RandomCha

Yesterday I found out that two of my exes know each other, but they didn’t know that they both knew me. I also found out that while Dune is fun to watch a on a big screen, it’s still a mess. We walked all the way home to lakeview from the Siskel in the loop, with a stop in the middle for dinner at Las Pinatas. The weather coudn’t have been more perfect. I went to bed feeling pretty content. Too bad that today sucks already.

OK. I think I can stop being a bastard, at least until such time as Rowling writes the next Harry Potter book (as she inevitably will, despite her feeble assurances to the contrary). I promise no more mention of her in these virtual pages until then.

PINK PRINCESS

2 oz. gin
3 oz. pineapple juice
2 oz. ruby red grapefruit juice
1/2 oz. grenadine

Shake hard over ice and strain into a tall ice-filled glass.

If anyone still cares: the so-called spoiler that I posted in my last entry was a total red herring.

If you were offended, it means that your own paranoia got the better of you.

Besides, the entry specifically says, “Please do not read this entry carefully. It will only upset you.”

Why should I be held responsible for your own morbid curiosity?

Please do not read this entry carefully. It will only upset you. Please do not read this entry carefully. It will only upset you. Please do not read this entry carefully. It will only upset you. Please do not read this entry carefully. It will only upset you. Please do not read this entry carefully. It will only upset you. Please do not read this entry carefully. It will only upset you. Please do not read this entry carefully. It will only upset you. Please do not read this entry carefully. It will only upset you. Please do not read this entry carefully. It will only upset you. Please do not read this entry carefully. It will only upset you. Please do not read this entry carefully. It will only upset you. Please do not read this entry carefully. It will only upset you. Please do not read this entry carefully. It will only upset you. Please do not read this entry carefully. It will only upset you. Please do not read this entry carefully. It will only upset you. Please do not read this entry carefully. It will only upset you. Please do not read this entry carefully. It will only upset you. Please do not read this entry carefully. It will only upset you. Please do not read this entry carefully. It will only upset you. Please do not read this entry carefully. BELLATRIX KILLS RON. It will only upset you. Please do not read this entry carefully. It will only upset you. Please do not read this entry carefully. It will only upset you. Please do not read this entry carefully. It will only upset you. Please do not read this entry carefully. It will only upset you. Please do not read this entry carefully. It will only upset you. Please do not read this entry carefully. It will only upset you. Please do not read this entry carefully. It will only upset you. Please do not read this entry carefully. It will only upset you. Please do not read this entry carefully. It will only upset you. Please do not read this entry carefully. It will only upset you. Please do not read this entry carefully. It will only upset you. Please do not read this entry carefully. It will only upset you. Please do not read this entry carefully. It will only upset you. Please do not read this entry carefully. It will only upset you. Please do not read this entry carefully. It will only upset you. Please do not read this entry carefully. It will only upset you. Please do not read this entry carefully. It will only upset you. Please do not read this entry carefully. It will only upset you. Please do not read this entry carefully. It will only upset you. Please do not read this entry carefully. It will only upset you. Please do not read this entry carefully. It will only upset you. Please do not read this entry carefully. It will only upset you. Please do not read this entry carefully. It will only upset you. Please do not read this entry carefully. It will only upset you. Please do not read this entry carefully. It will only upset you. Please do not read this entry carefully. It will only upset you. Please do not read this entry carefully. It will only upset you.

Dare we hope that the worm will turn for the GOP come Election Day? Or is that just being idealistic?

I don’t say this lightly, but I have decided that Crab Rangoon is one of the most brilliant appetizers yet invented.

Last night I whipped up some Hemingway Daiquiris for Andy & I (so named because Papa loved them and had them often in Cuba). I had never made them before.

recipe (makes 2):

3 oz. light rum
2 oz. grapefruit juice
juice of 1 lime
1/2 oz. Maraschino liqueur

Yesterday was a pretty awesome film day for me at the Siskel … first I saw Red Desert, then took a break for dinner and went back and saw INLAND EMPIRE. I wish I did that kind of thing more often. Saturate myself.

The Antonioni film is difficult, to say the least; everything about it is so alienating that it’s kind of like being on another planet for two hours. It just wouldn’t have the same impact were you to watch it on TV. On film on a really big screen with good sound you can at least allow yourself to be partially hypnotized by it. To be honest there were a few moments in the first half when I almost nodded off, but in a weird way that’s a complement. My own personal dream-world would have intersected with the dream-world of the film. What I liked about the film is a disquieting tension that exists between its rigorous, meticulously controlled aesthetics and the frequently semi-chaotic, inscrutable behavior of the characters.  That weird tension is part of what makes it feel so peculiar I think. I think this film pushes that kind of experiment about as far as it could go. His later films called for a somewhat different approach.

Seeing the Lynch film again (this was my third time) was both exhilarating and exhausting; when the end credits finally came up it felt abrupt, but over the course of its three hours the movie goes to so many places. It’s some kind of complete, self-contained world, with its own logic. It makes “sense” to me, but not in a way I can explain. In other words, I understand how it works but not why it works. Who else has ever made a film like it?

We went for dinner at the Elephant & Castle at Wabash/Lake. Blah. Way overpriced. But it was convenient. The Boddington’s tasted good however.

My life between 8.00 and 3.30 Monday through Friday seems so dull and so utterly removed from my life the rest of the time. Yet it’s hard to decide which feels more “real.”

LIBERACE VS. VICTOR BORGE (HAIKU)

candelabra is 
wicked but an upside down
score is even worse

I’m sorry you summer-lovin’ people out there, but this heat BITES. I feel like a prisoner; a comfortable prisoner at times (when I’m in a/c) but a prisoner nonetheless. I guess I better get used to it, judging from the screwed-up future that’s most likely in store for our planet. It seems like the human race is about 20 minutes into some wicked episode of “The Twilight Zone.” One that has a cruel plot twist in store for us at the end.

But that’s actually not what was on my mind. No, I was thinking about the Robbe-Grillet quote I posted recently. I think I could posit that the opposite is true as well: it doesn’t matter how you say something, it’s what you’re saying that’s important. So long as you’re communicating clearly.

I’ve always been preoccupied with that. The meaning between the lines; the meaning despite the words. That’s the hardest thing of all to get to, as a writer. The acceptance of this: that no matter what you’re saying or how you’re saying it the important stuff (if it’s somehow there) occurs in the reader’s mind beyond what’s on the page, beyond what’s in your control. All you can really do is create an environment that can somehow incubate an epiphany. Sometimes it’s a total accident. How can anyone take credit for that? You’re just lucky if you can be around when it happens. 

Discuss:

“The true writer has nothing to say. What counts is the way he says it.”
–Alain Robbe-Grillet