Heath Ledger Junior?

Ledger (l) and Gordon-Leavitt (r).

One thing that weirded me out in "Inception" was how much Joseph Gordon-Leavitt resembles Heath Ledger. The guy's going to likely gobble up parts that would have gone to Ledger. I mean, what does it matter? Ledger's dead. But still, that they'd find a current actor who so closely resembles Ledger, and have him star in a Christopher Nolan movie, I couldn't help but wonder if Nolan had originally wanted Ledger for the part Gordon-Leavitt played.

Fauxbama and the Eightball

The commute home was interesting -- I caught the commuter rail downtown in an attempt to bypass the inevitable traffic that hits owing to Lollapalooza setting up, and the Obama motorcade. Well and good -- the Metra's always comfortable and quiet, a soothing ride downtown. I love train travel. I get downtown and am hoofing it through the underground station (amusingly enough, it's part of what they used in "The Dark Knight" -- the chase scene where Bats is driving his motorcycle-hybrid and crashing about, so I've got flashbacks of that in my head as I walk through it), and I get up to Randolph and Michigan, and come up into a Thin Blue Line of burly cops staring me in the face. I pause and look around, see a large motorcade there and crowds. Ah, Obama's in the building there.

Because he's in there, they have a huge security dragnet around the area, and public transit is effectively hobbled at that point, so I just go back underground and come up on the north side of the intersection, and hang out in the crowd, taking pix. There are snipers on the roof, cops all about, Elvis impersonators loping around (apparently there was an Elvis 5K in Grant Park, so between all the Obama gawkers and rush hour grinders, there were these Vegas Elvis folks milling through, too), Amish wending their way, and people repeatedly asking what all the crowds were there for. I hung out for about 45 minutes, since there was no way to get home at that point because the crowds were too big, the security kept traffic from going through, so it was a very "When in Rome..." kind of moment, and I just chilled. Plenty of false alarms, what I called "Fauxbamas" -- folks who looked like him, or crowd reactions to nothing. There were a couple of "Matrix"-like moments, too, when I saw a guy in a crazy paisley shirt walk through the crowd once (heading east), and then, later, I saw him heading east, through the crowd AGAIN. WTF? He looked a little scrawny to be Secret Service, but who knows? I looked sort of Secret Service-like in my shades and work clothes -- people kept glancing in my direction as they'd make their way through the crowd, and periodically asking me "Why are all of these people standing here?"

Finally, Obama's motorcade whisked by, and that was that. My favorite moment was when some grizzled guy asked "What, are they filming more 'Transformers' here or what?" and somebody said "No, Obama's in there." and the guy grumbled "Obama? I was hoping it would be Optimus Prime."

Obamamobile (at right).

The crowds finally dispersed, and then they restarted the bus lines, and I was (eventually) able to get home, where apparently B1 was in a crisis because he'd lost this rubber eightball I'd given him (he liked pretending it was a black hole -- big shocker, right?) and Exene had either not understood what he'd said about it being lost, or didn't care (both?) and so I asked B1 where he'd lost it, and he told me, and I said "Well, let's go into the park and look for it. You can be our guide." and so he, B2 and I trekked over there and I began a zig-zag search for the ball, once B1 showed me where it had last been seen (apparently he let a kid throw it and the kid overthrew it and it got lost in the park). B1 found it about 30 seconds later, tucked in a shady nook on the ground. He was elated, and I was pleased that we got it back, since he was really upset about having lost it. Yay! A tiny victory, but a satisfying one!

Sunsetter

Here's that kickass sunset from yesterday...

Radioactive Wild Boars!!

I heard this on NPR this afternoon.Here's a hot news story:

Radioactive Wild Boars Plaguing German Forests

I like the sound clip of a boar here, too.

Weather Or Not

It's gorgeous outside today. Idyllic summer weather: sunny, warm breezes, that nice blend of sound and motion in the trees, the leaves, the interplay of light and shadow. Wonderful.

Saw a young couple walking their lil' baby in a carriage, saw their tired faces (the baby was happy, naturally), and I truly sympathized -- I know the Baby Boot Camp dance all too well. But to see that look of fatigued bewilderment on their faces (and furtively discussing "stress" as I passed them), I felt comic empathy with them. Kids are wonderful; I love kids, but I recognize the incredible work they represent. And this couple was young (I'm guessing early 20-something). No Lollapalooza for you guys. No sleep, either, is my guess.

Obama's in town, apparently, for his 49th birthday. Haven't heard the helicopters, but I'm sure they'll be about at some point. Maybe he's going to Lollapalooza. Ha! Yeah, right!

Swim.

I saw this American Apparel ad on the back of this week's Chicago READER. Mmmmmm. It almost makes me want to go swimming, if only our beaches weren't currently toxic with E. coli.

Miscellany

Watched "The Black Hole" with B1 last night. He loves that movie, because he loves all black hole-related stuff, of course. So, lucky me, I get to watch that decidedly mediocre movie umpteen times! Still, it's cute to watch it with him. We theorized that the black hole in the movie must've had a ring singularity in it, hence the characters being able to travel to another universe (yessss, I know there's allegorical Heaven and Hell pictured in the "trippy" sequence as they enter the black hole, but whatever -- that's boring). It was fun to hear him theorizing about parts of the movie. I remember my father taking me to see that movie, and how I'd been enthused about it, only to be disappointed by the movie (although I did have a V.I.N.CENT action figure, I remember). B1 loves it. So, I'm sure I'll get to watch it many more times, still. But, hey, it's got Ernest Borgnine in it, so that's something it has going for it, right?

Lordy, Lollapalooza starts tomorrow. Oh, man. The city's gonna be insane. Soundgarden's headlining. It's almost worth heading down to the park and loitering just to hear them play. They're playing a little show at the Vic, which would be crazy-hard to get into (and I've heard that it's even harder -- that "winners" of the ticket raffles have to go dicking around the city to find where the tickets have been hidden -- what kind of minfuck is that? My sympathies on whoever's actually won those tickets).

Anyway, I'm not sure what I'm going to do this weekend. Take the bike out for a spin, probably (weather permitting -- we keep getting a lot of rain). Entertain the boys, sling out some query letters and what-not. Get more writing done.

I finished watching "The Wire" (on DVD). It was a good series, another gem in HBO's serial drama crown, although the writer(s) took some liberties with plot and character at a few key points to get to the end they wanted. Still, kudos to them for actually ending the series, instead of dragging it on forever, like they do on network programs. There's something to be said for shows that don't overstay their welcome and have a defined narrative arc (the UK "The Office" is a key example of that, the right approach, whereas the US "The Office" has just gone on and on and on).

Sunset

The sunset tonight was spectacular! I snapped some pix of it, which I'll likely post tomorrow. Just amazing stuff. B1 had spotted it, said the clouds looked interesting. I got up and checked'em out, and he was right.

Opera House

Another operatic morning at the abode, with the boys alternately singing grouses to one another, using various melodies (the James Bond theme being the favorite, along with Chris Cornell's "You Know My Name" being another). B2 started it -- "[B1] is a bad guy, he's a bad bad bad bad guy." (James Bond theme) and then B1 would counter with "I know you are, but what am I?" (James Bond them) and they're busy singing back and forth that way, ad hoc lyrics, revolving around B2 claiming his big brother's a villain, and B1 gainsaying that, and while this is going on, I'm snickering, and then finally I pipe up "Boys, it's time to brush your teeth, we've got to get ready, it's time to get ready." (Cornell) and B2's like "Okay, Dadddyyyyyyyy..." (Cornell).

Clowns...

It's National Clown Week. Don't say I didn't warn you!!

Wetday

Man, another rainy morning. Storms and such. No big deal, but it's wicked humid and rainy. I had the boys all dressed for it and ready, and wore my slicker, so it was all handled.

I got a library card again yesterday, after work. I picked up Joshua Ferris's "And Then We Came To the End," a much-ballyhooed first novel circa 2007. It was third on my list of to-get books from the library (the other two weren't there, were at other branches). Anyway, for a book that was roundly hailed as a masterwork, I dunno. I'm reading it, but it's not sending me into the stratosphere. Some of the narrative choices he made in the book are like itching powder to me. But I'll soldier through it.

Speaking of soldiering, I stumbled onto "The Ruins" on FX last night. I had read that book years ago (hadn't liked it overmuch, and had issues with some of the ways the writer had set things up). But anyway, it was damned gruesome -- the movie kept pretty close to the story, and the gore was particularly skin-crawlingly icky. The crowning irony of our censorious society -- violence is fine, but no sex -- so you can show somebody carving themselves up with a knife, but don't show tits and ass. Anyway, I'm pretty jaded where horror movies are concerned, but some of the stuff they showed was still damned icky.

I cooked a terduchen last night! Ha! I saw it at the grocery store, and had to snag it -- turkey stuffed with chicken and duck (and pork sausage -- so does that make it a terduchenpor?) Anyway, it was good, a lot milder than I thought it would be. It was a total meat bomb, however. I had some and thought "Wow, that was almost a deadly amount of meat." And practically had meat-overload-induced aphasia. Exene was amused, said "You've lost the power to speak?" Before going into a mild food coma, I managed to stammer out that it was an ideal dish for her family, that I could see them tackling a 15 lb. terduchen and digging it mightily. I'd not make terduchen a regular part of my diet, but it was pretty damned good. I had to try it. Has that same over-the-topness of something like Beef or Lamb Wellington.

Nike's Got Back

Looks like Nike's gonna get behind its new product line...

Mmmmmm hmmm!

Books

Here's the bookshelf I organized yesterday. I should've taken a "before and after" kind of picture with it, I suppose. It's so much better than it was!