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October 31, 2007
The Current Obsessions
House of Games. I was a Mamet virgin. I hate this movie. I hate it so much it borderlines passion. I keep re-watching scenes when I'm by myself. The more I watch, the more I complain about that awkward theatrical dialogue and weird actor's directing. I groan everytime I hear an expressionless and emotionless actor say something like "Give me the God damn money" or "The bitch panicked and blew it" in a casual tone of voice. I loathe Lindsay Crouse. I read about Psychoanalysis and Con Games and how the whole last shooting scene is a dream like sequence in which the psychoanalyst is actually performing a purging therapy on herself. I read about Jewish Aporia or the rhythm of talking in Mamet and how the characters ask too many questions which are in their turn only answered by more questions. It's driving me nuts. Help.
*****
Cocktails. I was a cocktail virgin. Gone is the prejudice of seeing hard liquor as the monopoly of boozers. After slowly reading the brilliant collection of fictional articles by MEC about barmen and the art of mixing drinks, the refinement and gourmet skills needed to appreciate a good cocktail, I have surrendered. Throwing in some literary anedoctes about Hemingway's Daiquiris and Buñuel's Dry Martinis helped a lot too. Reading the simple statement that a cocktail is always composed of 1 or 2 doses of liquor, 1 dose of a liqueur and 1 dose of juice felt like deducing one beautiful equation. One of those evident truths you knew all along but never cared to systematize.
Tuesday night was my first visit to Bourbon & Branch in San Francisco. A 1920's speakeasy on a corner street bearing only an antique looking sign saying "Anti-Saloon League". A password is needed to get in. No cosmos are served. Only serious cocktails. Appropriately, the ground shook beneath my feet. Really. A 5.6 earthquake in the south bay area. The biggest since the 1989 one. I was an earthquake virgin.
The Menu
The Aviation: modified to be an amuse-bouche; the Gin was substituted by sparkling wine to give it an air of appéritif, Maraschino and lemon.
Negroni: Gin, Sweet Vermouth and Campari
1794: named after the year of the whiskey rebellion; whiskey, Campari, sweet vermouth.
Black Manhattan: a variation of the American classic; bourbon, Averna and home made cherry coffee bitters.
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The Life Aquatic
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October 30, 2007
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October 29, 2007
Valencia Street, San Francisco CA
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October 18, 2007
What a good movie watching year this has been so far
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October 17, 2007
Clues
"I saw a rhinoceros there, just such a one as Hans Clerberg had formerly showed me. Methought it was not much unlike a certain boar which I had formerly seen at Limoges, except the sharp horn on its snout, that was about a cubit long; by the means of which that animal dares encounter with an elephant, that is sometimes killed with its point thrust into its belly, which is its most tender and defenceless part." ---Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel, published in 1532 in Lyon
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Portrait of Johann Kleberger by Albrecht Dürer, painted in 1526 in Nuremberg
During his sojourn in Nuremberg, in 1525-26, he had Dürer paint his portrait and, after having married the daughter of Willibald Pirckheimer - Dürer's friend - he returned to Lyon, where he acquired various properties. He gave enormous financial donations to the city, as in 1531 when, during the plague epidemic, he gave 500 livres to benefit the orphans of the plague victims. He was called le bon Allemand, and a monument was erected in his honour, of which a replica still exists today. -- source.
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Drawing of a Rhino by Albrecht Dürer, 1515, Nuremberg
The inscription on the woodcut, drawing largely from Pliny's account, reads:
“ On the first of May in the year 1513 AD [sic], the powerful King of Portugal, Manuel of Lisbon, brought such a living animal from India, called the rhinoceros. This is an accurate representation. It is the colour of a speckled tortoise, and is almost entirely covered with thick scales. It is the size of an elephant but has shorter legs and is almost invulnerable. It has a strong pointed horn on the tip of its nose, which it sharpens on stones." -- source
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A trace of Dürer in Rabelais, Salomon in 1943
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October 12, 2007
lessing doesn't care less
Reporters opened the door and told her she had won the Nobel Prize for literature, to which she responded: "Oh Christ! ... I couldn't care less."
"I've won all the prizes in Europe, every bloody one, so I'm delighted to win them all, the whole lot, OK?" Lessing said, making her way through the crowd. "It's a royal flush."
"I'm sure you'd like some uplifting remarks," she added with a smile.
"I can't say I'm overwhelmed with surprise," Lessing said. "I'm 88 years old and they can't give the Nobel to someone who's dead, so I think they were probably thinking they'd probably better give it to me now before I've popped off."
She acknowledged the $1.5 million cash award was a lot of money, but still seemed less than thrilled.
"I'm already thinking about all the people who are going to send me begging letters. I can see them lining up now," she said. The phone in her house, audible from the street, rang continuously.
*****
I like her. I don't know if I like her books but now I'm definitely going to read them. Also, I'm hoping her acceptance speech will be a riot.
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A gerund goes into a bar, and the bartender says, “What are you, drinking?”
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The governor of the Federal District of Brazil, José Roberto Arruda, has ordered regional public employees to abolish the use of gerunds, a measure that he defines as a "nice" message against inefficiency.
Upon defending the decision, Arruda said that he has lost patience with some members of his own government who are always "doing", "getting", "studying", "sending" or "preparing" but never finish their work or establish ways to finish it.
Local government calls the use of gerunds "a plague", which only serves to make excuses for unsolved problems.
via vivirlatino
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October 07, 2007
Aaltra - Sonny - Bouli Lanners
I knew it wasn't finnish! But what the hell was he saying? Well, this kind gentleman has the transcription:
Sonny, you fucking haven't d[ø]ze, I'd happen to fire
Sonny, you fucking haven't d[ø]ze, I (k) happen to fire
Oh, your dick in the frost, I can lag in the side
You can snarfel the phones, I can snarf my baby
Sonny, once of you, I love you do
Sonny, you fucking half an h[ø]ze, I'd happen to fire
Sonny, you freaking half an toast, I'd happen to fire
Oh, you carfel the phones, I can hide in the phones
You can hardly defies, I can(s) house my honey
Sonny, once of you, I love you boo
Sonny (ah), your frequency even hind, I'm targling to fire
Sonny, you're afraid on of and h[y]se, I happen to fire
Oh, you haven't the frames, I can happen to frost
You can happen to face, happens half my honey
Sonny, wanted you, I love you ou
Sonny (ah), it happen you can find, I'm talking to find
Sonny, you fraking hick and h[y]s, I'm h[y]lting to find
Oh and h[y]ffen the phones, I can d[y]ppen the p[y]ms
You can happen to phones, happens half my honey
Sonny, wanted you, I love you ou ou ou
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October 04, 2007
Superman lies among men disguised as the journalist Clark Kent; as such he appears fearful, timid, not over intelligent, awkward, near sighted (...) From a mythopoetic point of view the device is even subtler: in fact, Clark Kent personifies fairly typically the average reader who is harassed by complexes and despised by his fellow men; through an obvious process of self identification, any accountant in any american city secretly feeds the hope that one day, from the slough of his actual personality there can spring forth a superman who is capable of redeeming years of mediocre existence.
--Umberto Eco, Il mito de Superman e la dissolozione del tempo (1962)
*****
This made me want to watch Unbreakable again.
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October 02, 2007
I am obviously a cat person
So first, your memory I'll jog,
And say: A CAT IS NOT A DOG.
Now Dogs pretend they like to fight;
They often bark, more seldom bite;
But yet a Dog is, on the whole,
What you would call a simple soul.
Of course I'm not including Pekes,
And such fantastic canine freaks.
The usual Dog about the Town
Is much inclined to play the clown,
And far from showing too much pride
Is frequently undignified.
He's very easily taken in -
Just chuck him underneath the chin
Or slap his back or shake his paw,
And he will gambol and guffaw.
He's such an easy-going lout,
He'll answer any hail or shout.
Again I must remind you that
A Dog's a Dog - A CAT'S A CAT.
T.S. Eliot, Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
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Much to Neska's credit, she does have some cat like traits which make our co-habitation bearable. By the way, why should anyone name that butch, oversized dog "Neska" - "girl" in basque - is a mystery to me. Even more puzzling is why the two other people in this house insist on calling the Great Pyrenees-white-fluff-ball-monster "poochie".
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October 01, 2007
The Adventures of Claudia in America
This blogger went to the big book sale in San Francisco and all she got was this because she is a narcissist who can't resist it when she sees her own name in print. This completely messes my project of writing "The Book of Claudia" to be added to the bible or to start a new religion, though.
It was a great buy. I'm sure it's not what the author intended but has made me roll on the floor laughing.
"It had been a beautiful night and she loved him more than ever in the morning. 'If it weren't real love', David told her, 'if it were only physical, it wouldn't be that way.'
Claudia, who was eighteen and who did not know very much about love, had the greatest respect for her husband's superior knowledge of sex. Not that he'd ever led a wild life, or run around, but he'd read a great many books on the subject and knew as much as a doctor."
Of course. There's nothing sexier than a gynecologist.
I also "found" and bought the fabulous Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats illustrated by Edward Gorey for 1 dollar and finally got the complete poems of Cavafy, among other cheap finds.
Big. Like everything else here.
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