Blog-Sothoth

netflixed

2008-07-05T16:51:00.003-04:00

This quiet little gem turned me into a squirming basketcase. I won't say more because it's a hard film not to spoil in some way. Very clever and almost intolerably tense.

The first batch of shirts

2008-07-05T11:43:00.004-04:00

Just as the shirts become available, I find myself unable to drum up the enthusiasm to wear one. And folks wonder why I abandonded the Democrats to support 3rd party politicians for so long?

I was laboring under the misapprehnsion that Obama would be better than Clinton on corporate accountability. Hmmmm.

The shirts are ready to go. Colors available: black, blue, brown. American Apparel 100% organic tees made in the USA.

netflixed

2008-07-02T15:05:00.003-04:00

Some of the "edgy" Cockney/Irish tough hitman thrillers bore me; In Bruges never did. It strays a bit too close at times to smart-alecky Sexy Beast territory, but on the whole I found it quite enjoyable. Bruges is one of my favorite places on Earth, and the town and its art are used here to grand and clever effect.

Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, and Ralph Fiennes are excellent. As is Jordan Prentice.

Coming Soon

2008-07-01T20:52:00.001-04:00

Move Like Seamus plays Mick O'Shea's July 11th and 12th. Start time: somewhere around 9:30. Cost: somewhere around $3. Outcome: something akin to rocking.

Time to start rehearsing again.

#40

2008-07-01T18:46:00.002-04:00

For years I've been working through Manly P. Hall's Secret Teachings of all the Ages. I found Lectures on Ancient Philosophy much less rough going, and now have my feet of clay more firmly planted on the appropriate Path.

I can say no more lest the unprepared gather truths beyond their capacity. Silentium, after all, est aureum.

b'more for obama

2008-06-30T09:39:00.001-04:00

b'more for obama, originally uploaded by Blog-Sothoth.

The Mrs. is designing and selling shirts again for the summer and fall festivals. This is her Obama shirt.

living room

2008-06-30T09:27:00.001-04:00

living room, originally uploaded by Blog-Sothoth.

Gotta ditch that coffee table, get some lamps and more art up on the walls. But it's getting there.

new bookcase

2008-06-30T09:26:00.001-04:00

new bookcase, originally uploaded by Blog-Sothoth.

The new home for my Library of America volumes.

The back 40

2008-06-27T19:06:00.003-04:00

A crazy day today. Was summoned up out of a comatose sleep at 7:30 am and told by my wife that her dad was calling because the cops had cited the in-law's rural and un-occupied property up in Parkton for a bunch of violations after a neighbor complained.

Arrived at Parkton property still groggy 45 minutes later and set to work clearing brush and spraying poison ivy. Took a team of four of us 8 hours to clear the required overgrown plants: brambles, kudzus, sticker bushes, poison oak, ghetto palms, raspberry, blackberry, and mulberry bushes. I displaced several bird's nests, and the former residents were none too pleased about it either. A mockingbird set up a ruckus when he returned to the bush which previously housed his now downed nest and found only a pile of old rubbish in a burn-pile. I also displaced many toads, snakes, frogs, and at least one opossum. And butterflies. The berries were really tasty, however, and I picked and ate them before cutting, slashing, and stomping them to hell.

Any time I think to myself I might be getting tired of City life and be ready to head on back to the peace and quiet of country living, I shall put in a good eight hours clearing brush and raking and bagging dried grass and getting bug-bit 'n such.

Now I'm off to band rehearsal with actual blisters on my fingers from the rake, the shears, and the hedgetrimmer.

#39

2008-06-27T18:57:00.002-04:00

I suppose a body might find this here book adequately enjoyable, if'n of course a body don't mind the propensity of its author to include a large number of stretchers. Of course the stretchers tend to make the book more worth the effort of reading letters, which can strain the best of us. I know I laughed oftener and more fully reading it this time than I did when I read it last time for school.

netflixed

2008-06-26T23:56:00.002-04:00

Aw, this bubbly little gem reflected back at me the cavernous banality of my own existence. I love when films do that! Seriously, this is the most cheerful flick I've seen since Hundestaag.

netflixed

2008-06-26T09:50:00.003-04:00

The first season of the new BSG was excellent, the second season was pretty good, and the third season continued the erosion of my opinion from superlative through unenthusiastic positive and into "whatever." Friends and I used to watch Days of Our Lives at the pizza place in college because the opportunities for clever and contemptuous derision were hard to resist (and because of Kirsta Allen). Some of the episodes of BSG III approach that degree of stupidity. Increasingly the show suffers from the time-honored traps of sci-fi TV: three familiar characters and a nobody end up on the planet's surface. Gee--I wonder who will get blown away by Cylons? More than a third of the episodes in season III are true turkeys, and the grand finale is as ridiculous as anything involving Billie and Sami and Victor Kiriakis. I'm tired of the love interest plot-lines, the identity tricks, and New Agey spirituality. And I'm sure I'll be complaining about season IV too.

belated RIP

2008-06-25T09:08:00.002-04:00

I had the great privilege to see Carlin live in the '80s, in of all places York, Pennsylvania. Leon Redbone was the opening act. Carlin did the 7 words of course, and a great routine about martial language and metaphor in conventional political and sports talk.

Sold

2008-06-25T08:59:00.003-04:00

I'd heard about Woodward's auctions and how one could score great stuff cheap, but until yesterday I'd only shopped their consignment sections. After spending a Kafkaesque six hours at City school headquarters yesterday I went to their monthly auction in hopes of scoring a bookcase seen on their website.

Not only did I score that glass-front bookcase--a type most antique stores would charge $500 for--for a measly $85, but I also scored a gigantic ornate Nouveau double-wide bookcase for an appallingly cheap $95. I'd been planning to bid up to $200 on the single bookcase. And then I went nuts on stuff nobody else seemed interested in, like a three-piece Danish Modern bedroom set in marvelous condition, which I got for less than $90 total, and a small desk for $10, and two Danish Modern chairs for $5, and a marble-top corner table for $5. Gold jewelry and diamond rings and old coins went cheap, but I didn't even bid on that stuff.

I'm going again next month to get some rugs.

#38

2008-06-23T10:16:00.002-04:00

Bruno Schulz was murdered by the Nazis along with 150 other townspeople in Drogobych, and left behind only a few short stories and some unpublished work which was lost during the global cataclysm that took his life.

There is nothing like this collection of short stories. One could make comparisons to Kafka, Calvino, Borges, etc. But there truly is nothing like The Street of Crocodiles. The stories are the glorious and saintly ravings of a divine fool, as if Jacob Boehme decided to craft brief fictions. I read them at the beach in one morning atop the ground-down remnants of ancient sea creatures and surf-smoothed rock and ignored the people, birds, and waves.

see ya

2008-06-19T17:57:00.003-04:00

The Mrs. got a day off tomorrow so we're headed to Rehoboth Beach for three days. Got a room a block from the boardwalk for surprisingly cheap--guess there are lots of empties what with the economy in the tank and all.

Here's a big thanks to Dame Fortuna for giving us an opportunity to have a weekend away.

[image]

A Star is Born

2008-06-19T10:25:00.002-04:00

K'wali got hooked in with some filmmakers who did a 48-hour short film contest. Obviously he's the star of the show. Klezma said "I'll never get those six minutes of my life back," but I've seen much worse. "Going Campy" has its...moments? ...charms? ...?

Unfortunately we missed the big premiere at The Charles because we had dinner with my folks in PA.

#37

2008-06-18T16:24:00.002-04:00

You never know where Coover's randy imaginings will take you. In Pricksongs and Descants there are circus freaks, shepherds on the lam* from techno modernity, pedestrians trapped under vehicles after horrid accidents, and characters familiar from Grimm's tales.

Often the stories are experimental, but never in a gimmicky way. Often they are thigh-slappingly funny and ribald to boot. Good stuff. "The Babysitter" and "Quenby and Ola, Swede and Carl" are oft-anthologized for good reason.

*I admit it: pun intended.

lazy

2008-06-18T09:24:00.004-04:00

"Freedom is messy."--Donald Rumsfeld

I have a plan for my two months off. I want to work on my French every day and get it in shape so I can take the Praxis exam and be certified to teach two subjects. I also want to refresh long-lost Latin skills, and continue building a vocabulary of Tagalog words and phrases. And perhaps pick up where I left off in Arabic.

I want to get in mad physical shape too. If I'm spending at least another year at The Booker I want young people to see me and think "Gulp! I am not fucking off in that guy's room." I want to get back to running 6 or 7 miles at a pop, where I was two years ago before hurting my foot.

I want to read two or three hundred pages every day. I want to meditate. I want to make day-trips to Philly, NYC, DC, and Pittsburgh to visit museums. I want to sharpen my guitar playing.

I want to clean out and re-organize all the kitchen cabinets, which have become ridiculously haphazard in just one year at our new place. There are cans of refried beans mixed in amongst the glasses and tea cups. The food processor has bits and pieces located in six or seven different places. The silverware drawer has been lost to an invasion of hair ties, rubber bands, expired batteries, and tiny packets of cheap ketchup, duck sauce, and insect repellent spritzers.

This is day 3 of time off. I have done exactly nothing but think about my goals. Of course I hurt my back last Saturday so I can't do much--and Cha's car blew up and she's using mine so I can't sally forth and buy things I need to tidy the house. I have watched a film in French without subtitles and done some reading. But it's time to get serious about leisure.

netflixed

2008-06-16T16:48:00.004-04:00

Though the "action" of the film is often constrained by the one-eyed and motionless POV of its grievously hurt narrator, Julian Schnabel's painterly guidance keeps the viewer engaged by highlighting the beauty we often ignore in our surroundings: a sunlit curtain moving in the breeze, the play of light through tears, a surreptitious glimpse of breast or thigh.

Of course the film's uplifting focus is the power of memory and imagination to overcome disability, but The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is still terribly sad. I'd like to mention my favorite moments but don't want to spoil anything.

A special nod to Max von Sydow, who is as great here as he has always been.

cheeky

2008-06-15T11:13:00.002-04:00

THE BPA - THE BPA 'TOE JAM' FEAT. DAVID BYRNE & DIZZEE RASCAL from Fabio Resende on Vimeo.This cheeky video from David Byrne reminded me of an old John Cleese routine from the Secret Policeman's Other Ball. I couldn't find the original but here is a re-enactment (the announcer says at the beginning "They are naked and they dance":

#36

2008-06-13T20:07:00.002-04:00

Nicholson Baker writes the strangest little books. This one is about an odd fixation developed over John Updike and the influence of Updike and how Updike affects Baker's writing and ideas about what writers should be. It's often hilarious, because Baker has this obsession but really hasn't read much of Updike at all, including most of the novels, and yet certain mis-remembered images and passages from Updike's stories and essays have stuck with him. He also remembers his mother reading Updike and laughing her ass off.

Baker often creates characters with strange and startling obsessions. I think of the time-stopping pornographically-minded serial ejaculator in The Fermata, or the zany wannabe Bush assassin in Checkpoint. Great characters who go off on great Stanley Elkin rants. Here Baker himself goes off on great luxurious rants.

I liked U and I but would recommend it only for those like myself who are mired in the pseudo-intelligentsia, afraid or otherwise unwilling to read more complicamated fare at this time.

And re Updike, check out Gore Vidal's "Rabbit's Own Burrow" for an unapologetic and contemptuous dismissal of Updike's popular novels about Rabbit Angstrom.

the hood

2008-06-12T13:28:00.001-04:00

the hood, originally uploaded by Blog-Sothoth.

message clear

2008-06-12T13:27:00.001-04:00

message clear, originally uploaded by Blog-Sothoth.

nothing to do at school today, so I walked around the neighborhood taking pictures.

Patriotic Gore

2008-06-12T00:00:00.000-04:00

Mr. Vidal still entertains.