Friday, January 18, 2008

My contribution to Friday catblogging


Since I am currently cat-free, I couldn't use an original photo but I figured why let Fermicat have all the fun. So here is my humble contribution. I figure his name should be Headley.

Monday, January 14, 2008

What makes you angry?

I've decided that stupid people make me angrier than almost anything. I'm talking about the kind of stupid that they shoulda known better, or they're too lazy to think. People whose view of the world is no wider than the distance from the couch to the TV. People who don't take the time or effort to imagine anything outside themselves and their petty concerns. This is a willful kind of stupid I'm talking about, not the kind of uneducated stupidity that can be cured by, well, education. The really pernicious stupidity is the the kind that shuts its eyes and ears and doesn't see and doesn't listen. There's nothing in particular that has ticked me off; I'm just thinking in the abstract right now. And I just felt like being angry about something. Mostly though I'm in a great mood.

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Brilliant!



This is one of those movies that reminds me why I love movies. As far as sheer beauty, genius and daring, it's right up there with Angels In America, Pulp Fiction and Across The Universe.

To me, storytelling is one of the most important things there is. It's us interpreting our world and sharing it with one another. It's how we try and make sense of it all. The beauty of storytelling in movies is that you're free of the constraints of time, place, even reality. The film is not merely the method by which you tell the story, the way the story unfolds becomes part of the story.

If you're a Dylan fan, this film has a special resonance. But you don't have to be one to be blown away by the film. Dylan has had so many different personas and so many different periods in his career that they can seem like separate people, and what Todd Haynes has done is used 6 different actors to play the different parts of his life. None of them are meant to be Dylan -- they all have other names, but they represent that part of Dylan. The story jumps back and forth in time and place. All the details are right, all the markers are there. It is not in any sense a true biography but I think you get a much richer sense of who he is, which is someone filled with contradictions, flights of fantasy and missing pieces. Hey, he's a genius artist, he's entitled.

And Cate Blanchett is beyond awesome. Whoever had the idea to cast her in this had the inspiration of the century.

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

My start to the new year: SPLAT!

Last Thursday, after doing some errands across the river in New Jersey, we were heading home across the bridge. I had slipped into the EZPass land and was maybe 50 feet from the tollbooth. Suddenly the 18-wheeler on my left decided he really wanted to be in my lane. What transpired then was an extended slow-motion mashing of the driver's side of my car. The guy realized he had hit something and stopped. But he was kind of stuck to me so he had to keep going to get free. We were only going about 1 mile an hour so there was not even the possibility of injury, which is always a good thing. Fortunately there was a police station at the bridge plaza so we just pulled over. The guy was very nice and apologetic. He obviously didn't see me. But that didn't do anything to mitigate the fact that the left side of my car looked like someone had used a giant can opener along the length of it. I just got the estimate from the insurance adjuster - $2664.58. It's the 58 cents that gets me. I will eventually get my money back but I am still out the deductible unti Geico recovers it from the guy's insurance company, which experience says is about 10-12 weeks. Happy New Year.