september 1 I ain't blind and I don't like what I think I see So, as it turned out, I was not the alien I thought I was,and D was not the Typical Guy I thought he was. Verizon was. Putzes. Since I'm on the internet when I sometimes get calls, I got voice mail rather than buy an answering machine. Pros to the answering machine: Cheaper. Cons: Can't get messages while on the 'Net without buying a second line. The way I know I have messages is to pick up the phone, and then I get a fast busy signal. I haven't been getting a fast busy signal. So I totally missed a call that came in on Thursday evening. (This was further compounded because on Saturday, when I was on the way to Lake Tomahawk for a splashin' good time, I called to check on any messages. And I called the service I used to use at my last address. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in Verizon, but in ourselves. Some of the time.) So D is now in good with me again, and we're back to email. (He told me he thought I was blowing him off!) I dunno what the hell happens from here.
It smells like polyurethane in here; the shelves have made the place stinky. I tried opening windows but it's been so humid I need the A/C on, so the windows stay shut. I'm sure I'm killing brain cells. But the shelves haven't fallen over, which is a big plus. They look so cool with all of my books in them, and all that extra room. I bought a collection of Truman Capote short stories (including "Breakfast At Tiffanys") from a used bookstore in the city and proudly stashed it away on the short story shelf. I'll get to it – right now I'm enmeshed in the worlds of Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. If you haven't read The Golden Compass, drop everything and get it now. It's the most gloriously vivid story I've ever read. I'm not much in the way of flat-out fantasy – too much genre of any kind gets repetitive to me – but these came recommended on the Jonathan Carroll mailing list I'm on, and they're kick ass in the vein of Harry Potter, only darker. His main characters have daemons, which is essentially their soul-self represented in animal form, living outside their bodies. As children, the daemons can change shape, and do according to mood and context in any situation; as adults the daemons become fixed as one final animal, kind of spelling out a personality. Things like that just make my jaw drop. Pullman's also got a real ear for beautiful, strange names – he's got the queen of the witches (who are good women, mostly) named Serafina Pekkala. Like candy, that name. So there are three books and I've just finished the second, which is less of a stand-alone book than the first, but still literally had me gasping with concern and smiling at some of the beauty the words conveyed. I went to bed with that book and woke up and first thing I did was start reading again.
Other recommendations: Went to see Ghost World yesterday after work, went to see Sexy Beast this afternoon after spending part of my Saturday at work writing up some freelance. (It's quiet there and I have more desk space to spread out on, so I get more work done when I have to write up long pieces.) Both are very, very good for different reasons. Ghost World features American Beauty's Thora Birch, experiencing a nightmarish and yet hilarious summer post-high school. My favorite line comes after she shows up in a too-hip record shop with newly-dyed blue green hair and a cropped leather jacket. This jerk who runs the place comes out from the back and stops cold, saying, "Oh, my God! You haven't heard? [Beat, pause.] Punk's dead!" Steve Buscemi once again proves what a Godlike actor he is; from this to Reservoir Dogs to Trees Lounge he's just fantastic. Sexy Beast is also hilarious and dark at the same time; Ben Kingsley puts on this cockney accent (I know he's British by birth, but not Cockney) and thoroughly scares and pisses off everyone he comes in contact with, but he's brilliant as he does it. (I have to confess that my favorite Kingsley performance did not win him any awards – but I can't get his "Marty" out of my head from Sneakers. Also a brilliant caper film.) What's also common in both of these films is no one in them is strikingly movie-star attractive, blow you out of the water put that poster on your wall for fantasy material. They're all pretty natural looking people with no major disfigurements (although the protagonist's wife in Sexy Beast does have scarring on her arm from a fire, it seems, though it's not explained and I didn't even notice it for a long time). Their lives aren't tied in neat bows and they aren't a hundred percent sympathetic. Yet you can escape with them. I remember thinking towards the end of Ghost World (which seems to end and then has an odd little two-scene coda) that I didn't quite want to leave this universe yet. I wanted to see more. That's the best kind of storytelling.
Went shopping after Ghost World yesterday, just walked randomly down Prince Street looking for some clothes shops. (The one I was looking for was long gone, alas. RIP Putamayo.) I ducked into a few but I dread the upcoming season – from Banana Republic to Old Navy, the clothes on sale look not just cheap but bad. Very bad. Seventies bad. These are the things I'd paw past in a vintage store. Some of the most hideous colors, designs and combinations are coming this way for fall. I'm very upset. I need new clothes, and there's nothing out there. I'll sally forth tomorrow and give it another try. So I ended up at a store of nothing but accessories, most of them quite funky. Rings, necklaces, bracelets, hairclips, belt buckles – most of them inexpensive and baubled with faux jewels. So the woman running the store is having a conversation with a guy friend who starts getting vulgar. And her reaction: "No cursing here! You got women ... and jewelry." I can't explain why that cracked me up. I whipped out my Ghost World ticket and wrote it down.
Getting a little hungry for dinner, so I'll wrap this up. Besides, Keith Carradine has been trying to call and I need to leave him another message. No, really, he has. I'm doing more Reporter articles and he's involved with the Woodstock film festival (did you even know there was one?) so we're trying to get in touch. But it is kind of funny, getting those messages. When I was doing some other Reporter articles a while back I was totally freaked out to pick up the phone at work one afternoon, and have the opening exchange go like this:
"This is Randee."
"Hello there. This is Meryl Streep."Thunk! Now, she was getting a Gotham Award, and I was going to have to write up a short profile piece, and I had put in the request, but after putting in the request to publicity, I'd heard nothing. You'd think you'd hear back from someone saying, "She'll call you at such and such a time," or you'd think she'd have someone place the call for her (a lot of them do that) and the exchange would go something like:
"This is Randee."
"Please hold. I have Meryl Streep for you."Instead, the Greatest Living Actress calls me. Direct. On her portable phone at home. Where she's sitting on the outside porch waving to people as they go by. I kid you not. So Keith Carradine is amusing!
