do is revel in its inappropriateness.
My parents and I were visiting my aunt and her husband, John, in Nashville last year when John came home with a gift one of his patients had made for him. It was a pair of slippers made out of Kotex pads. One sanitary napkin was laid out flat and another was wrapped around the end. There were Christmas tree stickers on the heel of each slipper and red bows stuck on the top of the loop you slide your foot into. My favorite part was the fine craftsmanship that went into it since the two pads were stapled (!!!) together. He made them as part of a sideline business, and I guess if you have to get something for the person who has everything (and who you maybe don't like very much), he might be just the guy to see. Were the slippers appalling? Yes, but we got such a good laugh out of them, that they were worth infinitely more than the $0.27 they cost to make.
My friend Christi was in for a few days this week. We didn't have much time to spend together, and since Friday was a nice day, we decided to get out and run a few errands. I dropped off a secret Santa gift; we checked out a book sale and had some lunch. We were driving back toward my place, when I remembered a store I'd been meaning to check out. I tried to describe the place to Christi.
"Basically, someone told me that it's a store where if an 18-wheeler has an accident or something and the stuff on it can't be sold--it's not really damaged or anything, I don't think. They just can't sell it for some reason, so they send it to this place, where apparently...they...can?" I wasn't entirely sure, and I didn't know exactly what they sold, but I knew it was a weird mix of things, which intrigued me.
I'm still not clear on the origins of their stuff, but it was a delightful hodgepodge. The juxtaposition of batteries, car parts, hair products, bottled waters with an interior design company's logo, humidifiers, coffee mugs that said "Korean War Vet," giant remote controls, and industrial-sized bags of white frosting was funny enough to make it worth the trip. But if you dug around a bit, there were some real gems. I got books by Steve Almond and Dan Savage, a CD, and some Scotch tape.
Christi found a Choose Your Own Adventure novel about an infectious disease epidemic in the Amazon. Since she studied infectious diseases (she has a degree in public health and has worked with the CDC) and we both loved those books as kids, I bought it and gave it to her for Christmas. But that paled in comparison to what we found next. I picked up a book called The Blood-Hungry Spleen and Other Poems About Our Parts by a guy named Allan Wolf. Just flipping through, we found poems called "Your Navel is No Mystery," "One Tooth, Two Tooth, White Tooth, Looth Tooth," "Your Stomach, the Belly-brewing Wonder," "You Cannot Rankle the Sturdy Ankle," "Consider the Anus" and "Spit." There were also some more risqué verses, such as "Your Hormones are Exciting," "Boy Parts," and "Girl Parts."
A review from Booklist describes the poems as "uneven," which is true, but I think even they would admit that's hardly the point. If I was an elementary school kid, and I read a poem that made me giggle and taught me how long my intestines were or what my spleen does, I'd think that was pretty amazing. Frankly, I'm 30 years old, and I think it's awesome. Then again, in addition to bad gifts and bad movies, I have also been known to enjoy really bad poetry. (I do also like things that are good, but we'll talk about those some other time). When I was in grad school, if I had a bad day, my friend Ginger would do melodramatic readings of the works of Leonard Nimoy until she had cheered me up. The poems of Suzanne Somers have also been known to do the trick. Anyway, Christi left with The Blood Thirsty Spleen, and I suggested she paste it into the back of her Gray's Anatomy like a sort of supplement to the medical text.
We rounded out our shopping spree later that night at the Cox Creative Center. It was our last stop on the 2nd Friday Art Night gallery tour, and we were perusing the bookstore downstairs. Please note that if you are Christi's Mom, you should stop reading this paragraph RIGHT NOW. Consider that your spoiler alert as I now tell everyone else that Christi got her mother a coffee mug with Henry the VIII and his disappearing wives. As you add coffee, they disappear leaving a brief note about how Henry broke it off with them. (I remember the order is: Divorced, Beheaded, Died, Divorced, Beheaded, Survived, but couldn't name more than one of the ladies involved. I guess I need to get Showtime and brush up on my Tudor history.) If British history is not your thing, perhaps you might know someone who would be interested in a mug featuring famous mustaches because that is also at the Cox Center, and it is rad. All I'm saying is, there are a few shopping days left before Christmas...
Friday, December 05, 2008 - 12:44:03
So...
My friend Danielle once pointed out that she and I frequently hurt ourselves doing really mundane things. Like, if one of us ever ended up on crutches and someone asked us what happened, we wouldn't have a badass story about mountain biking or skiing a black diamond slope. We'd say something like, "So, I was walking my dog...."
This was confirmed a week later, when I showed her a nasty scrape on my knuckle. "Ask me what happened," I told her.
She did, and I said, "So, I was zipping up my wallet..." I've also had to get stitches twice as the result of stories that basically start with, "So, I was making paper snowflakes" and "So, I was taking out the trash."
This week the story starts out, "So, I was looking something up for a patron." The rest of the story is pretty much this: "The phone rang. I picked up the receiver while I was still researching. I hit myself in the face with it."
I didn't think it was that bad, but when my friend Julie could tell where I hit myself several minutes later, I decided to ice it. It didn't bruise, thankfully, but when people asked what happened, I mumbled, "So, yeah, I, uh, hit myself in the face with my phone."
Monday, December 01, 2008 - 22:49:59
Getting Crafty
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