the list

The List: a Work in Progress

5.18.2008

Young Me/Me Now
Have now gone completely over to Foxfire; my theme: Foxkeh . The Together With Foxkeh add-on is kyuuto but I have some apprehension that it may be considered unprofessional at work.
Oh, I love Jon Miller (see below). During a Cactus League game the other week (Giants at White Sox) he was watching a guy in full Dodgers regalia doing a Tommy LaSorda in the stands, strutting about, flapping his team jacket in a Monty Python-esque taunting way 'n' stuff, and Jon Miller intones: "There goes a Dodger fan: arrogant... self-centered..." I love Jon Miller.
A Dress A Day!
"Why do I like [Mary Tyler Moore]? Because I'm American... and I'm not made of stone. That's why I like Mary Tyler Moore. I would throw my hat up in the air, but you don't want to see my hair today." (Isaac Mizrahi, Unzipped.)
Please sign the Mary Tyler Moore/Bob Newhart Show petition and help end our long national nightmare (viz., it's been over 15 months since the last seasons were released).
It recently occured to me that Karen Carpenter and Dick Van Dyke share a jaw.
I no longer have to miss Rich Aurelia and I look forward to another season of divining the Giants' fortunes based on the state of his facial hair. Update: apparently it took Rich five months to get his beard right.
You're not gonna have a country that can make these kind of rules work if you haven't got men that have learned to tell human rights from a punch in the nose. (I always get a great kick out of that part of the Declaration of Independence, too.)
Jon Miller.
I just noticed that the List is now 300 items long... but no one ever reads that far down, do they? I wouldn't if I were you. It's like a spooky basement with stacks of old magazines and sagging shelves, crammed with murky looking Mason jars of unidentified fruit. And hyperlinks. Or something.
Every now and then I check my webstats from Sonic, the Little ISP That Could. (It's the search strings I love... Bamalama seems to be the go-to site for Paul Poiret, celanese acetate and kitties.) But this month I noticed a couple of referring URLs I didn't recognize... a few clicks later I'm staring at two different blogs with links to Bamalama. And here I thought I was so well hidden! I was pretty sure that the only way anyone ever came over here was because they were married to me, friends with me, sent over from costello-l or looking for the lyrics to Aguas De Marco. (And of course the fans of Paul Poiret, celanese acetate and kitties.) Hrmph. At any rate, the description used in both of the blogs was "weird." Weird? Weird.
Though not a fan of slaws for the most part, I saw this recipe for Asian Cole Slaw in Savor and had to make it. (Throw some chopped peanuts on top before serving.) We enjoyed the healthier-than-thou feeling that comes with eating raw cruciferous vegetables, but realized it may have been somewhat mitigated by the fact that the slaw was accompanied by Bobby Flay's Double Cheddar Cheeseburger.
How I love that Terry Gross... she's talking to David Cronenberg about his film A History of Violence and this is the one question that throws him: "Are these the most passionate sex scenes you've ever done, as opposed to the sex scenes that are about the potential for contagion?"
How swell is it to be able to listen to Julius Shulman talking about eating beef sandwiches? Click on the View Multimedia link towards the top of the page; you can link to Huell Howswer's clips with Julius Shulman in Palm Springs, too, if the sight of his strangely buffed upper arms doesn't distract you.
New Mary due out on June 20th, which can only mean that I'll be able to hear Lou sing "three French hens" by the end of the year!
The Bettmann Archive.
A business guy shouting into his cell phone on the Embarcadero: "Are avoiding me or are you ignoring me?" Erm... both...
In other Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank's CPI calculator news, that's a $45 box of chocolates Buster Keaton wants to give his girlfriend in Sherlock Jr.! Honestly, the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank should get a genius grant for that thing.
What's the song stuck in your head right now? I've had the phrase "And you know your fate is where the Empire State is..." from "It's Nice to Go Trav'lin" lodged in my brain for two days now. Did people in the 17th Century get "Greensleeves" stuck in their heads, I wonder, or is this an exclusively 20th Century problem? I would ask James J. Kellaris but he seems to be using his talents not for good but evil. Bummer.
This whole baseball thing is getting out of hand. I can say this because I just found myself washing dishes after midnight, listening to the radio re-broadcast of a game I watched on TV four hours ago. (Giants 7, Reds 2-- bwah hah hah!)
And I still miss Rich Aurelia.
Ubi stubill ubam uba flubuent spubeakuber ubof Ububbubi Dububbubi.
I don't mean to be a bore about the Big Cat, but I found this nice story about the time he stole a base last year.
Cherries.
We, the cats, shall hep ya...
You know that scene in Sullivan's Travels where Joel McRea walks the mean streets, handing out five dollar bills? He's doling out about $63 per tramp. Always have the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank's CPI calculator handy when watching old movies or reading John O'Hara novels.
And speaking of John O'Hara novels: I've just reread a bunch of them and I noticed that there is someone named Fenstermacher in almost every one!!! I just thought you should know that.
There are two Lush stores in San Francisco now.
Did I ever show you the business card for Boba Fett I created for my web design class? I didn't think so.
"Nobble him? We're talking about one of the most powerful blokes in the cosmos!"
Windows.
Satsuma mandarins.
Columbo reruns.
Mike is kind enough to alert me that SCTV will be available on DVD in June.
Do you have a can of Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk (NOT evaporated milk) in your cupboard? If so, it's time to make a pan of Magic Cookie Bars.
We were watching Guys and Dolls and Marlon Brando started crooning "Your eyes are the eyes of a woman in love..." when my son asked "Do people in musicals know they're singing?"
Edward Everett Horton
Well, I've been busy!!!
F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote that "the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." Like the idea of Ray Charles and the idea of Ray Charles Singers.
Damn... I mean, bam... Emeril is growing on me. But I still think he looks exactly like Carla's ex-husband on Cheers.
You may feel you've lived a full life, but have you heard Anthony Newley sing "Goldfinger"? (I think you'll have to search for John Barry and fast forward to minute 13.) (On second thought, don't fast forward... you'll have fun listening to John Barry flirt with Terry Gross.)
A lovely, ripe Crane melon for breakfast.
Noel Streatfeild.
Ruth Rendell.
The Big Cat!
My favorite line from Darkman? It must be Frances McDormand saying: "If you're not going to kill me, I have things to do."
"The earth gave forth a fainting warmth, stealing up through the chilly garment in which winter had wrapped her. It was her long caress of invitation, to draw men down to lie within her arms, to roll their bodies on her, and to put their lips to her breath." Mash notes from Andy Partridge? Nope, John Galsworthy in A Man of Property.
You see I'm reading The Forsyte Saga for the very first time and it's really really good.
About the next line: I dreamt about a friend I haven't seen for years last night. I woke up, and for some reason, this was my first conscious thought: we all put 6" nails through our fingers, but if we can pull them out with the same aplomb as that guy on "Monster House"-- that's the stuff.
That guy who put a 6" nail through his finger on "Monster House."
Thai soup.
Man, John Barry.
Tua beleza e um aviao?
It's spring, and the garage band next door sounds even better than last year: Dick Dale meets the Ramones.
"I went on standing by the window and looked out at the view which was of another office building, perhaps the same Ministry, where there were rows of uncurtained windows and the activity of the rooms were exposed as if it was a doll's house... 'Is that another Ministry across there?' I asked. 'Ah, yes, the Ministry of Desire,' said William solemnly."--- Barbara Pym, Excellent Women
Wisteria, again.
Method's bamboo scented kitchen cleaner.
A clean kitchen floor.
Emma Peel.
"Kid About It" from the new Rhino Imperial Bedroom bonus disc... guaranteed swoon.
October 16, 2003.
Putting up shelves. Who needs Handy Andy?
A host of golden daffodils.
I've been meaning to write for ages, but...
Did you know that statue of Romulus and Remus and the she-wolf is a total fake-out?!
Drinking water from a municipal source.
The leaves of Persimmon trees in November.
Graham Greene's The End of the Affair.
The Imposters.
Those wonderful owls nesting atop the Harold Washington Memorial Library in Chicago.
Complicated Shadows funkified!
Trust.
The Judgement.
Long time no see! So how have you been?
You're playing Centipede and the mushrooms above you are arranged in such a way that the centipede bits start cascading down into a kind of mushroom-y torrent of doom, oh-so-easily dispatched by you (I mean, the snake head thingy).
Also, I like it when you get an extra snake head at 12,000 points.
Jonesing for larb? You can make your own, you know.
... and Poire William ...
Dover publishes the best coloring books ever.
George Sanders.
Pear cake... pear tart... pear butter... pears in brandy... poached pears...
Ultraman.
Peach crisp... peach cobbler... peach pie... peach ice cream... peach shortcake...
Akita!
My personal message to the guy who keeps outbidding me for Mystic Night action figures on eBay: By the Earth beneath me, I will have my Angus doll!!! (9/3/2002: Got 'im!)
A crane (or was it an egret?) lounging in Brush Creek.
Watching Bill Frisell: first off, he looks like the nicest dentist you ever had. Secondly, he uses his powers for good, not evil. (It is my belief that he and Eliza Carthy held that UCLA Harry Smith Project show together merely by their collective force of will.) Finally, watching his trio perform: each song starts out like a pleasant jumble of noise and you pick out the tune incidentally... like you're in bed and you half-catch some music playing from a car driving slowly down the street... and then you lose the tune as the car drives 'round the corner, but you can still hear the bass... then the car drives back around the block so that it's outside your window and you catch the tune again... clearer this time, so you can finally say with some assurance: "Oh, yeah, it's "What the World Needs Now." And then the car double parks outside of your window for a while...
"Certain tight parentheses might have been opened and allowed to spill their still active contents."--- Vladimir Nabokov, on his revision of Speak, Memory. I don't know, I have enough trouble with parentheses as it is, without Nabokov encouraging me to disembowel 'em...
Carpe diem.
This enormous old man leans out of a Buick in the Target parking lot today and says to me (in the mildest of tones) "Your hair's on fire."
Jill's relief expressed whilst eating a quesadilla: "I'm so glad I'm not lactose intolerant!"
Thereminworld
It's late May, and you can't drive two blocks without passing someone on the side of the road selling sweet cherries.
Moonlight
Shapeshifting
Paddleboats
In Speak, Memory, Nabokov writes about Synesthesia: "The long a of the English alphabet... has for me the tint of weathered wood, but a French a evokes polished ivory." Synesthetes see colors in letters and words, or musical notes. Nabokov's mother saw colors in musical notes, but Nabokov couldn't...
"Music, I regret to say, affects me merely as an arbitrary succession of more or less irritating sounds." --Vladimir Nabokov
IKEA
Book Crossing: the Read and Release program for bewks
Bob's Fruit Stand
There is this moment in The Thin Man where Nick and Nora are talking to Porter Hall's smarmy lawyer, and he's nattering on about something, not looking in their direction, when William Powell pokes his index finger directly at the middle button of Myrna Loy's blouse, and she looks down, and then he does that classic Three-Stooges thingie where lifts his hand up and bops her on the nose and then she screws up her face at him and he performs this wacky little silent heh-heh-heh dance while Porter Hall continues to natter on... I think he's on the phone or something. Anyway, I love that moment.
Oh my garshk-- is this a blog? Erm... I think I would have to update the thing a lot more often to achieve blogdom. phew!
Trixie
"This is like a trip to a very benign dentist."
We're now addicted to Reed's Ginger Candy Chews. Harmless, you might think-- but I see that Reed's does a Chocolate Ginger Ice Cream, too. I would buy some stock in Reed's, Inc.., but I've spent all my money buying Reed's Ginger Candy Chews.
A Vulcan! A Puerto Rican Vulcan!!!
Jill is caller number 20.
PLU laughing whilst reading The Guardian in bed; he won't tell me why.
Wedge Antilles.
The Carl Stalling Project.
Hey, Bulldog
Lugnet.
Faith.
That annoying Ewok song is nowhere to be heard in the special edition of Return of the Jedi. Now, if only they could do something about the weird wedges of terra cotta-colored blusher under Carrie Fisher's cheekbones...
Gio Ponti.
Rob Brezsny veers into automotive metaphor-mode and tells me I'm basically flooring it and braking at the same time. So that explains it... always crashing in the same car, eh...
Much of Ron's waking hours were spent coping with Parking Issues. He seemed to spend a lot of time parking and re-parking. He didn't have a permit for the lot closest to the dorms, apparently, but he managed to outwit and outmaneuver the parking police for most of the semester. I remember if Ron was parked on an incline he would get into the car, put the key in the ignition, release the emergency brake, and call out "Make me go backwards!"-- and the car would slide silently down the hill until Ron made it go frontwards. (The usual way, using the engine.) (My ex-husband tried this once-- without the incantation-- and did $500 worth of damage to the neighbor's BMW.)
Look, it's Saul Bass's house!
Black-eyed peas on New Years Day.
The perfect riposte: we're discussing potential "Stalk 2002" funding possibilities, and someone suggests forming a church for the tax-free status/capital-building benefits. Jill considers.

"The Church of Elvis Costello?"

She sips her daiquiri.

"What a dismal religion."
Santa, bring my baby back to me!
Coincidence.
Eau de Nile.
WIWC.
And don't talk put your head on my shoulder
Come close, close your eyes and be still
Don't talk, take my hand and listen to my heart beat
Listen... listen... listen...
The Country Wife.
Erm... Steve's site is up, now. (It works just fine, but I'm impatient and fond of the black keys.)
Pomegranates.
"It adds to the pleasure of life to notice things."-- Barbara Pym
The MacArthur Fellowship: "It is impossible to apply for the MacArthur Fellowship. There is no application or interview process, and notification comes in the form of a phone call from the Foundation. 'It is the first and only call we make to them, and it can be life-changing,' says [Program Director Daniel] Socolow." It is impossible to apply for the MacArthur Fellowship... is it any wonder I can't sleep at night? Too busy plotting, conniving and scheming to nab one of them Genius Grants!!! I'm like, channeling Stephen Boyd or something! Well... that is to say, I was, until I got a bead on how to score one... what a relief.
Calvados.
Raking the leaves.
To Build a Fire. In the fireplace, I mean-- how autumnal! Scrape the crud off of the fireplace insert first, so you can watch the flames. (...for ten minutes until the crud reasserts itself. This is why I keep a paint scraper next to the fireplace.)
So, I'm all like...
"Everything changes." --the Buddha
"The way you do anything is the way you do everything." --Tom Waits
"A block or two west of the new City of Man in Turtle Bay there is an old willow tree that presides over an interior garden. It is a battered tree, long suffering and much climbed, held together by strands of wire but beloved of those who know it. In a way it symbolizes the city: life under difficulties, growth against odds, sap-rise in the midst of concrete, and the steady reaching for the sun. Whenever I look at it nowadays, and feel the cold shadow of the planes, I think: 'This must be saved, this particular thing, this very tree.' If it were to go, all would go-- this city, this mischievous and marvelous monument which not to look upon would be like death." E. B. White, Here is New York
Eliza Carthy
Cats.
The Victoria and Albert Museum.
The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society.
School supplies.
You and the night and the movie...
Black-eyed peas.
He tells me, somewhat incredulously, about his father's suggestion that they play Miniature Golf together, in celebration of his seventh birthday. "That sounds like fun," I reply. He is outraged: "Miniature Golf?!" he sputters. "You didn't raise me for Miniature Golf!!!"
Wacky Golf. Jolly Roger. Jungle Caverns. Just a few of the fine Miniature Golf establishments I remember quite fondly from the summer I spent in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
"Mr. [David] Thomas can be the most charming & exciting personality if very simple steps are taken to avoid awkwardness. Once he gets rolling there are no problems, you can sit back, relax & observe a professional smarming his way into the hearts of all around him. The initial stages, however, are critical." So, don't take chances! Study the Ubu Projex Protocols if there's even the slightest possibility that you'll be working for, with, or in Pere Ubu, ever.
Fireworks.
Fog.
Waterloo Bridge.
Dust.
Vintage hats.
The bunny rules, OK?
I came across this article on the stamps of "Neurope" whilst scanning images from a vintage magazine, y'see, when I noticed a stamp issued from a place I'd never heard of: Fiume. A click here, a click there and now I'm really pleased that the story of an Italian poet with fascist tendencies who declared himself the ruler of a city in Croatia and was consequently shelled by the battleship Andrea Doria lives in my brain.
Love-in-a-Mist blooms again. Who's pushing the petals on the season cycle?
Shave ice.
The Story Project.
The Harry Smith Project.
The Loony Project.
Wisteria.
Thank you, Mr. Haas, for bringing the lurid paperback cover of the week into my life.
Paula Poundstone‘s right: “[D]one correctly, almost nothing is more satisfying than vacuuming." (Emphasis mine.) (Mind you, that’s a very specific kind of satisfaction, the satisfaction of vacuuming. I don‘t think the B.T. Express wrote “Do it (‘Til You‘re Satisfied)” about vacuuming.)
Weeding.
Bread pudding made with chocolate brioche.
I used Brunching Shuttlecock's Alanis Morissette Random Lyric Generator to compose a song about Jennifer Jason Leigh, but I'm not proud of myself.
A hand drawn slowly and gently across a face.
Gold Brick: the ice cream topping I've been daydreaming about for decades. I still haven't placed an order, but it's not because I fear ice-cream-topping-disappointment; I just haven't got any money.
Velour.
"This hour of Morning Edition is brought to you by Accenture, formerly Anderson Consulting."
Did you ever imagine that one person was responsible for the "look" of the classic Penguin paperbacks? Me neither. It was Jan Tschichold! Loosely associated with the Dadaists and Bauhaus... jailed by the Nazis for producing "degenerate typography" (?!)... escaped to Switzerland and changed the face of British mass market paperbacks forever! Yow.
But you knew all about the Socialist font cooperative, right? "Using socitype is very easy : It need not to be explained, just try it out (it is better explained in the german text, but our labour-english is not good enough to explain this. But we are shure, that you will understand it without guide.."
As you walk along the street
A porcupine you meet.
How do you shake his hand when he says "Hi"?
Ah... carefully, carefully, careful-LY
How delightful to discover that the "L Y" song from The Electric Company was written by Tom Lehrer!
I didn't get where I am today without a handy list of C.J. quotes at the ready.
Phonebook of the World is a very nice site indeed and you'd be surprised by the sheer number of Gaskells in the North. However...
Vite, une adresse, une photo, un plan! Les Photos De Paris reveals the utter swell-ness of the Internet! Someone... or something has walked down every street in Paris and taken photographs of practically every building! So you can enjoy a virtual Parisian stroll any time, even if you're in Poughkeepsie!
Victor Spinetti's nose. (Bonus Victor Spinetti link because I couldn't help myself, really.)
Adios, Blistex!!! Baby's got a brand new hairdo! I mean, lip balm alternative.
The delicious voice of Joan Greenwood.
"You hate your work. That's normal." --- Denny, the In-House Psychologist.
The Guardian's A Century of Films. I don't care who you are, I've seen more of them than you have. You, on the other hand, have had a life, so don't get huffy.
Yow! Rob Brezsny just told me I should "channel [my] libido into one (and only one) flying wedge of raw, flaming ambition" this week! Look out, world...
Blistex: I can stop any time I want to.
Which lesson will cause you to snort with laughter whilst reading this Paula Poundstone article?
For me, it was the tire rotation bit.
It all started whenI discovered I've been using the word "pissant" incorrectly all my adult life.
Damn! Born too late and in the wrong class ever to attend a house party in camp.
When you need William Steig's birthday and you need it now, consult Aspen Elementary School's excellent Birthdays of Authors and Illustrators database. You might wish to search the database by date, in which case you'd find out that tomorrow is William Joyce's birthday. I love William Joyce.
But I'll admit that Jon Scieszka put more effort into his "Salon" list.
"Traffic was now hopelessly snarled, and all of the knights and ladies were blowing their horns. A factory whistle screamed, and more knights and ladies emerged for lunch hour, reading comic books and movie magazines. One of the knights jostled Roger. "I crave thy pardon, gentle sir," said Roger. "Get out of the way, stoopid," said the knight, shoving past. From somewhere nearby, a band started playing "Sh-Boom, Sh-Boom." -- Edward Eager's Knight's Castle
There was a moment on today's Fresh Air when Al Green is remembering his first minor hit and then Terry Gross says "Will you sing a little bit of that?" and he does. Can you imagine? That's your job? You go to work in the morning, fill in your timesheet, then ask Al Green to sing for you? And then he bleeding does? Man.
It's a good thing that somebody's created a website dedicated to The Mad Monster Party, a real good thing.
The dog trots in, fur matted with burrs, you comb... then brush... then comb... then brush. She's patient; you're thorough. Strangely satisfying on all sorts of levels.
Fog, again.
Oh, Steve Nieve again. Because I don't think anyone ever gets that far down in the List, really.
"The Birds Will Still Be Singing" reminds me so much of Truly, Madly, Deeply that when ever I hear the song, I conjure up the image of Juliet Stevenson's dripping nose. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Regis loves Susan!
God give me strength: the Sony MZ-R900 portable minidisc recorder/player. Still... the best things in life are free... to whit:
Plucking out a million love-in-a-mist seedlings. Whacking back a summer's growth ivy. Picking figs. Autumnal, innit? Considering it's 80 degrees outside...
The Cooker.
Gromit. Gromit's eyebrows, I guess.
And while you're at it, you might as well send an Aardman postcard to someone you adore...
What are the Brits all on about?
Now you can live in an Eichler house vicariously thanks to the Eichler Network!
The Nicholas Brothers
Scots write movie reviews; you read 'em. It's just not the sort of thing you expect to find in Edinburgh in July.
You could also click here and listen to Terry Gross ask Samuel L. Jackson if he ever wonders who is fantasizing about him at any given moment.
Good. Lord. Almighty. The new mix of "Clubland."
I don't know where but she takes me there... deconstructing "Good Vibrations" on Monday's NPR 100. I'll testify ad nauseam for Brian Wilson circa Pet Sounds any time you like. But for years I haven't been able to hear this song without mentally broadcasting a soda commercial. Thankyouthankyouthankyou Bob Boilen.
Now go read Lewis Shiner's Glimpses. It's out of print, so you may have to go to a library or something... oi, no smart remarks!
Self-seeding annuals... (hooray!)... love-in-a-mist both blue and white... prickly borage with cerulean blossoms... pink and white cosmos blooming all over the damn garden... cleome seedlings... a million of 'em... and they grow up to about 6" tall... help me, please, Lord... and bring a hand weeder...
Renewing our faith in British film directors called Mike: Mike Leigh
David Thewlis and Jane Horrocks are the same person. (Though I must say this one violates the " you've never seen them in the same picture, have you?" rule.)
I can draw Oddish and you can, too.
I didn't know I needed it until I saw it: The Heptune Guide to Betty Boop Cartoons. My fave Betty Boop cartoons described in loving detail, complete with musical links. An irrational, all-consuming need to find out who's playing "The Delaware-Lackawan" on Betty Boop's Mask-A-Raid led me to Heptune's site. Have I mentioned that I love the Internet?
Did you notice that the List is now 100 items long?!
A very helpful Brit with a gift for writing comprehensive and clear instructions tells you how to copy your MP3s to Minidisc.
"The Shellac Shanty." Think of it as the 'net equivalent of Jazz Rogue Radio.
At one point in my life I saw a Mike Figgis movie I actually enjoyed. ( "...in a loathsome sort of way."--- Hildy Johnson)
Lynda Barry's Salon strip: 100 Demons! (The "Dogs" strip is my absolute favorite... so far. Sweet and poignant and level-headed and devastatingly apt.)
Ian Shoales makes fun of web sites like this one.
Steve Nieve
The Ernie Kovacs Papers. The Lloyd Bochner Collection Of Scripts For Television, 1960-1992. The Jean Renoir Papers. The Bernard Herrmann Collection of Music for Film, Television, and Radio Productions, 1935-1969. The Big Band Photographs Collection. The David Dodd Grateful Dead collection. And there must be a million more reasons why we should digitize archives and special collections immediately! (Because I obviously don't spend enough time messing about on the web.)
Ennio Morricone's score for "Once Upon a Time in the West"
The bittersweet memory of Jazz Rogue Radio.
Low power FM radio service (I'm loathe to say a word agin' NPR, but they're behaving more than beastly regarding this issue.)
Scots tell a joke about the queen. (That would be Phil Cunningham at minute #32 if you're impatient.)
"It's just not the sort of thing you expect to find in Scotland in January." Please detail any information you have regarding when, where and with whom you manage to work this sentence into a conversation in my Mysterious Guestbook.
From Elvis Costello's insightful take on "My Funny Valentine"... to Coleman Hawkins' transcendent "Body and Soul"... to the fascinatin' skinny on Talking Heads' "Once in a Lifetime"... the NPR 100 rox0rs, seriously. Listen to it every Monday afternoon on All Things Considered or listen to the stream.
Aguas De Marco, Antonio Carlos Jobim & Elis Regina
O Grand Amor Getz/Gilberto.
The recently unearthed doodles of my early film wanking career.
Sunday morning and Dan's Screenshot Quiz. (RIP, dear Screenshot Quiz)
Museo Franz Mayer: Applied Arts of Mexico. "[W]hen almost everything seems ephemeral and it becomes increasingly impossible to escape the urgent demands of the immediate-- at least enough so as to consider the significance of our own participation in the cultural process- a visit to the Franz Mayer Museum proves to be both a pleasant and comforting experience, confirming the existence of man's creative power and the important work of the hands in preventing the dissociation of the body and soul." A similar "vibe" is conveyed in the Bacharach/David song "Reach Out For Me." However, this fine tune fails to mention Museo Franz Mayer in any significant way.
The knowledge that I can hear David Sedaris' uncanny evocation of Billie Holiday singing 1960s radio commercials any damn time I feel like it. (As long as I can access the This American Life web page, that is. If you damn well feel like it: go to This American Life, click on favorites, then click on music lessons, then play the file using RealAudio, damnit!)
Chicken Man, sworn arch-enemy of Little Sting.
Brits rule, okay.
Paula Poundstone.
Kingman, Arizona.
The brilliantly absurd (or absurdly brilliant) booklets... maybe funny pamphlets... or coloring books of Brian Charles Brooks. (Earn Enough For Us - XTC supplementing their income 1993 - 1998 led me to Brian. God I love the Internet.)
"I don't want to see a movie with sperm in it." ---Susan
"You can't tell who's fat on NPR" --Roy Blount Jr..
Raymond Loewy
Korbel's Rouge
Shirley Jackson.
Letter to the Datebook section of the San Francisco Chronicle: An image of a small girl attracted by bright lights... she draws closer to its' source and discovers Eric von Stroheim harassing Zasu Pitts to the tune of a small melodeon and a violin... Decades later, this girl (now grown, and apparently the sort of person who would do such a thing) attends a screening of "Greed" at the New York MOMA. She writes: "Suddenly before my eyes there appeared the scene I had witnessed as a child, exactly as I had seen it." And I feel as if my head's just been blown off by the 20th century...
"Cheers!"
Roasted asparagus.
XTC:In a perfect world, "Merely a Man" would replace "The Star Spangled Banner" as our national anthem. Or something.
Heavens to Betsy, it's http://www.joestrummer.com/!!!
Ava Gardner.
Lou Johnson singing Bacharach/David's "The Last One to Be Loved": if they were to discover a long-lost Robert Aldrich movie from 1964, this is the song that would be playing under the opening titles.
Antonio Carlos Jobim's living room.
Coleman Hawkins
Salvador Teran.
Elizabeth Bowen's The House in Paris: read it in transit (by air, sea or land), perhaps with tears streaming down your face.
Clotheslines. Using them. The way your clothes smell, afterwards.
I say a little prayer.
Saul Bass.
Cats in winter.
Minidiscs!
Are you there with another girl? Dionne Warwick, Bacharach & David, especially the break.
Lawrence Harvey's shoulders.
By the same token: Bobby Morse's mouth. (Circa: Guide for the Married Man)
"I keep my lipstick twisted tight." This line, perhaps the uber-EC line as far as I'm concerned, is from...
Elvis Costello's new hit song "I Dreamed of My Old Lover Last Night," a song that I never want to hear sung by anyone else, no matter who the heck they are and no matter what he does with the rest of this work-- which seems to be some kind of a song cycle... or musical... or interactive CD-ROM... and which is called, by the way...
"The Delivery Man"
Thrift shops.
Lynda Barry. (Read Everything in the World)
Bill Griffith Have yet to adjust to the fact that he and his lovely wife (Diane Noomin, the mastermind behind Didi Glitz) picked up and moved to Connecticut.
Roz Chast. (Read Unscientific Americans)
Matt Groening. (Read Love is Hell)
Carol Lay. (Read her Story Minute in Salon)
Message to Nick Park: please market the heck out of Wallace and Gromit, you deserve all the money in the world.
"It's what we do."
October and the sharp smell of cedar.
Chocolate brioche.
Picasso's free-wheelin' doves... my mother called them "the after-dinner Picassos."
Cary Grant & Ingrid Bergman, Notorious: a kiss that winds 'round the room.
Brits! In boxes, dumbwaiters or as houseguests.
Ella singing Baby don't you go 'way mad.
My hand on your hip.
Grace under pressure.
Lavandula x intermedia "Grosso."
NPR.
Specifically, "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me."
Especially, Roy Blount Jr. on "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me."
A lovely daiquiri.
Stuckey's.
A bowl of grapenuts pudding eaten in Maine or New Hampshire or Vermont.
A hand drawn slowly and gently across a face.
Seeing Barbara Pym on the tiny steps of the Bodleian. (In my mind's eye, of course, I am not a loony!)
The following joke (as told by Roy Blount, Jr. on the 1998 annual joke show of A Prairie Home Companion): "The chicken and the egg are lying in bed and the chicken is smiling and smoking a cigarette and the egg is upset. The egg mutters, to herself, 'Well, I guess we answered THAT question...'"
Albert Brooks. (Susan adds: Albert Brooks experiencing just how great the chicken is, in "Defending Your Life.") (I swear that the juxtaposition of the last two entries was a complete accident. But I am now giggling way too helplessly to fix it.)
The ball gowns of Charles James.
"Scent" memory. Is there a better term? I mean smelling something and finding yourself transported to another place 'n' time via that smell. Like the olfactory equivalent to a Proustian rush Yesterday, I was walking towards a mall (sorry) and caught a whiff of spiced grease from a near-by Mongolian restaurant; when the grease co-mingled with the salty tang of coastal fog I suddenly found myself in La Jolla, California, in the late 1970s, driving past the Jack in the Box on La Jolla Boulevard and Forward Street. This Jack in the Box (now deceased) was about three blocks from the ocean (hence the sea air association in my olfactory memory). The cool thing about scent memory is its complete surprise: I didn't know I had a scent memory about that frowzy old J. in the B. until yesterday. One can't conjure up scent memory at will. I admit I enjoy those times when my body has a mind of its own, so to speak. (My "official" mind needs work, as you can tell.)
The Men they Couldn't Hang, the Pogues and Elvis Costello & the Attractions, Hammersmith Palais October 1984.
Tom Carson's old column in the L.A. Weekly.
Peaches warm from the tree, late July.
Gayle's, Capitola. Worth the three hour drive? Of course it is! If you can manage a ride on the Giant Dipper, as well.
Gaudi's Park Guell (note to Mr. Death: must see before I shuffle off mortal coil.)
Al Green.
The first time I heard the Everly Brothers' "'Til I Kissed You."
Giant Dipper, ridden in coastal fog, Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.
Ants Climb a Tree, from the Omei.
Dorothy Canfield Fisher.
Caesar's Palace about ten or twelve years ago. A tall, heavily muscled young man stands at the entry of the hotel's moving staircase. He is dressed as a Roman... or an approximation thereof... a white mini-skirt with box pleats, a tunic accented with gold appliqué and sandals with gold lame lacing up the calves. He also sports a centurion's helmet, topped (if memory serves) by a white plume. His arms are crossed. We find his entire ensemble a rather intimidating, if somewhat glam. Taken aback (and who wouldn't be?), my friend Consuelo and I pause, dumbstruck at this startling evidence of Caesar's Palace unrelenting attention to detail. The Centurion nods to us, and speaks in a voice that is pure San Fernando Valley: ""How you folks doin'?" We exhale.
Freebie Thursday newspapers: there's one in your city, I am sure.
Fallingwater.
Elvis Costello sings "Couldn't call it unexpected no. 4" without amplification, Santa Rosa, California June 2, 1999 And at Arie Crown theater with Joyce glowing over there to my left. And at Sunrise theater, where I needed to be propped up for a bit.
TV Party: I love you.
That lot of five Bob Hoskins seated directly behind me on my flight to London.
Philip Larkin. A champion of Barbara Pym! Plus, he was a librarian! Ah, gowan! I mean who could resist the opening lines of "This Be the Verse?"

            They fuck you up, your mum and dad
            They may not mean to, but they do.
            They fill you with the faults they had
            And add some extra, just for you.