Oh well, whatever, nevermind....

I'm amused by the Redeye today...

Hipster Safari

Dunno why they finally got around to dissecting the Chicago Hipster in the Redeye. It's kind of like when the New York Times writes about some "new trend in pop culture" -- like, I dunno, raves, or grunge, or rockabilly. It'll be something that's been going on for a very long time, and then the NYT suddenly "discovers" it.

Of course, the piece above is really just a bit of puff around "Stuff Hipsters Hate" -- a blog-turned-book written by a couple of 20-something chicks (themselves surely hipsters, since they puss out on self-identify as such "No one is 100 percent a hipster.") -- one Brenna Ehrlich (25, Northwestern grad), and Andrea Bartz (23, also a Northwestern grad). Andrea Bartz (l) looks like more of a hipster chick(tm) than Brenna Ehrlich. They seem phenomenally well-placed, jobwise (I mean, Psychology Today, SELF, CNN, and, uhhh, Heeb Magazine [?!], to name a few.), which certainly greased the wheels for them considerably in the publishing world.

But writing a hipster-bashing book now? In 2010?? Talk about shark-jumping!

Planet

This news about Gliese 581g is cool, although I wouldn't bank on anything in the constellation Libra. Still, pretty cool.

Fleetwood Mac Attack

You know how some people react(ed) to Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, or Slayer? Like that fear and loathing of them as somehow Satanic and/or Evil? Well, I have that kind of reaction to Fleetwood Mac!

They're a band that has always struck me as ineffably eerie and creepy -- not Stevie Nicks or Lindsey Buckingham so much -- they seem mostly just along for the ride (although Stevie Nicks's dark-eyed gypsy princess stage persona was, in itself, both compelling and haunting). But Mick Fleetwood always seemed like this ghoulish, creepy figure. Maybe it's his scarecrowlike 6'6" beanpole self, or his (and most of the band's) rampant fucking each other, but if any band was a bunch of vampires sidling through society and the pop culture, it'd be Fleetwood Mac. I would be unsurprised. And the cocaine-cool mid-70s sound of the band at their commercial apogee is just creepy, too -- it's hard to really classify them. A Rock band? A Soft Rock band? A band to snort coke to? I don't know, but that combination just always raises the hackles on my neck, makes me wary and faintly alarmed by them. And I'm sure it centers around Mick Fleetwood, who is like a stand-in for Satan. He just seems sinister to me.

Without him in the mix, Fleetwood Mac would likely only be vaguely off-putting, but put him in there, and they just arc into sublime spookiness. And throw their massive success in the 70s into it, and makes them even more creepy to me, somehow. Like everything falling into place, and this band of Anglo-American vampires sank their teeth into the pop culture and took a long drink from it. They are, perhaps, the PERFECT Baby Boomer band, one of those zeitgeist bands that reached the Boomers at the perfect age to dig their icy grooves...

"Dreams"
"Oh Daddy"
"Rhiannon"


I just get creeped out by them. Maybe it's the keys they choose for their tunes, or the tightly produced, compressed and generally quiet sound. I mean, songs like "Don't Stop" were somewhat more reassuring, since they kind of hit along more conventional Pop-Rock lines, but I always factored tunes like that (and the Buckingham tunes) as a kind of reaction against the slithering evil-seemingness of Mick Fleetwood. It also bothered me that a drummer in a band should be so prominent -- I know that violated my sense of Pop Culture Propriety. Drummers just shouldn't lead bands (even if creepily, from the behind the scenes). Especially diabolical ones like Mick Fleetwood. Now that he's an old man, some of that sinister Rasputin/Fagin kind of vibe he carried with him has dissipated, but in his heyday, he was one creepy-looking chap.

Dis & Dat

Wow, today really felt like Fall -- blustery and cool, a mix of sun and overcast skies, leaves starting to fall, swirling. The city's nature changes with Fall, as people gear up for the inevitably long winter.

I ran out and snagged a new computer, since I'm letting Exene have the iMac, and didn't want to have to default to Shitbox (as I refer to the old Dell we've had for years -- I still use it for my fiction-writing, but that's about it, although I've got all of my music on that computer, so until I get that stuff migrated to the new machine, Shitbox'll still have a place on my computer desk.

The boys were really sweet today, just lil' angels. B2 kept wanting to be with me, any time I ran my errands. He'd run and climb onto me and hold on, would say he wanted to stay with me, to go with me. That was sweet and heartbreaking, of course. B1 was sweet, too. He's getting so big. Amazing to think that B2 will be five soon, and B1 will be nine soon, as well.

Saw a woman who could've passed for Wonder Woman -- tall, and taller still with her knee boots. Just at the grocery store, getting whatever. But with her boots (themselves with at least three-inch heels, maybe four-inch heels), she was taller than me! Amazonian!

I put B2 in an Avengers t-shirt (baby blue with the original Avengers printed on the front -- Cap, Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, Giant-Man, and Was). He looks super-cute in it, especially with the camo pants I put on him, too.

The boys are trying to figure out what their Halloween costumes will be. I think B2 wants to be Bumblebee from the TRANSFORMERS; B1 hasn't decided, yet. B2 will make a cute Bumblebee, for sure.

Chimpanic

I was talking with a coworker yesterday,  and we got on the topic of chimpanzees, how scary-violent they can be, which led to much chuckling and laughing about just how horrible that is, like When Chimps Go Bad. I said that I could handle fighting zombies, but if a chimp ran at me, I'd take a swan-dive out the nearest window, because chimps do things like tear your face off and rip your limbs apart and beat you with them like you're a bongo drum. Victims of man v. chimp never, ever come out of it without horrible injuries. The combination of aggression and the biomechanics that make them terribly strong make them downright scary.

Of course, looking up "chimp violence" on YouTube gets me this...

Ricky Gervais on Chimp Violence

But seriously, chimps will fuck you up -- or, at the very least, are totally capable of doing so. I joked to my coworker "Any belief in a just, sane, and orderly universe goes immediately out the window when you've got a chimp literally ripping your face off -- one minute you're thinking 'I should get pizza for dinner tonight, maybe' and the next minute you're like 'AUUUGH! You tore off my face!!'" And chimps really WILL rip your face off. It makes a shark bite seem almost genteel and courtly by comparison.

I think it's kind of a variation on the "Uncanny Valley" that comes up with AI -- a shark bite you can relate to, because it's this big maw taking a hunk out of you, sufficiently monstrous and alien to be terrifying, but at least contextually logical; but a chimp tearing your face off is perhaps more unnerving, because it's using hands that are similar to yours, only much, much stronger and worse; and also, you might actually be unfortunate enough to survive it. And further, if a shark takes a bite out of you, odds are it thought you were a fish or a seal or a sea lion -- a case of mistaken identity. But lord knows what the chimp is thinking when it decides to rip off your face. Maybe it didn't like the shirt you were wearing, or the color, or you had a mustache (or didn't have a mustache), or you ate an English muffin for breakfast, and that pissed it off. There are any number of ineffable, incomprehensible reasons why a chimp might go off on you.

So, if you have a friend who has a "pet chimp" -- word to the wise: LOSE that friend. Find another friend. Then you won't even have to worry about getting a face and limb transplant.

Trunk Monkey

Really, Trunk Ape, but, you know....

Generation Why?

It's irritating that there's a show targeted to Generation Y...


http://www.slate.com/id/2268225/

As ever, Gen X gets screwed. Just because there are more Y than X, it's show-worthy. Demographics is destiny.

Never Let Me Go (2010)

I'm kind of intrigued by the movie, "Never Let Me Go." It looks like it might be a downer, but I might catch it, anyway. After the heart-rending "The Road," I don't know how many retro-dystopic quasi-SF tragedies I can bear, but it does seem intriguing to me.

Digitus impudicus

I was talking with a coworker about flipping the bird yesterday, which, of course, led to the sharing of this clip...

Flight of the Conchords, "The Bird"

He and I were talking about it, and we realized there was definitely an aesthetic preference where flipping the bird was concerned, and a handedness preference, too.

When's the last time you flipped somebody off, Gentle Reader? Which hand did you use? Did you opt for closed fist, open hand, or other? Did you flip somebody off "gangstah-style" (like a sideways flip-off), or a "flyin' the flag" (vertical, classic) kind of flip-off? Do you opt for a classic All-American bird-flipping (as in the video above), or a regional/ethnic flip-off?

One thing about the above picture that bugs me is that I think the kid is an English football fan; I think the sourcing of it is English (hence the red and white facepaint still evident, there) -- however, why is it flipping the bird? Why's he not doing the English "V" bollocks flip-off? A mystery maybe he can answer one day.

I love the long history of the Bird. Also, what an exemplary middle finger is included in the Wikipedia entry! That gal's finger is LONG, and so the Bird she's flipping is a grand gesture! Gotta love this, the first known photographed flip-off (back row, extreme left), circa 1886...

I love stuff like that -- silly pop culture apocrypha. I love the idea of a scholar poring through old pictures and determining "THERE! This is THE FIRST photographed 'giving of the finger'." And then writing a paper on it!

Hmph

I am still not getting why "Ghost Story" had received so many plaudits. I'm just not dazzled by it. Not the writing, not the story, nothing. I've got about 200 pages to go, and I'm still not floored or scared by it. I'm really hoping Straub delivers, but I don't think he has, yet. It's like when people would rave about Captain Beefheart's "Trout Mask Replica" -- I remember listening to it and thinking "WTF??" Whatever it's about, I'm not getting. And I try to be open-minded, to approach it without judgment or reservation. It's like the movie, "Inception." That movie was a grave disappointment to me, and I thought "How can people be thinking this is such a great movie?"

Strobe

The bus ride home had a strobe light thing going -- one of the lights in the back was flashing, made me think I was playing "Half-Life" on my commute home. Fortunately, I missed the first bout of stormage that hit.

I'm going to whip up some dinner in a few. Hungry!

Got free chocolate this morning -- some reps were giving away Dove Chocolates to passersby. It made for an ironic image, like assorted pedestrians with handfuls of chocolate, and derelicts eating Dove Chocolates from corners, down the path from the reps.

Telegraphy

*pant pant* I'm on page 300 of "Ghost Story," still soldiering on. He's doing it yet again, over the span of two pages...

"...craziness..."
"...saw the fractured light in his eyes..."
"...that underneath the 'stayin' sane' kind of craziness there was another, real craziness."
"...saw his eyes gleaming between the lashes..."
"...and his eyes gleamed..." (same paragraph as the first gleaming-eyed bit)
"...grinning maniacally..."

Book Report Voice: I think this character is going crazy.

(cue telegraph operator, dot dash dot dash dot dot dash)

Jumper v. Thumper

I had a scare this morning -- I thought I'd lost my 4GB jump drive, where I put all of my fiction (actually, it's only one of three places I vault it, but still, it's my mobile drive, obviously). I had thought it was lost, but it turns out, it was at home. I'd like to blame "Thumper," my nickname for the "ghost" in our place, who has a fondness for making things disappear (and reappear in places where you've already looked).

Many a story about Thumper, and not just from me -- Exene has her own share of tales. My favorite is her hearing a spoon clatter in the kitchen, and her, for a moment, thinking that it was me or the boys who did it, and then remembering that we were out of town. Then, in the morning, she checked in there, and saw a spoon sitting on the floor in the center of the kitchen floor. Anyway, the jump drive was okay, which was a big relief to me.

I call Thumper "Thumper" because of "her" tendency to knock things over. One of my own encounters had me wake up to hear "thud-a-thud" in the kitchen, and to think, at first, that it was maybe the cat. But then I saw him laying in his favorite spot. So, I thought "What the hell is Exene doing up at this hour?" and I went in there to look, but nobody was in there. Good times. Nothing like waking up to that!

Mmmmmonica Bellucci

I wonder what Monica Bellucci's been up to these days? Yeah, another Libra celebrity. What can I say? At least I'm consistent....

Stormy Weathers

Took B2 to the soccer match, but a thunderstorm came and soaked us before too very long. We had to retreat homeward, since the thunder and lightning was looming.

The Magic Number

Hey, this is my 666th post on this blog. Seems only fitting...

Slayer, "Raining Blood"

3 : )

a/c

I keep reading "Ghost Story" because there is some bleakness to it that is intriguing, even if the mechanics of the writing claw at me still. I'm giving him the benefit of a doubt, that the trip'll be worth the destination.

Got the a/c on tonight, as it's a bit warm this evening.

B1 cuted me out -- he said of someone he knows, "She's very reactive; she's just like magnesium!" That made me smile. He also said his name was "like an ocean." I loved that, too.

Ghostwriter

So, I keep soldiering through "Ghost Story." I have a problem with Peter Straub's writing, which feels sort of clunky to me, almost stodgy. And it doesn't have to do with the geriatric characters in the book -- it's his manner of writing.

One thing he does (repeatedly) that drives me bananas is his tendency to restate something. For example, in one chapter, he refers to a particularly character's passivity about seven times -- it keeps popping up while referring to the character, and it makes me want to say YES, I GET IT. SHE IS FUCKING PASSIVE. Same chapter, he mentions that character's "ironic smile" -- over and over again, maybe five times.

It wasn't just that one chapter -- it happens throughout. Now, this could've been fixed with better editing -- had I edited the book, I'd have queried the author and said as much: "Au: You mention her 'passivity' and 'ironic' smile 5-7 times in this chapter; is there another way to put this?" Or something like that.

Similarly, there was a point where he mentioned a group of characters drinking whiskey, neat. And less than a page later, one of the characters is drinking "another cognac" -- I'm like "Buh? ANOTHER? He was drinking WHISKEY." Again, it's an editorial complaint, although, had I written that scene, I sure as hell would've gotten that right.

But he has this elliptically leaden way of writing that goes something like this...

"Martin put his hands into his pockets and found nothing but bits of shredded paper that had been through the laundry, so they were more like paper pills. A car drove past him, splashing oily water in a pothole as it went. An old Lincoln. Martin gazed at the bits of shredded paper and wondered what he'd put on them. Laundry lists? Old receipts?

Martin looked at the old Lincoln at the stoplight, waiting for red to go to green. The pothole water stilled, oily-brown. Then he looked back at the paper pills in his hands, and wondered what he'd put on them, and how he'd forgotten to take them out of his pockets when he'd done the laundry. Because he was usually rather fastidious. The light turned to green, and the old Lincoln drove away, leaving Martin wondering what he'd written on those paper pills in his pockets that he'd laundered."

Now, I'm just winging that, but just imagine hundreds of pages of that, sort of looping and backtracking and looping, almost like Straub was trying to remember where he was going while writing it. Again, a better editor would've queried it and tightened up the prose. Given that the book was written in 1979, when fiction editing was still a credible profession, I'm sort of surprised by it.

Had to run through that one chapter, since I wanted to take a highlighter to it (but, it being a library book, I abstained, naturally, Gentle Reader)...

"Her mouth was bracketed by two faint lines of irony."
"...the faint lines beside her mouth twitched as if at a private joke."
"...to mark an intense passivity."
"...like a princess in a tower."
"...the ironic, tactful passivity of the beautiful..."
"...her passive self-sufficiency."
"...a soft, almost invisible irony..."
"...the princess locked in the tower of her own self-regard."
"...the veneer of disinterested irony."
"...essentially passive."
"...an androgynous quality to her passivity..."

And so on (and it does go on).

Now, Straub is writing as another writer in the scene above, so one might think he's adopting a "style" by inhabiting the novelist character, but the problem is that this kind of backtracking occurs throughout the book, where the reader is bludgeoned into submission by the repetition of those details.

I prefer not to force-feed the reader with literary foie gras. I think that everything in a scene should matter, every detail, and if you're forced to backtrack, it's a problem of the original setup of the scene. The above is like telling a joke repeatedly to the same audience member -- each successive pass of that same "joke" offers diminishing returns, until the audience gets frustrated and annoyed.

But the above is really an editing problem; the fiction editor should've noticed this tendency and queried it, tried to get him to get his point across without using the same words over and over again.

And, no, I'm NOT going to tell you what Martin put on those shredded bits of paper. ; )

Stripes

Had a trippy moment this morning, while waiting for the bus. From every direction, people wearing striped shirts and/or dresses, going their respective ways -- a hipster chick in a purple dress with diagonal white stripes, a guy with shirt with acid green and gray horizontal stripes, a pregnant woman in a black and white striped tunic. Several other people in stripes, all converging, passing one another. And I'm watching, waiting for my bus, and they're crossing the crosswalk, which is, itself, striped. Loved it! A moment of crazy stripes, and then they were all gone.

Hungry

You know, I was thinking of my whole Libra analysis, and I forgot to include two key ones, who share billing in Tony Scott's "The Hunger" (1983) -- the stylish-yet-vacuous and almost interminably empty vampire movie -- Susan Sarandon and Catherine Deneuve. In many ways, "The Hunger" is the ultimate Libra movie, with so much emphasis on form, and so little on substance. Keep in mind that Catherine Deneuve is definitely one of my Libra celebrity crushes, but watching these two Libra actresses court one another's characters, it's just terribly amusing. Look at the flat gazes, the studied shallowness, and so on...

"The Hunger"

As a student of Librans, it just amuses me to see them interact in this movie (and, really, this movie will make you want to claw your eyes out, because it just drags and drags and drags -- imagine, a BORING vampire movie? Yep. The only thing "The Hunger" makes you hunger for is plot, pacing, characterization). There are people who love "The Hunger," but I will contend that the fans of that movie are Librans, themselves. A movie of Librans, by Librans, for Librans: "The Hunger." Try watching it, you'll see. Long fucking movie.

Catherine Deneuve. Stunning, an almost iconic feminine beauty. And doll's eyes.

And Susan Sarandon, liberal Libra. I just included her for the cleavage! Bahah! She puts the "bra" in "Libra!"

Falling

I can't believe Fall is nearly here; I'm really fairly floored by that -- summer came and went so quickly.

I was pleased to renew some library books online -- I love that, the march of progress. Yet it's weird to see the library, now -- the books, largely unread, endless rows and floors, and one floor a corner of the floor, filled with computers with Internet hookups, packed with people. Like a hive. Books are old media. I love books, but it's so apparent how retro they are, more so in the library. At the rate our country's going, public libraries themselves may be gone in a generation -- combination of lack of funding and literacy, a toxic brew. I love books, but it did make me sad to see the unattended shelves full of books. Lost monuments. Ten years ago, there would have been a flurry of activity, but now, silent rows, a wealth of untouched ideas, lost worlds. Books are becoming a boutique industry.

I'm not melancholy at the moment; just reflective, thinking about things.

It's quiet tonight, and cooling off. The city seems quiet -- the battening down of the hatches, the passing of summer into our brief Autumn. Chicago's Fall is not a long one, compared with other places I've lived. The leaves all but leap off the trees.

B2 wants to be Bumblebee for Halloween -- the original TRANSFORMERS Bumblebee, which he loves. I think it's cute how much he loves that. B1 hasn't decided, yet.

B2 played soccer Saturday, in driving rain (they didn't cancel practice!) English coaches, great accents, loved that. B2 did a great job -- it's early, yet, and he's young, but his natural athleticism is remarkable: quick, strong, dextrous, competitive. I can already tell he's going to be one of those kids who'll be able to compete in anything he tries out for. He's a natural.

B1 never was -- not for T-ball, not for soccer. Oh, he gamely got out there and did it, but he's not a natural athlete by any means, and the intricacies of competition leave him sort of spinning his wheels a bit. I empathize with that -- I'll encourage him to be active in what he has a knack for, and what he enjoys. I don't have any conceptions of what he should be except happy and loved and accepted.

All the same, it's still remarkable that his baby brother is the natural, except in one area: rhythm. B1 has a natural sense of rhythm that pops up in unexpected moments. It's almost like because he doesn't have to think about it, he attains that measure of grace in movement that is lost to him in other activities. While B2 would be a natural musician in the sense of having dexterity and a diva-like sense of himself, I think B1 might have a knack at the deeper game, if I can encourage him to challenge himself and apply himself to things.

Failing that, martial arts and/or swimming would be good for B1 -- active, but not quite so team-based. Where his natural inclinations can come into play and he can excel in his own way.

Both boys are so smart, they crackle with intelligence. It makes me happy to see that, because they're going to need it in this world they'll eventually inherit.

The Abyss Also Gazes Into You

And talking about eyes, celebrities, and zodiacal silliness, I totally have to bring up Scorpios. Because Scorpios also stand out -- I can detect female Scorpio celebrities with uncanny accuracy. I'll say "I bet she's a damned Scorpio" and I'll be right. Scorpio guys are harder to detect, and I don't know why that is; I think a general fucked-upness is in play with Scorpio guys that has them maybe at odds with themselves.

And lord help the world when a Scorpio gets a bee in their bonnet, because it's never coming out. The Scorpio Gaze is different from the Libra Gaze in that there's a hardness to it (regardless of how girly and pretty the woman is, Scorpio Eyes are HARD), and the second sterling quality of the Scorpio Gaze is that it bores into you. Whereas a Libra's just gazing at you flatly, a Scorpio is bringing their searchlight eyes to bear on you, seeing through you -- I have likened it to gazing in a dark pool of water, and you know there's a sea monster in there looking back at you; you can't quite see the monster, but you know it's there, and it's looking back at you, and it will kill you, if you're not careful. Let's look at some examples...

First, let me start with an exemplar. Vivien Leigh. She masterfully put her Scorpio Eyes to work to secure all sorts of roles, and she put those headlamps to bear in shot after shot. Very memorable (and, amusingly, she channeled the archetypal Libra with Blanche DuBois, but she still had Scorpio eyes in that role).

Grace Kelly is likely one that would fool most people -- they'd think "Oh, she's a Libra, right?" Because she has those elements. Except the eyes. Grace Kelly's eyes are the "tell" with her. A "Scorpio Test" I like to do is to cover the rest of the face, revealing only the eyes. If they're the eyes of a killer, then odds are very, very good that you're dealing with a Scorpio. Try it, you'll see. Monster in the water, gazing up at you from the depths. Wanting to eat you.

And who can forget Sean Young, in her fleeting star turn in "Bladerunner?" Exemplary Scorpio Eyes (and Scorpio lifestyle, if history is any indication). Again, the eyes aren't flat; rather, they are boring into you, across space and time, and are devoid of compassion. Pretty face, killer's eyes.

What about sweet, bosomy, goofy-faced Anne Hathaway? Such a nice young woman, masterfully suited for particular roles? Mmm hmm. The eyes. Mind those deadly eyes -- they will drown you.

Kelly Osbourne? Not that plump little child of celebrity. Not her, too, surely? God, yes. Deadly eyes. Scorpio Eyes.

Jenny McCarthy, the Joan of Arc of anti-vaccination? Yep. She might be mistaken for a Libra in the above one, if you weren't paying attention, but those eyes are boring into you, saying "Hey, don't you realize that vaccination is the greatest threat to humanity since fluoridation?" Sure, Jenny. Just try convincing a Scorpio that they're wrong. Seriously. Try it sometime.

Callista Flockhart is another exemplar. The Scorpio Gaze gives away nothing, while seeks to plumb your depths (if there). I imagine Scorpios could be good poker players, just because they'd sit across the table and freak out the other players with their killer's eyes.

Let's not forget Winon Ryder. She based a whole career on those sea monster eyes of hers. I imagine she thought she could shoplift with those eyes, like just stunning the clerks into submission.

Another 80s icon of sorts, Demi Moore. She epitomizes the Scorpio Gaze in a postmodern world. Determined, ruthless, deadly. The "tell" with Scorpio eyes is that they stand out from the face that surrounds them, and they bore into you.

Rachel McAdams is one who might fool the unwary, because of her "America's Sweetheart" kind of bearing, and her big, cartoonish smile. But she's a Scorpio, and the eyes are the Tell. She will fucking kill you, if you're not careful.

Pretty. Vacant.

I have a thing for Libra women; the rule of thumb is if a celebrity babe strikes my fancy out of the blue, odds are good that she's a Libra. I can't account for it, but it's so often true that I can usually spot them. Many of my celebrity crushes are Libra babes. A big tell is their eyes -- they have doll eyes, basically, with a flat aspect to their gaze. Here are some samples...

Naomi Watts. Hard-working actress who is generic enough that she gets a lot of work, but then people are like "It was that movie with, you know, what's her name?"

Avril Lavigne, who may or may not qualify as a celebrity, anymore. Does she still sing? I dunno. But dig those empty, empty eyes. What's she thinking about? Anything?

Gwen Stefani is one of the Libra exemplars -- pretty, fashionable, femme, stylish, but what's going on in that head? Her dark eyes help disguise it, but I bet there are ample tales behind the scenes.

Ah, Kate Winslet. Yes, yes, yes. A fine actress, and so fond of doffing her duds to reveal her delightful curves, what's not to like? And I do think she's mighty fine. And yet, those eyes, what to make of them? She's an exemplar in terms of my "Libra Eyes" meme. You can pick through any number of her shots and see them gazing out at you flatly.

It's hard to find a celebrity more "Libra-ish" than Gwyneth Paltrow. She's a true Libra exemplar, who manages the breezy flakiness and nutball trippiness with the blandly beautiful appearance and those astoundingly flat eyes (they look even emptier when she's actually acting, in motion -- her eyes are like marbles).

Another exemplar is Alicia Silverstone. She can look at you with those flat eyes and it makes you want to snap your fingers in front of her face like "Hello? Is there anybody in there?" It's not that Librans aren't smart, because I'm sure they are; it's just that their eyes have that shallow gaze that gives you absolutely no indication of what's going on in there.

And lest you think it's only female Librans who have this quality...

I mean, we know Matt Damon's a smart guy, right? But what's with those eyes? Again, the finger snap test comes into play, here.

Viggo Mortensen. Helllllooooo? Viggggo? Where you at, Holmes?

Now, Librans are usually smooth operators, socially, and can be superficially charming, even charismatic after a fashion (and who can argue with the Libran tendency toward exhibitionism?), but they all have those Libran dolls' eyes that are usually a dead-eyed giveaway, if you're paying attention. If eyes are the mirrors of the soul, then are Librans ultimately soulless? Are those mirrors two-way, or merely one-way? That proverb is never more perfect than with Librans.

Color Purple

When faced with the umpteen coloring books scattered around the apartment, I sometimes get the compulsion to color in them, but I always use trippy colors. So, when confronted with a zebra in a coloring book, rather than black and white, I opt for some trippy hues. When seeing a tree, I make it purple, or yellow, or whatever color hits at the moment. I like making whole scenes where the colors of everything are off. Then, when my boys get around to nosing through'em, they see those and are like "What the-- ?? Daddddddy!"

Working Assets

Rest assured, it's easy to assess what Jessica Biel's greatest cinematic asset is...

The Aliens Have Landed

Somewhere out there is an air conditioning unit that requires servicing. Right now, it makes a whirring sound, like a fan in need of some WD-40 or something, that sounds like a hovering flying saucer might, or like a giant monster cricket. And it cycles repeatedly -- it'll run for about three minutes, and will then shut down. And then you'll hear it again. I can never properly isolate the unit, because the way it echoes off the buildings, it's hard to isolate (and it appears to only be on at night). Anyway, I'm hearing it now. God help you if you hear it when you're awake (and trying to sleep), because you just hear that fucking noise. It makes me want to be a rooftop repair ninja, tracking down that sound and slathering the offending piece of machinery with WD-40.

There, it stopped. But it'll be back. At least the Reggae Asshole Brigade appear to be snoozing right now. They had that party over the weekend with "Gonna get fucked up!" as the crowd's mantra, shouted every few minutes. Life in the big city!

Back to sleep, hopefully!

Maggie Q & A

I haven't decided what I think about Maggie Q, yet. There's a bit of cognitive dissonance with her half-Asian look -- like she's equidistant between her Polish, Irish, and Vietnamese heritage, giving her an oddly hybrid appearance that makes it hard to properly evaluate. She's good-looking...kinda. Hot, and yet, confusing....

Arg

Work's been wicked busy today! I'll try to post something this evening!

Autumn Angst

Chilly morning; Autumn officially hasn't begun, yet, but it's here. No Indian Summer, it seems. Just a dive into Fall.

I cranked out 3000 words yesterday, marching on toward my goal. Only 50,000 more to go, give or take. I've got new ideas in line behind the piece I'm working, vying for attention, but I'm being a trooper and getting this one done, first. That always happens -- a new idea is like "Look at me! Look at me!" But I stick it out, give'em a number, and make'em wait in line. Have to do that, to get anything done.

I'm a little angsty going into the Fall -- just trying to juggle a lot of plates, wondering what's going to happen in the elections, whether the country will opt for Republican Lite (the Democrats) or Republican Extreme (the Tea Party cadres). That's the truth of the choices we have -- today's Democrats are like yesterday's Republicans (seriously, their patron saint, Reagan, would have been drummed out of today's GOP for being a raging liberal and a traitor, since he actually worked with Democrats). And today's Democrats would have FDR, Truman, LBJ (and, hell, even JFK) spinning in their graves with the weak tea they offer. The Democrats actually did have a mandate for change, and wouldn't run on it. Obama's feckless pursuit of "bipartisanship" bought him exactly nothing, since the Tea Party hate him because he's black, and the GOP lined up against him because they wanted to deny him any victories at all. Sigh.

We need more political parties, truly. That's the real fix for the stalemate. Competition. But it's not coming in this election.

Blown Away

Wow, windy day today! 15-30 mph winds! A gusty start to the school year! I took B1 to school, which was a bit hectic -- they hadn't assigned teachers to the students, yet; rather, they had classroom assignments without explicit teachers. Made for a kind of chaotic start of the year, with parents jockeying to find out where their kids were were supposed to go.

Lovely day, wonderful weather.

The long weekend shot by. Amazing that it's fall already.

B2 has such a facility with language; it's quite cool -- he speaks well ahead of his peers. The words he uses, how he speaks, his understanding of syntax, etc. Love it. B1 wasn't particularly looking forward to going to school, but I'm sure he'll have fun once he gets into the groove.

Trebuchet happens

This morning, I was called upon to make a Lego trebuchet by the boys, no mean feat, given that the Legos we have are a mish-mash of various sorts, not sets explicitly trebuchet-intended. But I came up with a workable one that the boys began using to fling Lego projectiles around. B2 was miffed that I put wheels on it, so I took those off, trading mobility for stability. B2 is busy setting up targets and launching things at them. Gotta love Legos!

Today

Last day of Summer for the boys. B1 starts school tomorrow.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_6

Long weekend was pretty good, overall. The boys had a lot of fun, primarily with me, naturally! Today is autumn-chilly.

I climbed a tree in the park with the boys yesterday, which was amusing, since people would walk by and see us in the tree and react to it -- bland smiles, or, with kids around, they'd climb the tree (or its neighbors) for awhile, too. B1 calls the tree we were on "The Fun Tree."

Nothing fancy planned today.

Light

Lovely light day, already the autumn sun seems so in evidence, fall temps. Had the boys at one of the playgrounds, they had a good time, their playful chaos. Played with Legos aplenty until I was almost dizzy with construction visions. I made tortellini for dinner, a Sicilian tomato sauce with various olives. B1 pleased me by digging into it and giving it a literal thumbs up. Good boy!

Transitioning to Fall, school starts for B1 next week. He's not looking forward to it, although I'm trying to have him read each day, get him back in that spirit.

Sleepy.

Bus Trackers

I meant to write about this awhile ago, but kept forgetting. Ever since the CTA started its Bus Tracker, there's kind of a funny thing that's evolved at the bus stops -- CTA flash mobs! I'm a CTA empiricist; there are either buses coming or not. But lots of people rely on the Bus Tracker to get an estimate of a bus's arrival. And the result of this is that you'll often have a sense of a bus's imminent arrival because, out of nowhere, people will congregate. I mean, people do that, anyway, but the Bus Tracker folks will appear on less-trafficked stops, and that's how you'll know. You'll go from nobody there to suddenly a dozen people there. It's amusing to me, and it's entirely a result of the Bus Tracker.

Sunset

Yesterday's sunset. I enjoyed it.

Finally

Finally got iFucko to work. Here's that amusing Clooney shot. I'm sure they were high-fiving themselves at the Redeye over this headline, or else doing some Beavis & Butthead cackles...

90210?!

Hope everybody's having a swell 9/02/10 today...

Jesus H. Christ

Nice to see SLATE catch up with my August 21 post about the J. Crew Hipster Jesus.

Circadian, Cyclopean, Chthonic

My internal chronometer got me up right at 5:00. I haven't needed an alarm clock in at least a decade. Kinda funny, how circadian rhythms work like that. I just wake up instantly.

Had a dreadful dream about giant centipedes -- like those spindly-legged ones, only these were as big as my hand, with legs about as thick as pencils. They were in Grant Park, skulking about. I kept squishing them, but they kept appearing. Yucko! Frickin' giant centipedes! *SQUISH*

I've been reading Peter Straub's "Ghost Story," although it's been slow-going for me. Something about his style of writing, it's just heavy, ponderous. I mean, a 23-page prologue, for god's sake. I can't quite put my finger on it, but I'm about 123 pages into it, and I'm still not particularly into it, so I feel like he's failed me as a writer (I don't think I've failed him as a reader because I've persisted, despite not being moved by the story or the characters). I've tried to read Straub before, and there's just something about the way he writes that drags on me. I'm reading it because it's been touted as an exemplary ghost story (I remember the dreadful movie made from it), so it's sort of a reconnaissance read for me.

Bahah

I saw George Clooney on the cover of today's Chicago Redeye, touting his new movie, "The American." The article title: "Silent, But Deadly." I need to snap a picture of it.


(later)

I did, although shitty iPhoto isn't letting me upload it.

Hats off

I saw a guy come to my work today sporting a trilby. A trilby??! I know headwear is in fashion for guys, but somehow, pairing that with a golf shirt and running shoes, I dunno. Fail.

September

Rainy morning, super-humid and hot. More later, when I'm able (running late).

I did crank out 2,000 words this morning.