Lion Attacks Torgo's Office, Finds No Candy

The boy stopped by today (with mom in tow). We made a brief trip down to the Embarcadero, which is Spanish for "high-priced shops and restaurants near water."

Still, the sun came out, it was in the 70s, and it was a nice place to be. One of these days I'll upload some pics and post them. Not now, though.

I had to get back to the office, but they stopped by for lunch on their way back home. The boy's lion costume is great, though he seems to have neglected his 'roar' practice. He had it down a few weeks ago.

He did stay in character long enough to tear up the office. I sent them home on the train with his costume still on, figuring that if he got tired and cranky, it's harder to be upset with him when he's in an adorable lion costume.

Now they're out trick-or-treating and I'm missing it. Oh well. I can't be there for every 'first,' much as I'd like to be.

Next deep in pumpkin gizzards

We carved pumpkins last night. This is the second Halloween for the boy but, again, he didn't get to wield a knife. I learned last year that while M-N loves researching complex pumpkin designs online, she's not so much into clawing out the innards of the things.

So while she did research, I scooped. We've been taking advantage of SF's composting options, so even though we didn't toast and eat the seeds, they won't wind up in a landfill.

But for some reason, three pumpkins into the night, I had a shiny film on my scooping paw. It reminded me of when I was a kid and I'd put Elmer's glue on my hand, wait for it to dry, then peel it off like skin. I had a very normal childhood, looking back.

The film wouldn't come off, though. I washed and scrubbed my hands 4 times. So I decided it was the soul of the pumpkins. That didn't stop me from carving.

Eventually, after about 6 tries, I got the last of the film off my hand. What's the point of this story? Well, some day, possibly soon, the boy can take over disemboweling the pumpkins. I think he'll like that.

Book Report: Memories of My Melancholy Whores

Memories of My Melancholy Whores: Torgo disapproves

Speaking of short, this book clocks in at about 115 pages. I read it in a day, which is no small feat considering I also spent that day with the boy. My well-documented love of short novels, though, isn't enough for me to recommend this book.

I trudged through Love in the Time of Cholera and breezed through Chronicle of a Death Foretold. I was more or less irritated throughout Memories of My Melancholy Whores.

I'm not going to sit here and preach about how wrong it is for a ninety year old man to decide on his 90th birthday that what he needs is a virgin prostitute and, when he finds a 14-year-old girl, to idolize her and fall in love with her and claim her as his own. Nor am I going to say how much of a misogynist that old man is and how wrong it is for Garcia Marquez to glorify the old lecher.

Wait, no, actually, I am.

I mean, for god's sake, she's 14! Worse still, she has no voice. She never speaks. I could interpret this as bearing some meaning on the author's part. She has no voice because she's a trope of the narrator's creation, a symbol of his lost virility, the innocence and beauty of youth, all that crap.

No. She's a peasant girl desperate for money. He's a creepy old man ogling her while she sleeps. She has no voice because she's completely unreal. We're meant to believe that she loves the old man by the end of the book. How? It seems that every time they're together, she's asleep. Because he pays her like a whore then just stares at her?

This gets at another problem I have with the book. Edith Grossman translated, and I loved her work with Don Quixote. But either she's let me down or the source material was too weak here because there seemed to be plot holes and inconsistencies too apparent for such a short novel. I'd go into them here, but I don't want to exert the effort.

Movie Review: Corpse Bride

Corpse Bride: Torgo approves

Visually, Tim Burton's Corpse Bride is both amazing and disappointing. The surface world is terrific, peopled with bizarrely disproportionate characters. Albert Finney's model, in particular, is just fun to watch.

But then we go below ground, to the world of the dead, and it's less exciting. I expected more dazzling imagery, but the spider and maggot look like Disney's hand-drawn animation, not the crafted, wacky models of the living world.

That said, the movie goes by too quickly to be bothered by such things. It's barely an hour and a quarter, so even the thinness of the plot doesn't have time to grow tiresome.

I was frustrated with some of the similarities to Burton's Beetlejuice (such as the two-world marriage theme), but overall Corpse Bride is a pleasant enough way to spend a short evening.

Letterman vs. O'Reilly

I got the following from here, which I found via here, but for some reason I just want to copy the whole article:

HUMORLESS DAVE RIPS O'REILLY

October 27, 2006 -- ANY lingering doubts that David Letterman detests Bill O'Reilly will be laid to rest tonight, when the gap-toothed funnyman has the conservative Fox News powerhouse on his CBS "Late Show" and machine-guns him with insults.

In a tape previewed by Page Six, things go downhill fast as O'Reilly sits down and jokingly presents the liberal-leaning host with a plastic sword to do battle and holds up a plastic shield to defend himself.

An irritated Letterman cracks, "Oh, that's nice, that's cute, you come out with toys . . . Am I right about one thing: You guys over there at Fox and guys like Rush Limbaugh, you guys know it's all just a goof, right? You're just horsing around. You're doing it 'cause you know it'll be entertaining?" Letterman adds he's never seen O'Reilly's show because, "I dial up Fox and it's always 'The Simpsons.' "

O'Reilly tries to lighten the mood by telling the audience he and Letterman are "on the same bowling league" and asks whether he'd appear on "Dancing With the Stars."

"Bonehead!" snaps Letterman, who then starts shaking his fist and waving his arms at O'Reilly as the subject turns to the war in Iraq. "Let me ask you a question - was there more heinous, more dangerous violence taking place [before America invaded] Iraq, or is there more heinous, dangerous violence taking place now in Iraq?"

"Oh, stop it," O'Reilly scolds the host. "Saddam Hussein slaughtered 300,000 to 400,000 people, all right, so knock it off . . . It isn't so black and white, Dave - it isn't, 'We're a bad country. Bush is an evil liar.' That's not true."

"I didn't say he was an evil liar," Letterman shoots back. "You're putting words in my mouth, just the way you put artificial facts in your head!"

Letterman admits he hasn't read O'Reilly's new book, "Culture War," because "I looked at it. I said, 'What is it, a book on sailing?' "

Checking his watch to signal an end to the insult-a-thon, Letterman sarcastically quips, "Oh, gosh, where has the time gone?" He adds: "I have no idea what I'm talking about - but I don't think you do, either."

---
When Letterman is angry, the interview is usually really awkward and difficult to watch. Actually, I guess most of his interviews are awkward and difficult to watch. But this one is at least funny to read. (Although I really wanted Dave to come back at the 400,000 Iraqis killed with us being responsible for the killing of over 600,000 -- not that you can compare genocides, but still...)

Vote Torgo

Our absentee ballots arrived this week. Even if we weren't going to be out of town on election day, I'm glad we're going absentee for our first California election. This place is nuts with things to vote on.

First, there's the governor's race. Apparently, Schwarzenegger is going to win. Yesterday, I saw a poll that had him 18 point ahead of Angelides. He's even leading in SF!! Angelides is ahead in LA, b/c of demographics, but how can he not win SF?! I'll still vote for him. (I had a good steroid-era pic of Arnold for here, but Blogger won't work right. So if you want, go google image schwarzenegger now.)

There are also ranked voting ballots for some races. This is the great instant-run-off idea that would've gotten Gore elected in 2000. You pick your first choice, second choice, third choice, and if no one wins outright, they look at the second choices. But in the race that's being run that way (I think it's assistant comptroller or chief of light bulb changing) there are only two candidates. Doesn't that defeat the purpose? How do you rank two people? If one doesn't win... it doesn't make sense.

Then, worst of all, are all the propositions. There's one about clean energy that Bill Clinton and Al Gore are doing commercials for. Also, one on some sort of smoking tax. But the ads are confusing. I assume I'll vote with Clinton/Gore, but whlie the early commerials against that prop were put out by Chevron, now they're showing every CA newspaper, firefighters, teachers, etc. But I'm not falling for that.

The smoking one's opponents have an ad with a doctor saying he's against smoking, but the smoking prop isn't really about limiting smoking. What the hell?

And I'm a member of the SF Chamber of Commerce, and they want us to vote no on everything.

What would Torgo do?

God that hurts

Watch this if you can.

I'm not one to deify Bob Dylan, but I think "Like a Rolling Stone" is a great song. Even if I didn't, this clip is hard to endure. And as if the lead singer isn't bad enough, the exercise-ball routine by the extras from Cats is nauseating.

Lost 304: No

No. I don't buy it. So 40-odd people crash land on a beach. A dozen or so other people crash land on the other side of the same island, also on the beach. At various points during their stay, one person (Hurley) walks part of the way around the island; the second group of people walk from their side to the first group's side (much of the way along the coastline); 1 person (Desmond) sails a boat away from the island, then back; 3 people (Sayid, Sun & Jin) sail the same boat around the island.

And at no point does anyone ever see a SECOND ISLAND?!?

I was ready to get back into the show. Sure, the flashbacks have been complete wastes of time this season: we learned Jack wanted to know his wife's lover's name; Locke hung out on a pot-growing commune; Sawyer was a con man with a heart of gold (which we knew already); Sun and Jin were on the run (which we knew already). But they seemed to be moving things along last night. They didn't drag the pacemaker subplot out over multiple episodes. We found out Benry has a tumor on his spine. We found out Hurley makes a decent fruit salad.

Then, the second island bit. No.

Book Report: The Big Sleep

The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler: Torgo approves

There were several key things about this book I liked. First, the narrative arc felt unconventional. The plot that drives the story initially is resolved about midway through. Marlowe, a private detective, is hired by a wealthy oil barron to look into an extortion scam. But the extortionist winds up dead early on, as does his killer, and while the killer's murder never gets resolved, the book shifts from that point. It doesn't necessarily go into something different, which too many books do when they seem directionless after 150 pages or so, but it drifts for a few chapters in seeming discontent resolution before picking up again with new but related plot twists.

So the plot builds to a climax, somewhat resolves itself, then has this outgrowth into another building arc. Ultimately, that arc is resolved, but then the story continues into another, final build.

It's tied together nicely by the narration, the second thing I particularly enjoyed. Though I'm just repeating what's on the book jacket, it's worth repeating: though this is Chandler's first novel, he'd mastered Marlowe's voice, the plethora of similes, the sarcastic sneer. It's been imitated endlessly since, but The Big Sleep is still captivating. I was distracted at first by the imagery: "She looked like a woman who was like a cat in need of milk like a bear needs Charmin." The similes pile on like that, but it's done with consistency.

I don't remember having seen the movie, but realizing William Faulkner wrote the screenplay, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall starred, and Howard Hawks directed, it's going on the Netflix list. Although, I think Lauren Bacall took the wrong role. She plays one of two sisters central to the plot. In reading up on the movie on imdb, the original actress playing the younger sister apparently upstaged Bacall to the point where they cut her scenes. But I think it's the role, not the actress. The younger sister is a better part. Oh well, I need to see the movie.

Pelican vs. Flying Rat

Then there's this.

Marty vs. Jesus

I am too young to know what Muhammad Ali was like before Parkinson's, other than via old video. But I grew up watching Michael J. Fox on Family Ties and in Back to the Future. Spin City wasn't too bad, either.

So I find the new ad and controversy wherein Fox, more visibly affected than ever by Parkinson's, tries to rally votes for stem-cell research supporters, incredibly compelling.

Of course Rush Limbaugh came out as a horrible human being and accused Fox of acting or being off his meds. That's not surprising. What's more strange are the Republican counter-ads that feature Patricia Heaton (I knew there were new and heretofore unknown reasons to dislike Everybody Loves Raymond) and Mel Gibson's Jesus.

Mel Gibson's Jesus? Ok, so I still haven't seen that movie. But I saw the South Park episode about it and that was enough to convince me to never trust Mel Gibson's Jesus. Especially when he's up against Marty McFly.

See me

In my ongoing effort to not get killed, I got a headlight and some reflective stickers for my bike and helmet. I realized that I have a black helmet, dark blue coat, blue and black bike, and starting next week (once daylight savings ends), it'll be dark when I ride home.

So now I'm that supercool cyclist with the stickers.

In other news, this is from the always worthwhile postsecret site.

Each week, there are those "secret love" cards, the "secret hate" cards, but there are also consistently surprising secrets, like this one. This one is twisted.

Movie Review: Amelie

Amelie: Torgo approves

I liked it. It's quite good. You should see it.

Bring the sun

I'm still enjoying the weather in SF. Today it's about 78 and sunny. Same yesterday. Same predicted through the weekend.

The fact that it's late October and I'm still riding my bike to work in shorts and a t-shirt is awesome. I know the end is in sight, but at least it's not a Buffalo mid-fall blizzard end. Or a Boston "welcome to December" blizzard.

Although, I'm actually a fan of blizzards. It's a good chance to feel like a kid in Wisconsin again, when the snow is again as high as my head and I have good reason to be out playing in it (under the pretense of digging the car out). I've also taken some cool blizzard photos, like this:

Keith Olbermann -- what's the deal?

Here's Keith Olbermann in a long but worthwhile clip.

I'm not sure when Olbermann completed the transition from humorous SportsCenter anchor to the new Edward R. Murrow, but he seems to be pulling it off rather well.

His piece on the 5th anniversary of 9/11 was fantastic. The best point from that one was about ground zero. I don't have the link, but he said something to the effect of how it's been 5 years and the WTC site is still just a hole whereas months after the battle at Gettysburg, Lincoln himself was there to commemorate the memorial. And that was the 1860's. 5 years later, there's no memorial, there's no new building, just a hole.

Book Report: The Tent

The Tent by Margaret Atwood: Torgo disapproves

I heard Margaret Atwood on NPR a week or two ago. It was an extended Weekend Edition piece on sci-fi. There were bits on Asimov, "Lost," etc. I hadn't heard Atwood speak before, or read any of her novels, but I knew her name.

I wasn't particularly impressed. She sounded like a hack. I guess she's written some stuff that vaguely qualifies as sci-fi, but she came off like a dabbler.

So I'm not sure why picked up "The Tent" in the library the other day, but I did. It's short, barely 150 small pages, so that was a factor. But it's a frustrating, sloppy muddle of a book.

The credits page lists her accomplishments. She's written novels, poems, kids' books, and more. "The Tent" feels like the half-starts and rejected ideas from all those genres. Nothing is longer than 5 or 6 pages. That's not a bad thing, but no idea feels developed or, really, even fully thought through.

What annoys me most about this book is that it was published. Paper was wasted on it. People buy it. Libraries stock it. But if anyone with a name less known that Margaret Atwood submitted it to a publisher, it would be rejected.

Worse still, I hate when writers get to a point in successful careers where they publish their doodles. And I don't just mean their half-assed ideas. "The Tent" features 'artwork' by Atwood. By 'artwork,' I mean doodles that look like something a junior high kid draws in the margins of textbooks. If a visual artist submitted those drawings for inclusion in a book, the writer would be offended.

Then, at the end of the book, there are the credits for where the pieces in "The Tent" were published before. Basically, it's a list of journals who wanted Atwood's name on their cover, taking space from writers with good material and less name recognition (JK in Chicago? maybe). After the credits, there's a picture of the author, looking smug and self-satisfied, as though she's saying, "Look, I haven't even read this stuff. I didn't even check for spelling! And here it is. And you read the whole thing! Sucker."

Lost 303: Eh

It was a Locke episode last night. Normally, Locke's good for a fun plot, an interesting backstory, an all-around good time. But last night, the writers continued in their mission to make no progress at all.

What did we learn last night? Locke's still alive. So is Desmond and Eko. Their names have been in the opening credits all season, so that's nothing new. Desmond sees the future. Ok, that wasn't really used to any effect last night. Locke's going to go after Jack, Sawyer and Kate. Ok, that was in the commercial. And he didn't even do it. He just said he'd do it in the last scene. And Eko got mauled by the polar bear. A polar bear that's still inexplicably living in a tropical environment with no apparent food source other than Eko, and it didn't even eat him. It just used him as a pillow or something, which is good, because I like Eko.

Even the flashbacks were pointless. The whole point seemed to be that Locke hates his dad (knew that), is gullible (knew that), hangs out with pot growers (didn't know and didn't care), and isn't a murderer (knew that, too).

I'm now mostly watching the show just hoping the bear will take someone out. Hopefully, about 20 people. For God's sake, they introduced two new characters last night! Sigh.

David Bowie: funnyman

This clip is David Bowie on Ricky Gervais' show "Extras."

The boy grows tall

The boy isn't so little anymore. I took him to his 15 month check up on Monday and he was officially 33 inches tall. That's 3 inches shy of a yard (or 3 feet, or 2 km). At the rate he's growing, he'll be half as tall as me within a few months.

Right now, he's in the 95th percentile for height. He's in about the 30th percentile for weight. If that was the ACT or SAT, he'd suck in weight. But it's not, so it's ok. He's just tall and lean.

This presents new adventures for home life. We'd previously put locks on the kitchen cabinets to keep him from breaking glass, baking cookies, etc. But now he can reach the drawers, open them, and stick his hands in (though he can't see in). So we'll either need to move stuff or have a good and long lesson on how to wield a steak knife.

In other news, M-N bought him his first coloring book and crayons yesterday. He'd used crayons in restaurants, but now he can draw on our walls and refrigerator (based on his preferences from last night). His first picture from the coloring book was a little like a Pollock -- abstract and chaotic, but colorful and open to interpretation. Like his parents, he's not bound by conventions or 'lines'.

He'll go far.

Movie Review: The Opposite of Sex

The Opposite of Sex: Torgo approves

So we've been watching a lot of movies lately. Between Netflix and the library, we're perhaps compensating for never actually going out to the movies.

I think I picked this one because of Christina Ricci. She was great in the Addams Family movies. I mean, she was Wednesday. Ok, so maybe those weren't the greatest of movies. But they had great casts. Raul Julia, Anjelica Huston, Christopher Lloyd (plus Joan Cusack in the second one).

Then there was Buffalo '66. That was an excellent movie.

Now it seems Ricci gets a lot of mileage out of being an unpleasant, dour, child-faced woman. Wednesday all grown up and chain-smoking. Still, The Opposite of Sex isn't too bad. It has some actors who may not be great, but they're entertaining to watch, like Lisa Kudrow and Lyle Lovett.

The plot is best described as wacky. Ricci's stepfather dies, so she goes from Louisiana to Indiana, where her brother lives in a house that was bought by his boyfriend who died of AIDS, but he now has a new boyfriend, whom Ricci seduces and then tricks into thinking she's pregnant with his baby, meanwhile Kudrow is Ricci's brother's former boyfriend's sister who's sort of in love with Ricci's brother. Meanwhile, Lyle Lovett is sort of in love with Kudrow. That's the basic plot, anyway.

There's some clever writing, including a nice narration by Ricci, pointing out the cliches and cheap plot devices. Not a classic, but solid Tuesday night viewing.

Movie Review: To Catch A Thief

To Catch A Thief: Torgo approves

Maybe I just saw the best Hitchcock movies when I was young, so those I have yet to see are disappointing, but I become less and less interested in him as the years go by. My favorite is Rope (though I haven't seen it in years -- it's out now on dvd, so I need to see it again). I remember liking Rear Window and Psycho. I never thought The Birds was very good. Creepy, yes, but poorly written and badly paced. North by Northwest is one I didn't like before but saw again and enjoyed. Torn Curtain is terrible. Vertigo didn't live up to the hype.

To Catch A Thief was clever enough. Grace Kelly is fun to watch. I don't quite get the appeal of Cary Grant, but he has a decent role here.

The plot is simple: Grant was a cat burglar in France. He reformed his ways. Now someone is repeating his style and he's getting blamed, so he sets out to catch the thief.

There's beautiful cinematography (which, I believe, won the oscar) and good costuming (except for one highly questionable blackface scene). As a travel brochure for the south of France, it's highly effective.

There's also the issue of what they can and can't get away with regarding sex and, more ridiculous, modest displays of affection. On one of the of the dvd extras, it's pointed out that a scene in which Grant kisses Kelly, leaning her into a couch (it's not as sexual as it sounds) didn't pass the board, so they just changed the music from romantic to whimsical, and it passed.

But meanwhile, Kelly and the other female lead just about jump out of their skirts over Grant, offering innuendo galore. I'm perpetually amazed at what kinds of dialogue got in while fully clothed but seated kissing got censored.

Movie Review: Hellboy

Hellboy: Torgo approves

Hellboy is a good follow-up to X-Men 3. It's another comic book movie, but with a much lower budget and a much lighter feel. Sure, it's about a creature from hell brought into this world by a late-WWII Nazi experiment gone awry, but in a fun way.

Hellboy benefits from a number of key elements. First, Ron Perlman is perfect for the title role. I read that the studio wanted Vin Diesel. Though I don't think of Vin Diesel as an 'actor,' he would've been decent here, too. Hellboy requires a physically imposing presence, dry humor, and a love of both cigars and cats.

There's also John Hurt, Jeffrey Tambor, Selma Blair, and the voice of David Hyde Pierce, all of whom are quite good.

The plot is silly, but no one seems to take it too seriously, somewhat like Men in Black, though I'd say it's more effectively achieved here.

Director Guillermo del Toro clearly loves the source material, much like you can tell Sam Raimi loves Spider-Man. The movie feels like a comic book. Yet, whereas I think dark visuals and dark material can play awkwardly with humor and levity on the often overly-wrought pages of a comic book, on film del Toro finds the balance he needs and sustains it throughout the movie.

It's not a must-see classic. There are some clunky scenes. I didn't care for Rupert Evans' character; I found he detracted from the fun. But it's definitely worthwhile, even just for Ron Perlman's performance.

"Lost" Conundrum

This week's Lost was quite good, I thought. I tend to like Sun & Jin episodes -- though their backstory is as cliche-ridden as everyone else's, at least they're both strong actors and their relationship has complexity and intrigue. Plus, Sayid's cool -- I always like it when he gets some screen time.

But this week's episode raised a central conundrum facing the show: Ben/Henry Gale showed Jack a tape of the Red Sox winning the world series. That isn't the conundrum, it was just awesome. But after that, he told Jack he'd take him home, off the island, if Jack just does something for them (presumably, make the show last a few more seasons).

But why would Jack want to go home? His life sucked. His wife left him, his dad died, he seemed miserable. We started talking, and that goes for everybody on the island:
Kate - wanted felon
Sawyer - also a criminal
Locke - stole that money from those people
Eko - also a criminal
Hurley - makes bad things happen
Charlie - addict with no life
Claire - supposed to give baby away (granted, she could probably benefit from some medical attention)
Sun & Jin - on the run from Sun's dad, Jin maybe a criminal
Rose & Bernard - if Rose leaves island, terminal illness
Sayid - I can't remember if his woman is still out there or not, is she dead? I think so, otherwise he wouldn't have hooked up with Shannon, right? Anyway, former Iraqi torturer, prospects not good
All the extras - they get to hang out in Hawai'i and hope for speaking roles

So for all these people, they need to stay on the island. And besides that, what a plane full of miserable people! I've often suspected that I'm on a plane with a bunch of horrible human beings, but never that they're all on the run.

Book Report: Foe

Foe: Torgo disapproves

I gave up on "Seeing" by Saramago. It just couldn't compare in any way to "Blindness," and was too much drudgery to be worthwhile.

While researching some topic, I stumbled through Wikipedia and found out about "Foe," by J.M. Coetzee. Wikipedia calls it the 'archetypal post-modern novel.' Basically, it centers on a woman who ends up cast away on an island off the coast off Brazil. As it turns out, it's Robinson Crusoe's island, and he and Friday take her in. She hangs out with them for a bit, then they all get rescued. Crusoe (here, it's Cruso) dies on the way back to England. So the woman takes Friday and finds Foe, a writer, and implores him to write their tale. (Foe, wikipedia notes, was Daniel Dafoe's--Robinson Crusoe's author--real name.)

In what seems to be a trend with Coetzee, what seems a simple conceit is, actually, a simple conceit, but people get all stubborn and weird and not a heckuva lot happens.

I enjoy some post-modernism (Dean Young, for example). I love cast-away stories (Robinson Crusoe, Life of Pi, etc.). I like the notion of there having been a woman involved in the story who was ultimately excised from Dafoe's text.

But Coetzee just doesn't take the premise anywhere interesting enough to make the novel worth recommending. It's short, sure, and that's great; I read it in two sittings (including a good chunk in the middle aloud to the boy). But for such an engaging concept, the book is very moody and elusive.

There's a big focus on Friday. Here, he's an African (in Dafoe's book, he's Caribbean), his tongue has been cut out (which I believe is inconsistent w/Dafoe), so he's mute. There's supposedly great symbolism in Friday. But I didn't go for it. Everything in "Foe" read like a trope. Not just a trope, but a flashing light of a trope.

Maybe this is how post-modern was done in the 80's by the greats. Maybe it just got more subtle and crafted in the 90's and 00's. I don't buy that, either. I think Coetzee lacks depth as a writer. I think he takes on big topics, writes around the issue, and some critics bring their own interpretation to it, giving it weight it doesn't deserve.

That's how I feel about some film directors (e.g., David Lynch, particularly with Mulholland Dr.). Be obtuse, appear profound, create mystery around things that should be decipherable like plot, character and what the hell it all means.

I'll probably still read Waiting for the Barbarians, b/c Coetzee's such a quick read and Blake says that's the one to read. Maybe I should've started with it.

Movie Review: X-Men: The Last Stand

X-Men: The Last Stand: Torgo approves

There's a clumsy conceit at the heart of this and all the X-Men movies. The mutants are a metaphor for a group that's discriminated against. In the last movie, I think it was a metaphor for race. In this one, it seems to be homosexuality. A "cure" is discovered, one that makes mutants no longer mutants. Sure, it'd mean Wolverine could get through airport security, but he wouldn't be such a bad-ass anymore.

This theme is played out by Angel and his father (the dad thinks, great! I can make my son not gay, I mean, a mutant!) and also played out by Rogue who, strangely, wants to lose her superpowers so she can give it up to her boyfriend, Iceman (I say strangely b/c this is all they give Rogue to do -- fret over losing her boyfriend. Rogue kills people by touching them. Storm makes it foggy. Magneto sticks to refrigerators. And this is the plotline for Rogue?!).

It leads to some forced dialogue and silly situations, including an incredibly weak ending to the Rogue story, one made all the more confounding in the dvd's deleted scenes, where we see that they filmed the story the way it should have ended.

Ok, but let's get past the plot. If you ignore Angel and Rogue and a lot of brooding, this is a very good movie.

I was happiest that they dramatically thinned out the cast. Lots of key mutants either get killed or 'unmutantated' throughout the movie, which was unexpected but welcome. I never got into the X-Men comics (though I apparently live with a X-Men uber-geek). The Fantastic Four was a large enough cast for me. I stuck more to Spider-Man, The Punisher, Batman -- smaller crowds where the metaphors were more subtle and nuanced (although, admittedly, I don't think the Punisher had much in the way of metaphors, I just thought he was cool when I was 12).

Back to the movie. It also centers much of the action in San Francisco. Sure, SF gets the crap kicked out of it. But it's nice to see familiar places. When we lived in Massachusetts, they filmed a lot of "Mystic River" in our town. I guess Clint Eastwood hung out at a local diner up the street from our apt. He liked the buffalo wings. That would've been more cool if I ever saw "Mystic River," but I haven't yet.

Anyway, it's slightly less cool b/c they didn't actually ever film in SF. It's all just effects shots. But it sure looks like SF.

I recommend this movie. The plot is kind of the same as the other two (mutants vs. humans vs. mutants over discrimination against mutants), but it's more satisfying here.

I haven't even mentioned Phoenix, a key character. She adds depth here. She's good, or was, as Jean Grey, but now she's bad, or neutral, or just capable of playing all sides.

Mildly Perilous Alarm of Impending Ennui

I was sitting in my office today, eating my lunch, watching The Office on YouTube (speaking of which, what a great lunch time activity watching sitcoms from channels I don't get at home but available on YouTube has been -- particularly working in an office by myself. I hope the Google buyout doesn't mess that up), when an alarm went off.

My first instinct was to ignore it. I work in an old building that is quirky. There's asbestos in the ceiling, a huge chandelier in the entryway, and old radiators that pump heat all summer. Periodically over the last few months, there has been no water in the bathrooms.

My alarm-ignoring instinct comes from college and grad school. One of the dorms I was in at Bennington had smoke alarms that were set off by hot showers (actually, I think Colby may have had that too). It was no big deal for those 4 p.m. showers during June residencies. The 6 a.m. showers in January sucked.

But then I thought, wait, I'm in a 14-story building on the busiest street in San Francisco, just a few blocks from the TransAmerica pyramid (yeah, it's called a pyramid -- i guess it is one -- seems weird, though). 9/11, all that. Maybe I should at least peak out the door.

The alarm was coming from the elevator. I think people were stuck in the elevator. Or reminiscing about the old Aerosmith video. It made me think of the Weird Al song Stuck in a Closet with Vanna White. It was a bad song from about 20 years ago. I saw the last minute of Wheel of Fortune last night. Vanna White is old. But she still does whatever it is she does. She models, I guess.

Anyway, yeah, it was the elevator. After five minutes or so, the alarm stopped. While I did nothing to help, I did note that an official sounding woman was shouting directions to the people on the elevator. I then went back to my lunch and The Office.

Movie Review: Hustle & Flow

Hustle & Flow: Torgo approves

This movie wasn't what I expected it to be. It was much more of a feel-good story that I thought.

That's not to say it's bad. First of all, Terrence Howard is terrific. He has a great actor's role and he does great things with it. I'm not his biggest fan in our household, but I'm definitely one of them. When you compare this role with his role in "Crash," his depth is clear. He has intensity but, more important, warmth and vulnerability.

Thinking more about this film vs. "Crash," I was impressed with how a white writer was able to write a story largely about black characters without seeming false or wrong. "Crash" preached far too much, whereas "H&F" isn't about race at all, and that may help. But I was reminded of many discussions in English and writing classes in college where this topic came up: can/should a writer from the majority write from the voice of the minority? A writer from a minority can write with the voice of the majority convincingly and without reservation, but is the opposite possible? Or a good idea?

It doesn't seem to be an issue in "Hustle & Flow." John Singleton produced the movie, and I'm fairly certain that if he'd written and directed it, the story wouldn't be quite as warm and fuzzy. But as it is, it's a worthwhile movie. It's funny, which was also surprising. The ending is weak but satisfying (though, admittedly, misogynist).

The song ("It's hard out here for a pimp") is irritating, but in the context of the movie (which I doubt was seen by most of the people making fun of the song's title back when it got the Oscar nomination), it at least feels justified.

Elvis Costello, Exploding Glassware, and KFC

The Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival was this weekend in Golden Gate Park. There were five stages full of a wide variety of acts, including Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, Billy Bragg, and lots of other people I know of but don't ever listen to. It was all free, though, so when we saw that Elvis Costello was performing Sunday afternoon with T-Bone Burnett, we decided to go, however briefly.

As I expected, his set consisted mostly of old country songs, like "She Thinks I Still Care" and the like. It was good, sure, but I thought, just maybe, he'd play something from one of his 20 or so albums of original material. (I read this morning that Costello popped up on various stages on Friday and Saturday, including performing one of the very first sets of the festival on Friday, where he played a handful of his own stuff -- oh well.)

When we got home I set about making a roast chicken with a Moroccan spice rub, something I'd successfully done a couple of times before (I blogged about it, somewhere months ago). It's a basic recipe. Once you prep the chicken, you roast it for 20 minutes, then add a cup of water, then continue roasting until it's done.

The first couple of time I made it, I added potatoes and onions to the baking dish. This was good, but by the time the chicken was done, the sides were going on charred. This time I decided to add them when I added the water after 20 minutes.

For some reason, though, when I took the dish out, put it on the stove, and added the water, the glass just exploded. I mean, glass embedded in the chicken, glass on the counter, stove, and floor, glass cracking and popping. There were no physical injuries, just the psychological damage from having to throw away a chicken. It seemed really wasteful but, first, it had glass all over it, tiny bits of glass and, second, we'd just lost the only dish large enough to bake a chicken in.

So we decided to go to KFC. Why? In hindsight, this seems like a poor decision. But we'd gotten these coupons in the mail and they made KFC look really good. There's one about 6 blocks from our apt, in a little Chinatown (there are a few Chinatowns in SF). I hadn't had KFC in years, but remembered loving it as a kid. I stopped eating there out of principle after hearing about how badly they treat their chickens, but hunger won out last night (plus, I think most of the chicken we eat comes from mistreated birds, KFC just gets a lot of publicity for it).

Well, there's a new reason not to go to KFC. It's nasty. It was the fattiest, slimiest chicken I've ever had. I don't remember it being that greasy. Even the biscuit was subpar. We split some popcorn chicken, and that was decent, but overall, I'm done with KFC for good, or at least another 7 or 8 years.

Fleet Week: Not Cool

It's Fleet Week in SF. What's the mean? I'm not sure. All I know is, the Blue Angels have been buzzing the city yesterday and today. Because I work amidst skyscrapers, I can't see them, just hear them. So every so often, there's this huge roar of a jet flying by.

Yesterday, it was combined with the noise of a huge anti-Bush protest (one of the many around the world yesterday). The SF one went right by my office, several hundred strong, maybe a thousand. They made the noise of a thousand, which was actually pretty cool.

I first thought the Air Force was keeping tabs on the SF activist crowd but, no, they're just having some sort of air show on top of a densely packed city.

Pope undecided about Limbo: "I could go either way"

I first thought this article was about the Pope's long-standing fued with Jimbo.

Hellooooo???

I saw this pic on M-N's blog and had to poach it.

Sure, he's still in diapers, sleeps in a crib, and only has about half a dozen words in his vocabulary, but the boy loves the telephone.

Billions of planets

Great news for former sci-fi geeks like me:
Possible proof of billions of Earth-like planets in our solar system.

Lost: Season 3

Lost premiered last night. It was good. If you haven't watched seasons 1 and 2, you might as well forget about starting now. Unless you get the dvds.

The opening was great. Henry Gale (or, Ben, I guess) is both an interesting character and a terrific actor, possibly the best on the show.

I'm ready for them to kill off Jack. He offers nothing. His backstory is tedious. In the present, he's just a mess.

1st SF Rain

It's raining in San Francisco (not pictured).

Sure, it's foggy a lot (though not as much as everyone says), but we've been here about 4 months and while there have been sporadic sprinkles, this is the first day it's actually raining downtown.

I knew I'd miss the seasons (especially those first snowfalls), but I didn't think I'd miss rain. I'm told that I'll get plenty of rain this winter and, like snow in late March, I'll be ready for it to go away again, but for now, it's noteworthy.

Mid-book report: Seeing by Saramago

I've picked up this book a few times and not read it. It's a sequel (of sorts) to Blindness -- basically, the same anonymous city that was beset by the blindness plague is now beset by an election abnormality: about 80% of the populace cast blank votes.

There are clear parallels to the 2000 U.S. election. It's a metaphor, I get it. Saramago writes stories that echo Camus in terms of plot and, to a lesser extent, existentialism.

This book just isn't as engaging as Blindness. His observations are still terrific. Saramago writes with an incredible wisdom of the human psyche. But whereas Blindness claustrophobically centered on individual stories, with the scope of the plague always a mystery, Seeing centers, thus far, on the politicians, the prime minister and spies trying to uncover why people voted for no one. It takes this broad path that's far less compelling, particular with Saramago's narrative style, in which no characters have proper names (just titles) and dialogue isn't broken apart with quotation marks.

I'm writing about it now because I'm not sure I'll finish it. Read Blindness, though. It's terrific.

How to protect the pages

Harold Meyerson in today's Washington Post: "How about building a 700-foot fence around all Republican members of Congress?"

Survivor story

This article from the NY Times about the collision of two airplanes in Brazil last Friday is surprisingly badly written. But it's written by a man who was on the plane that didn't crash and, therefore, incredibly compelling.

As I think about 4 trips via plane in the next few months

"In the US alone, between 1983 and 2000, there were 568 plane crashes. Out of the collective 53,487 people onboard, 51,207 survived."

Thanks, BBC.

SuperMegaAwesome Cookies

I triumphantly returned to the world of baked goods on Sunday. I made chocolate chip cookies with walnuts from scratch. They're awesome.

Cookies, in my opinion, have suffered a PR crisis in recent years. Those pre-packaged dough tubes, where you just scoop and bake, take the magic out of a simple recipe. Those cookies can be good, but not as good as ones freshly made.

Part of my reluctance to make cookies from scratch has been butter. To make the dough, I needed two sticks of 'softened' butter. First of all, when I feel like cookies, I don't often have two sticks of unfrozen butter. When it is unfrozen, I always struggle to get it 'softened' without being 'melted liquid'.

I think a big part of successful cooking isn't just following recipes but being able to accumulate knowledge about processes and tricks. With the butter, I learned eventually that if I put the butter sticks over the part of the stove where the pilot flames burn (between the burners), they'll soften without melting.

Another trick I learned that may or may not have any bearing on the outcome of the cookies is letting the eggs warm to room temperature. I read this somewhere. I think it's for baking. Maybe it's for egging houses. Either way, it's better to have room temperature eggs than cold ones.

The point of the story is that I've eaten a lot of cookies in the last two days. Good cookies.

Torgo sustains life

I bought a plant a few weeks ago for my office. Today, October 2nd, it is still alive.

Working alone in an office, someone recommended that I get a fish. Aside from not really liking fish all that much as pets, I have a long history of killing them. Not intentionally, just, you know, they die easily.

Plants I can do. We have a plant at home called Lazarus that's been legally dead about 6 times. It's a spider plant, I think. I'm not sure, exactly. We have other, more vibrant plants, but Lazarus likes inching towards death, losing leaves, turning brown, flirting with the trash can, then miraculously returning. At the moment, he's going strong.

This office plant doesn't have a name. It doesn't have character yet. It just sort of sits there, keeping me company.

Movie review: Before Sunset

Before Sunset: Torgo approves

I don't think of myself as being into romantic movies. I'm a poet, though, so I guess there's some of that silly romanticism in me.

A few weeks ago, we saw "Before Sunrise" and I thought it was terrific. Last night we watched its sequel, "Before Sunset."

See this movie. See the first one first, of course, but then, even if you think the first is sentimental and contrived, see the second movie.

There are many things to love about the second. First, the plot of the first was contrived, yes, but I went along with it. These two people (Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy) meet on a train outside Vienna and, on a whim, decide to spend the night walking the city, promising it will just be a one-off thing, no strings. Of course, they fall for each other. I can go along with contrivances if the film is enjoyable and the actors are engaging.

Had the second one repeated the plot of the first, it would never have been as effective. Fortunately, they take the same basic concept (9 years later, the two meet in Paris and decide to spend a little over an hour getting reacquainted), but make it something new. The film takes place almost in real time, like an episode of "24" minus Jack Bauer's brooding, angry, violent intensity, supplanting all the terrorism with intelligent conversation about romantic idealism. Ok, it's not really like "24."

In no way does "Before Sunset" just repeat "Before Sunrise." The sequel takes the characters and develops them into something they weren't in the earlier film. 9 years have passed and much has happened. Emotionally, the two are grown and then grow further, more so than seems possible in such a short film (it's barely 80 minutes long).

The idealism of the first is gone now. Yet it's not replaced by cold cynicism. Hawke is still madly in love with Delpy. Delpy equally loves Hawke, but she's far more coy and cautious. There's a frankness to their discussions that's wonderful to watch.

It would have been too easy for the film to lapse into generic romance (it's set in Paris, after all), but it doesn't. Like the first film, the conversations (and the film is pretty much just one long conversation) are intelligent, thoughtful, and genuine.

I was concerned when the film began with Hawke doing some sort of book signing. He was being asked questions by a group of very intrigued reporters. (Oddly, there didn't seem to be any fans of the book, just reporters.) Maybe at Hawke's own book signings he's hounded by reporters, but I've never seen that, especially for a first-time author. But that was the last time I questioned the film. Everything afterwards felt natural and perfect.

DVD Review: Chappelle's Show - The Lost Episodes

Chappelle's Show - The Lost Episodes: Torgo approves

I think I've mentioned before how we don't have cable. With every tv show being released on dvd, it's increasingly hard to feel left out.

On Friday, Netflix gave us "Chappelle's Show - The Lost Episodes." I've been an off-and-on fan of Chappelle's Show. I think Dave Chappelle is great. "Block Party" was terrific. I like his stand-up. I like many of the sketches on his show. However, I don't always like the approach to racism on the show. He said he left the show, in part, because he worried that instead of parodying stereotypes, he was beginning to reinforce them. I think that's true.

Despite how vile the concept of airing these "lost episodes" is (done w/o consulting Chappelle and mostly just exploiting every skit he filmed before leaving), there are many things worth seeing here. First of all, there are some hilarious sketches. Many of them deal with Chappelle's newfound riches and, in hindsight, clearly make his departure less of a surprise. There's also a terrific sketch about posthumous Tupac cds. It's funny, that one isn't about Chappelle, but in a way it documents the same thing that's happened to him with this dvd.

The notorious "Pixie" sketch, where different races are shown with pixies who send up common racial stereotypes, comes in the second of three episodes. The sketch is funny, but in what is perhaps the only redeeming aspect of the producers milking Chappelle's material, they decided to have an open forum with the audience on whether or not the sketch should have aired. That was a good idea. It leads to some good discussion.

In a more telling moment, on the dvd extras, the two co-hosts are shown discussing the sketch with the director. They're debating the racism of the black pixie, who tries to convince Chappelle to get fried chicken while dancing to banjo music. One of the co-hosts says that he thinks the banjo takes it too far. The director says, "Would it make a difference if you knew it's Mos Def playing the banjo?"

First of all, is there anything Mos Def can't do? Who is this guy? I first knew him as a rapper. Then a legitimate stage and screen actor. In "Block Party," he plays the drums. Now the banjo?

But more importantly, the white director is asking the black co-hosts if it's less racist because a black musician is performing. No, of course not. But this discussion, along with the forum with the audience, made me wish that more of Chappelle's show had been like this. Great comedy that pushes things to the point of being uncomfortable followed by quality discussions of what just happened. That's probably not as good as tv.