Keeping My Cool

I was irked, as my a/c still hadn't been installed; it's been almost two weeks. I gave the building management some time, figuring "They must be really busy" last week, and with the temperature drops, I would "weather" (ar ar) the absence of the a/c, but it's warming up again, and so I went downstairs to find out what the deal was, whether they'd lost my form, misplaced my check, or what. Anyway, I was fortunate that somebody was down there, although the guy was "busy" with two comely chickies, one of whom talked almost nonstop. He was a skinny, balding, pale geeky kinda guy, so I thought "Shit, this is going to be  awhile." So, I waited for a few minutes, hoping for the chatty gal to pause in her talking to take a breath, or at least for the guy to interrupt her to ask me what I needed. I wasn't going to be rude, I just waited until it was clear that, whatever these gals wanted or were doing (and I'm sure it was somehow apartment-related, from what they were jabbering about), it had basically been attended to. I piped up, asked the guy what the deal was with my a/c, and he looked it up. Both gals were good-looking in that bland, midwestern way. Well, one was; the other wasn't so great facewise, but had a really nice body. The talkie one had torn an ACL while skiing, and was talking about all she had to go through with that, and what she'd have to go through once she got the cast/splint removed (casts are looking so high-tech these days, it's hard to tell a cast from a splint, but this thing was like for her whole leg). I thought "Yeah, you'll have to be shaving that leg, too, when you get that thing off." *shudder* Anyway, the other gal looked kind of like a particular 70s actor, whose name eludes me at the moment. Tom Atkins. Yeah. That's who she looked like (truly), with bleached blonde hair. But her body was magnificent. The guy finally dredged up the forms, and it turned out that they has screwed up -- they had processed my form, cashed the check, and somebody had cleared the form like the job had already been done. The guy apologized, and I didn't lose my cool, although I was miffed. I left the guy with the chicks and went on my way. They're supposed to install it today. If they don't this time, I'll be pissed.

Of course, me being me, I wondered which if the two gals I would have gone after, as a kind of philosophical man-problem -- the chatterer was genuinely good-looking (looked like a blend of Virginia Madsen and Nicole Kidman), and seemed intelligent, outgoing, and personable. But she truly never stopped talking; like, the entire time I was there, she was talking; I honestly don't know how she breathed. That's like the near-equivalent of someone with an annoying laugh -- it's one of those things where you think "Could I put up with that for long?" The gal with the killer body was, of necessity, quieter (she did get a few words in edgewise, in the monologue tsunami going on), so her personality wasn't nearly as apparent as the more talkative one. But then, the quiet one likely didn't have to talk much -- her assets were immediately apparent. The proper Dave-answer, of course, is "Both."

(Don't worry, Joel Grey didn't harm Captain Janeway; he just employed a technique to induce an orgasm in a woman by way of nerves in her wrist)

Snicker

Amusing exchange between these two 20-something artgals on the bus (one of whom looked kinda like Kevin Bacon's baby sister, if he even has one; the other one looked kinda like Jason Segel, if he was a girl):

Bacon: We should go.
Segel: I don't do cosplay.
Bacon: I could go as Zelda.
Segel: Then I'd be Link. That would rock!
Bacon: Thought you didn't do cosplay.
Segel: I'd go if you went. It'd be a performance piece.
Bacon: Huh.
Segel: You know who I had a huge crush on, like when I was younger?
Bacon: Who?
Segel: Sean Connery.
Bacon: Yeah?
Segel: I mean, like before he was all leather handbag-faced. Way too much tanning. But everybody would make fun of me for my crush on Sean Connery.
Bacon: Huh. I liked Jimmy Stewart.
Segel: Yeah, Jimmy Stewart was like nice, but he could also be a badass.
Bacon: One time, I had a sore throat, and I sounded like Jimmy Stewart.
Segel: Wow. You know who else I like?
Bacon: Who?
Segel: Bill Bixby. But, like, nobody knows who he is, past a certain age. He was in 'The Incredible Hulk.'
Bacon: (grunts)
Segel: But I like him from "The Courtship of Eddie's Father." Like from that era.
Bacon: Wow.

That's all I heard, as I was getting off the bus. But I was amused. I hadn't thought about Bill Bixby since my childhood in the 70s, and these gals were at least 20 years from being born. Let alone them thinking about Jimmy Stewart and Sean Connery. It was amusing.

Nom!

My mushroom risotto came out great! I wolfed it down...

I've got enough left over for days. Obviously, risotto's best on that initial serving, but ah, well; I'm happy to eat it as a leftover. Especially this one, which was just so good.

Lazy Sunday Afternoon

I baked a key lime pie this morning...

It came out nice, as you can see. It's hard to jazz up a photograph of a key lime pie, so I went in close with it. Those are white chocolate shavings I put on the top of it, which go well with it.

I'm going to make a mushroom risotto this evening, use up some of those oyster and shiitake mushrooms I bought yesterday. Don't worry, I'll take pix of that, too. Baha!

I took the boys out to one of the parks today, so they could get some playtime/outside time in. B2 was pretty feisty today, as he often gets when he's tired -- he wore himself out chasing his big brother, was conking out.

I took advantage of the relative quiet to sort laundry; I still need to clean up the living room, too. Busy busy busy.

Right now I'm watching USA v. Jamaica in the soccer quarterfinals. Fairly sloppy game at the moment.

Saturdave

Blimp over the city today; B1 is loving that. Nice weather today, good stuff. I dropped by the local farmer's market and got some good stuff...

And made a righteous omelet using said components. Nom!

I biked downtown and back. I usually avoid biking along the lake shore on the weekend, because it's pretty busy, but it was mid-morning, so while it was busy, it wasn't crazy-busy. Good to see everybody out and enjoying themselves, and the weather was perfect. I snapped some shots with my camera, although nothing was jumping out at me today, despite the good light.

Hard to believe it's Father's Day tomorrow; my own father died this year. We had a terrible relationship -- my parenting success is based on doing the opposite he did with me, and it's worked out well with my boys.

Weekend Warrior

Work was busy today. Edited edited edited. What'd I do? I edited! It's what I do!

Bike ride home was festive -- the wonderful weather (and today was glorious -- great light, cool temperatures, sunny and lovely clouds) brought everybody out to the lake, so there were plenty of folks about. Peacefest was being waged in part of the park, which leveled a marijuana smog layer throughout the park. I ran into Exene in the lobby, wearing her triathlon racing gear, and the pot smoke had definitely leached into her racing jacket, which was amusing. She said "All I did was bike through the smoke." and I said "Yeah, that wicking fabric must've just soaked that right up." Amusing.

I was going to go bike to run some errands, but the city's crowded with suburbanites out to flock to the lakeshore; in times like these, we urban locals just hunker down and let the hordes do their thing. It's just easier. That's the one drawback to living in the city -- in summer, the 708ers just come in droves (calling them 708ers is a willful anachronism of mine, since I remember when there were only two area codes for Chicago -- and the 708 area code was for the suburbanites, hence the term).

I'm going to work on one of the books this weekend, at long last. I've had it stewing in my head for awhile, but am going to dive in on that, see how that goes. Once I begin, it'll just go.

I want to get a starter tennis racquet for B1; I think he'll enjoy the game. B2 will want to play, but he's too young -- he gets to be ball boy, which I'm sure he'll hate. The key'll be getting the racquets and for B2 NOT to try to bonk his brother with'em. Trust me, I know this dance.

Mmm, bucket o' crayons!

Strong Performances

I am amused, every time I see Mark Strong in the role of another villain. He is making a killing (so to speak) as a movie villain. I first remember him as Pinbacker in "Sunshine" -- the villain who didn't need to be in the movie. But despite that, Strong's good delivery made him memorable. Then I remember seeing him as Lord Blackwood in "Sherlock Holmes," and was like "Wasn't that the same guy who was Pinbacker?" and, yes, it was, and he was entertaining in that role, too. Then I was him as Frank D'Amico in "Kick-Ass," a role he nailed. Now, most recently, I see he's Sinestro in the new "Green Lantern" flick. Perfect choice. Strong is good in those roles -- he's kind of the Basil Rathbone of this century, a go-to guy for villainy.

Dancers

Alright, I'm back. SYTYCD was good as ever. Lots of great dancers, as ever. I am particularly amused by Lithuanian ballroom dancer, Iveta Lukosiute, who, at 30 years of age, is staggeringly dancer-old to be on the show, although she's very, very good. I liked the juicy Miranda Maleski and Missy Morelli and Melanie Moore (so many M's -- I'll call'em the MMMMMMs), who were all very good, some of the "Beasts" as they are calling them (is this a new thing?) -- the term they call the dancing chicks who apparently have it all, in terms of skill, athleticism, performance chops, technique, showmanship. There seem to be a lot of Hip-Hop dancers among the guys, although everybody seems very good, adaptable, all of that.

Iveta Lukosiute, the Lithuanian Hammer.

Miranda Maleski, one of the MMMs.

Dis-n-Dat

Looks like the next couple o' days are gonna be rainy, but it can't rain all the time, right?

I set up some online bill pay stuff, which is pretty great, I will admit. Chicago's postal service is legendarily hit-or-miss, so it's nice to know that I can bypass that by paying bills online. I'll likely fold everything I pay into that, just for the sake of convenience and reliability.

There was a strip of road that was flooded, and cars kept blasting through it at high speed, showering the sidewalk. *SHHHHHPLASH* What was kind of amusing to me was how people kept trying to brave it. Total crapshoot! *SHHHHPLASH*

Whoops! SYTYCD is on! I keep forgetting that it's on Wednesdays!

Onward

Just did the laundry this morning; I always try to get it done in the early morning hours, because it's cooler out, and nobody else is (usually) up, so I'm not competing with everybody else for the machines.

I've been having odd and complicated/strange/disturbing dreams of late. Like one had me in this Colonial home that had been on-site of some Revolutionary War battle, and there were these Gypsy-like folks living there, now, and they were letting people tour the house, but there was a very palpable sensation of haunting about the place, this sense of something else being there. Ghosts and what-not. The vibe was very clear and, since the place was close to a battlefield, there was plenty of emotional weight about the area. Trippy dream.

Midmorning in Chicago

I'm still musing about that movie. Beautiful morning today, mild and sunny, cool and pleasant. There's another art fair in town, and I might take the boys to that, too, see if there's anything worth seeing.

There are other thoughts percolating in my head. I'll pour'em out when they're ready, after cooking in my cranium awhile.

Midnight in Paris, Afternoon in Chicago

So, I enjoyed Woody Allen's latest, "Midnight in Paris." I am neither a fan nor a foe of his movies. I like some of them well enough, others, not so much, but it all kind of balances out. Anyway, I liked the movie, which followed Owen Wilson as Gil, entranced by Paris on the eve of his marriage to Rachel McAdams, yearning to abandon his (apparently highly-successful yet empty) screenwriting career for novel-writing in Paris. One line that had me scoffing a bit, when Gil scoffed about screenwriting being easy, novel-writing was hard -- I've had the opposite experience! To me, a novel is a far easier enterprise than a screenplay (although definitely a more-satisfying one). Gil begins encountering figures from the Parisian past, a feast of luminaries from the Lost Generation era of 1920s Paris, who all interact with him -- it almost seems like a ghost story, except that it's not in any way scary, but the way Gil seamlessly interacts with these figures (and it's a who's who from the era -- Cole Porter, F. Scott Fitzgerald [and Zelda], Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Picasso, Man Ray, Salvador Dali, etc., etc.), it almost feels like a ghost story.

The core premise of it is this notion of the heart of a romantic is bound in nostalgia for the past, and a yearning for a "golden age," that was, of course, itself, not so golden when it was the present. And, to Allen's credit, Gil does explore this, with his trips to 1920s Paris, finding some of the locals there yearning for La Belle Époque (and, entertainingly, Allen has Gil make a brief trip there with a love interest [Adriana], who herself yearns for that era, and, as they sit for a bit with Lautrec, Gaugin, and Degas [and who appear to long for the era before their own]), and Gil, through his interactions with these characters, comes to value himself as an artist/writer and to ditch his fiancee and live in Paris, where he (at least for the moment) ends up with a (to my eye) rather Mia Farrowesque French babe, to turn his back on his Hollywood life.

So, it was an entertaining movie -- the pile of literary figure cameos woven throughout it do hearken to the incredible confluence of talent that was in 1920s Paris, and Allen lovingly gives them all their due, and the look is perfect, the blending of the past and present on the streets of Paris. Allen's love for this place is palpable in his filming of it, and, as a movie effort, this is one of his best (indeed, I thought "Well, if he dies before making another movie, he can at least be happy that this is his final effort, because it's a great one").

It was kind of a curious thing for me to watch, because I was heavily influenced by Hemingway, Faulkner, and Fitzgerald in my formative writing years, but I am not a nostalgic or sentimental soul, in truth -- I am a romantic who runs contrary to Allen's contention about the nostalgia in the heart of all romantics. Or maybe my nostalgia runs deeper than the 20th century. Hmm. Hadn't thought of that until just now -- I have ruefully thought a time or two that I was built for charging down Highland hillsides with a broadsword in hand or in cavalry charges with a saber flashing. Hah. And I have mourned that the industrial domination of war has robbed it of its historic glory, made it an exercise of logistics. And I've certainly mused ruefully about the incredible music of the 60s, when Rock was in full flower, and how amazing all of those bands were at the time, what an amazing confluence of talent there had been (although I never had a desire to actually live in that era, or in those earlier ages, in truth).

Hmm. Anyhow, I look at those artists not as the towering figures of culture that they became, but as human beings who simply lived and created beauty in their time, and beyond. I feel kinship with them as a fellow creator, and I suppose I do lament the slow death of culture in our age (although it's hard to look at folks living it up in Paris in the 1920s and not think that great, grave shadows were growing over them, too -- I mean, good lord, Fascism, Stalinism, Nazism -- all were awakening then, too).

I mean, I've written more books than Hemingway ever did. None of them are better than his work, but I am still growing and trying -- he had his turn at bat, before he lost his head (and he started strong and grew weaker in time, as alcoholism diluted his talent; I think my arc is going the other way), and now I am taking that swing. Maybe I'll succeed, maybe I'll fail, but I'm at least trying. And in being alive, there is infinite possibility in the here and now. The past is perfect precisely because it is dead -- the story is already written, you know how it ends. The present can challenge and inhibit precisely because of both the limitations imposed by human mortality, and by the infinite possibilities of action. That's never been a problem for me, though, because I am, and have always been, about the present. Learn from the past, sure, but don't be ruled by it. Live in the now, and enjoy the ride.

I can see these characters in Allen's movie and see them as peers to me, legitimately, certainly far more than most. I doubt anybody I shared the theater with has written more fiction than me, or even better fiction than me; that's not bragging -- it's just fact. I've worked very, very hard on my writing for a long time, and I could walk up to Hemingway (or his ghost) and if he drunkenly challenged me to a fistfight (and he does that a few times in the movie -- of course, Gil, being the proxy for Allen, passes on it), I would have totally taken Hemingway up on it, been like "Sure, Sport. Let's go." *KAPOW* What am I supposed to do, NOT want to take up his challenge? What, because he's Hemingway? *KAPOW* Give the man what he wants. Give him a bucket of ice water to wake him back up.

There was a great line from Gertrude Stein (surely Allen speaking through her) about the job of the artist being to not succumb to the dismal present (I'm paraphrasing; it was said far better in the movie), but to rise above it and create something beautiful and eternal. It was a good line. There were lots of good lines in the movie, peppered throughout. Hemingway had a good one when he said that love was the antidote to death, and that only the coward feared to love, or was so hobbled by his fear of death that he was unable to love, and in so doing, was a coward. Something like that. Again, I am only paraphrasing, but it coming from the machismo-soaked, deadpan, overly serious musing of Hemingway, it made me snicker (I have theories about Hemingway, having read his work and thought about it a great deal).

At any rate, it was a good movie, being both entertaining, funny, and thought-provoking. All of the artists in the movie had the benefit of being legends both in their own time, and over the span of time (although, oddly, the cultural ferment of the Lost Generation is lost in this day and age, really, when even reading a book is seen as somehow eccentric or laborious, in this instantaneous, tech-driven age of the perpetual NOW -- their greatness is lost in a world without readers, and they really do become ghosts of a bygone era).

Time On My Hands

I've got the boys all weekend; we're going to go out and about in a bit, hit some art fairs, see what we can see. It's a cool, mild day over here. I saw "Midnight in Paris" last night, after work. I'll write about that later today/tonight.