Edamame Salad

This is my new favorite thing ever. It's comprised of things I adore - crunch, green (my secret food & beverage weakness is the color green), sweet/sour-ish taste, cheap-ass ingredients & straight-out-of-the-fridge eatability. I've made it twice in the past week.

1 16-oz bag of frozen edamame (aka green soybeans) (if you can find 'em shelled, go for it, but my cherished local supermarket only carries the shell-tastic kind. In 15.5 oz size. You can technically substitute chickpeas, but lord, when the soybeans are so tasty, just save the chickpeas for hummus. You could probably go fresh, if that's available; but frozen soybeans are actually quite delectable, unlike, say, frozen spinach.)
1 bunch radishes (appx 8 oz), thinly sliced
1/4 c seasoned rice vinegar
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1/2 c chopped cilantro (don't be packin that shit too tight now, ya hear?)
Salt & freshly ground black pepper to taste

Cook the edamame according to the package directions. In my case, this means boiling them in 2 cups of salted water for 2 - 3 minutes. If they're shelled, wham presto! continue on. If not, shell them.
Place the edamame in a medium bowl. Add the rest of the stuff. Mix it up. Serve at room temperature or chilled, whichever best aligns with your heathen wont. Serves 4, apparently.

The Pain, It Blossoms Like A Nasty Bitch Of A Flower

I have a headache. This is nothing new. I've been prone to headaches for a while. The kind that start & grow & last all day & make my head throb, in the back mostly. The kind that are OTC medication-proof (so much so that I don't even bother trying to medicate the pain anymore). The kind that I imagine result from lots of alchohol, lots of caffeine, lots of crap food, lots of cigarettes, & very little sleep.

I must admit that I am puzzled as to why I'm still getting them, though. I've not had a drink for ages. I cut the coffee back to two cups a week (down from about 28 oz a day, mind), almost a month ago. My food consumption has been sickeningly healthy. I sleep, maybe not the recommended 8, but enough for my needs. Every day I walk between 1 to 6 miles, so while I'm not superactive, I'm not sedentary either. I'm still smoking, but christ, I gave up alchohol, caffeine, & "comfort" food. The cigarette-quitting is just gonna have to wait a while. Besides, I've been a smoker off & on for 10 lung-blackening years now. The skull pain is a much more recent occurrence.

So, then, why the continual headaches? They don't fit the migraine profile - not debilitating enough, plus I've none of the attendant symptoms. Definitely not cluster headaches. Not rebound headaches from overmedicating, either. I guess they're just normal ol' tension headaches. Not even special enough to qualify as chronic tension-type headaches, really, since I only get them every few weeks, not 15 days a month.

Wait...could this be...the answer? At least for the special pain club megamix of yesterday & today? According to Wikipedia, "One of the theories says that the main cause for tension type headaches and migraine is teeth clenching which causes a chronic contraction of the temporalis muscle". I've always had a bit of TMJ disc displacement, enough so that both sides of my jaw pop rather disgustingly, but not painful enough to make me do anything about it. However, in the past few days I've definitely noticed that my jaw has been really, really tense & tight. There has indeed been some teeth clenching in the hizzy. Also, I have been known to grind them in my sleep. Perhaps if I consciously try to relax my lower mouth area, this will abate.

Um, also, if you have a headache & are feeling badly you should check this out. It will probably make you realize that, actually, your headache ain't all that bad. Although the picture I've chosen is a pretty accurate representation of how I feel.

EDIT: Ended up having to leave work early. Went home, laid down & feltthepain all night. Read a bit of The Man Who Ate Everything (I WILL finish it someday, dammit), but mostly just slept. The headache is gone but for some dull residual pain. Relaxing my jaw, however, has turned out to be well nigh impossible, unless two conditions are met: (1) I'm actively thinking about it & (2) I'm actively relaxing (there's a tad of oxymoron in there, no?).

Also, I've been thinking about it, & have concluded that given that the enormously strong constitution & overall level of health I enjoy (which I've done precious little to deserve) I ought to just stop whining about the searing headpain I get every once in awhile. I mean, bad health things don't happen to me. I hardly ever even get the sniffles. Most of the time I wish I could share my health insurance with other people. I feel guilty for not using it. Ooh, but I've decided I'm gonna go to a doctor in the next month or so, to make sure I don't need to worry about these headaches. Also because I sneeze a lot at work, which I attribute to an allergic reaction to office drone work in general, but would like to confirm. Mostly, though, because I have some money in an FSA & I'm worried I'm not gonna use it otherwise.

Powell Butte Nature Park

Powell Butte is a 572-acre park situated on an extinct volcano (apparently we're rich in those around here) with over nine miles in trails. The park is waaay out on 162nd Avenue, about 20 minutes from where I live. It connects to the 40-mile trail which circles the city & is the second-largest park in Portland. The City purchased the land in 1925 to use for future water reservoirs. One reservoir out of the four envisioned was completed in 1980; no others have been built. The City declared the area a park & opened it to the public in 1990.

Good thing, too. The summit of the butte yields stunning views of five mountains in the Cascade Range: Mt. Jefferson, Mt. Bachelor, Mt. Adams, Mt. Helens & Mt. Hood (pictured above). I love Mt. Hood. It is gorgeous. Climber-killing, yes, but seriously, why would you climb a mountain in December anyway? Aren't you just flipping God off at that point? Apparently Darwin's rule rewards people who sit at home watching television & eating potato chips. At any rate, sometimes, if it's a clear day, after winding around the last Terwilliger curve on my way home I'm rewarded with the sight of Mt. Hood smack dab in the middle of my vision. Gorgeous mountain, river on the right, silver floating hot dogs - not a bad commute, eh?

The trails at Powell Butte are very pleasant; I took the Orchard Summit Loop to the Meadowland Trail, & it led me up to the top, past fruit orchards, through meadows, & looped through some forested area to boot. Some of the paths were paved, some were wood-chipped (to sop up mud, methinks), some were just muddy (but not too muddy; bikes & horses are mercifully banned during the winter months). Although the scenery was really nice (particularly the silver grass rippling in the wind), I suspect spring & summer are prime times to journey to Powell Butte.

I plan on finding out for sure.

Pigs, That Was The Sin

This weekend I viewed two nearly entirely disparate films, by two directors who don't have much in common - Children of Men by Alfonso Cuaron & The Wild Blue Yonder by W to the muthafuckin' erner Herzog. The tie that binds? Both are set in the future.

Cuaron's gripping but flawed work is set in 2027. Women have been infertile since 2007, Britain is the last "civilized" country (I think?), & anybody with an accent is summarily rounded up & sent off to animalistic refugee camps. The youngest person alive is eighteen years & some odd months. To Cuaron's credit, what actually sounds like heaven to me (the part about no kids, not the rest of it) looked like hell. It was so gray, so drab, so depressing, that I actually wanted to see a baby. Clive Owen was great as the grudging knight Theo, & Julianne Moore was luminous as ever. (If she keeps it up, she's going to eventually age more Catherine Deneuve-ish than Faye Dunaway, thank heavens.) As for Michael Caine - I didn't even recognize him til halfway through the movie. Nuff said.

The environment is tense in Children of Men. In the opening scene, a bomb explodes in a cafe, which is pretty much the only sweet relief you get out of this movie; by which I mean, the remaining hour & 45 minutes are spent with the bomb ticking - awaiting catastrophe - something going wrong. Sometimes it does. Just as often it doesn't. Grrr. It's getting a bit annoying to try not to reveal plot details. Me & my principles. I will say that I adored the ending.

Generally speaking, Alfonso Cuaron has had my heart ever since A Little Princess was released in 1995. It's an exquisite film, one of my favorites. I've also heard good things about Y Tu Mama Tambien, though I've not yet seen it. Great Expectations kinda blew, but I'll blame that on studio malfeasance & the insufferability of its leads, Gwyneth Paltrow & Ethan Hawke (um, ew). I did enjoy his take on the third Harry Potter. Overall, I think he's an extraordinarily talented filmmaker who has in this case crafted a largely extraordinary film.


Herzog's vision of the future comes from an unknown point in time. He posits that microbial bacteria from the Roswell spacecraft created an illness which threatened to wipe out the human race, but was barely contained. A team of scientists were sent off in a spaceship to discover an alternate habitation; a replacement Earth, just in case. The story is narrated by an alien (Brad Dourif) from a dying planet called The Wild Blue Yonder, whose inhabitants made the long journey to Earth, only to build a failed shopping mall; they are not super-slick superior life forms, but pace per (me no speak good English) Herzog, they are aliens who "suck". Their home planet's atmosphere is helium & the sky is frozen. But words & plot are overall in short supply in Herzog's "science fiction fantasy". The poetry of the images is paramount; the words just tie everything together. Herzog uses both found & documentary footage, as well as Brad Dourif's excellent performance, to magnificent effect; the music is key as well. (But music always has been very important to Herzog's films.)

I LOVE Herzog. I adore him, I respect him, I admire him. He has a vision. It is a strong vision which runs throughout his oeuvre. "Man, Nature. Nature, Man." Aguirre vs. the Amazon. Fitzcarraldo's boat vs. the mountain. The innocent Stroszek's struggle with the fictional American Dream. Bruno S. again as Kaspar Hauser against the villagers (actually, although more widely known as the drably dubbed The Mystery of Kaspar Hauser, this one was released in Germany with the (roughly translated) title Every Man For Himself & God Against All, which pretty much sums everything up right there). Oil fires in Kuwait during the first Gulf war. Shit, Herzog himself walking 500 miles from Munich to Paris with a film print under his arm to "save" the film critic Lotte Eisner, who was deathly ill (it worked!). And more recently of course he's undergone a bit of a renaissance with the justly celebrated Grizzly Man (to my unexpected yet endless delight - anything good for Herzog is good for humanity).

The Wild Blue Yonder also has a pretty great ending.

Although I would love to continue, I should probably be doing work at this point. Long story short - both excellent films, both very much worth the time investment.

Villains & Hard-Asses Only Need Apply

Sometimes I wonder if I am the only woman under the age of 35 who finds Dr. Perry Cox (John C. McGinley) on "Scrubs" more attractive than J.D. (Zach Braff). Maybe it's just me, but I've always preferred brittle to bewildered; clever to charming; & so on. You could say I like the headlights more than the deer.
But...yeah...it's probably just me. 'Course, I've also had things for John Malkovich as Valmont in Dangerous Liasions (that voice!) & David Thewlis as Johnny in Naked (those words!). I even liked Joseph Cotten as the threatening uncle in Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt. So I think my taste in fictional-character crushes is somewhat suspect.

Game On!

(This game-winning TD is brought to you by Joseph Addai.)

Well, I said I was gonna do it, & I did it: the Indianapolis Colts have made it to the Superbowl for the first time since 1970, when they were still in Baltimore, based on the sheer force of my will. I dumped Gatorade on myself last night. Go, me!

Seriously though, last night's game against the Patriots was flat-out, bar-none, the most fantastic game I've ever seen. Granted, I've only been watching football since November. Indeed, a friend told me last night how lucky I was that "my team" made the Superbowl in my first year of fan-dom. The concept of "my team" is a very odd one to me. Unless a team becomes "yours" based arbitrarily on geography, how can it be anything but an even more stunningly arbitrary choice, particularly given the amount of emotion people invest in teams & the possessiveness with which they speak about them? I mean, the Colts became "my team" because I like QB Peyton Manning & his cornpone accent, receiver Marvin Harrison has this awesome Boogie Nights-worthy porn star mustache, coach Tony Dungy looks like a nice guy, there are a lot of "8"s on their jerseys & I like their helmets. That's it. Oh, & Joseph Addai is a damn good running back. (Look! I'm starting to finally know the positions! Hee hee.) And yet, like any other fan for any other reasons, I found myself emotionally invested in last night's AFC championship game. It wouldn't have ruined my night if the Colts hadn't won - but I totally, insanely, wanted them to. & was seriously fucking excited when they did. There was screaming. And lots of high fives.

But, come on - they were down by 15 friggin' points at the half. Against the Patriots. And Manning always chokes in the post-season, right? I thought it was true. The first two playoff games didn't bode well for him - the defense won 'em the first game against the Kansas City Chiefs (the! Colts! defense! holy! shit! - as an Indy sportswriter said during the regular season, the only reason they're 32nd in the league is because there aren't 39 teams) & the combination of defense & kicker Adam Vinatieri led them to improbably defeat the Baltimore Ravens. And the first half against the Pats looked to be more of the subpar same for Manning, who, again, just didn't seem to be getting the job done in the crunch.

I figured, at the half, that they were probably gonna lose. Yes, I almost lost faith in my powers. Almost - but not quite. I left the window open. And they did it! And Manning was fantastic in the second half, especially on that last 7 play, 80 yard drive, which led to Addai's touchdown, the Colts' first lead of the game (with 60 seconds left in the 4th quarter) & ultimately, after Marlin Jackson's interception of a Tom Brady pass, sweet sweet victory. I can't really recreate the events & feelings, but suffice it to say I was pumped like I was full of steroids.

I'M GOING TO THE SUPERBOWL. Well, maybe not me exactly. But, you know, my team. And we're totally going to hand the Bears' asses to them on a platter. Because I said so.

Pan's Labyrinth, Postscript

Saturday dawned rather sunny, for a pleasant change, & felt like it was in the mid-40s temperature-wise, so I decided to trek the 3.5 miles to the NW side of town to see Pan's Labyrinth. Even though I arrived at Cinema 21 forty minutes before the screening, there were already 20 or 30 people in line. Within ten minutes, when the box office actually opened, there were many, many more. It was so great to see so many people that excited. & - bonus - I still got "my seat" in the theater, behind the broken chair, with nobody in front of me! Heh. Sweet.

& the movie? I'm not gonna say much. But I will say, it's fantastic. A real, true fairytale. If Hans Christian Andersen had made a movie, it'd probably have been a lot like this. Highly recommended. Also, if any of y'all see it & happen to desperately love it, lemme know - I grabbed a few promotional one-sheets from the lobby. I guess they are mini-poster size. Look like this:
Pretty cool. I like it. Despite the terrible tagline. "Innocence has a power evil cannot imagine". Ummm. Ew.

But damn, just a great friggin' movie.

EDIT: Six Oscar nominations, including Foreign Language Film, Cinematography (ohgodpleaseyes - the picture's Goya-esque beauty is absolutely stunning & I think Guillermo Navarro is a remarkable DP), Screenplay & Score! Full list of noms here. Inasmuch as I deride the Academy Awards, largely because they seem to be awarded not based on merit, but on marketing (read Peter Biskind's Down & Dirty Pictures if you want to be sickened by how crapfests like Shakespeare In Love & Life Is Beautiful stole Oscars), I am still pretty excited. Del Toro shoulda got a Director nod, though. C'mon - he shares the nest with Peter Jackson, both rare birds whose visions are completely, utterly, purely cinematic & simply made for movies.

Where Snow Is Snow

Yesterday about 3 to 4 inches of snow fell on my fair city. It shut the city down - I shit you not. Just about, anyway. That's because there are NO PLOWS in Portland. The streets were still covered in snow when I left my apartment at 10:30 today. But, yesterday, I got a snow day!!! For reals!!! I'd thought those went the way of dinosaurs & Santa Claus once you got out of high school. I'm so happy to discover otherwise.

I'd settled in & watched the first three episodes of Krysztof Kieslowski's Decalogue, a mini-series made for Polish television in the late 80s which deals humanly with the Ten Commandments. (If America had a mini-series on the Ten Commandments, you can bet there'd be tons o' Jesus talk & loads of righteous action in there. Not Kieslowski's delicate, moving explorations of single human moments. Apparently Stanley Kubrick said this project was the only cinematic masterpiece he'd seen in his life. And we make fun of the Poles? Is this before or after we watch "American Idol"?)

Though I'd not really intended to venture outside, I ended up desiring nothing more than to organize my filing cabinet (yeah; total dork). So I was compelled to walk the mile to Fred Meyer for some hanging file folders. And I'm so glad I did! True, I thought I was gonna fall smack on my butt several times. But the glorious human-ness of the experience was completely worth it. It was actually nothing like the picture I use as illustration up top there. It was a bit more like this:
Rrraaaarrrgggghhh! Tree-eating snow monster! Which is meant to symbolize that it was REALLY FUN to be outside. The Willamette Valley doesn't often see snow like this, so everybody was outside, walking around, carrying sleds, taking pictures, enjoying it. Everybody looked so happy. Even that lonely-looking kid in the top photo was actually sledding, not auditioning for an Ingmar Bergman movie. There were about as many people out as you might expect to see on a gorgeous spring day.

Did I mention the snow day? It was sweet.

EDIT: While discussing the snow with my coworkers, I was informed that it snows "this heavily" in Portland about once every three or four years. Holy crap. Explains the wonderment.

EDIT EDIT: Hey, wait! They totally just made a movie about the Ten Commandments, called The Ten! And it's got Winona Ryder & Liev Schreiber & Jessica Alba (who is hot when she moves, but looks semi-retarded when she talks) & Adam Brody! And Justin Theroux, whom David Lynch has rather inexplicably anointed as his new McLachlanian alter-ego, plays Jesus! It's a spoof! I'm sure it will be simply divine. Premieres at Sundance this week, which I generally take as a sign that a film is most likely mediocre at best. Ever since The Brothers McMullen took the Grand Jury Prize, anyway. I'll wait & see.

That's "Couch" As In "Cooch"

Whilst mapping my journey from SE to NW for the Inland Empire showing, I noticed a small park on the map. Perfect, thinks I, those NW parks are gonna be pesky to get to anyway. I'll just drop on by & cross this one off the list. As you can see, I did.

Couch Park is named after Captain John Heard Couch, a famous Portland resident. According to the park plaque, he was so popular that when he died in 1870, the city basically shut down to attend his funeral. Apparently he was excellent at navigating the mouth of the Columbia River; but perhaps his most memorable contribution was to NW Portland, where he named the east-west streets in alphabetical order ("A Street", "B Street", etc.), a boon to those unfamiliar with the area. Though the streets now have more "official" sounding names (i.e., Flanders St., Lovejoy St. - yes, "The Simpsons" characters are named after Portland streets (my personal favorite is "Sideshow Bob" Terwilliger)), they do still run in alphabetical order; hence this area of town is imaginatively called the Alphabet District (which I think is also a nod to San Francisco). Including Couch Street. Which, indeed, is not pronounced in the traditional piece-of-furniture sense, but rather in the more uncouth slang term used to refer to ladyparts.

The park itself is fairly mundane. Probably most notable for its off-leash area, which is of little use to me. More interesting is the fact that where the park is once stood a rather grand estate belonging Cicero Hunt Lewis, a 19th century merchant "prince" who wed Couch's daughter Clementine. I guess they kind of kept the land in the family.

Side note: I almost lived in this neighborhood. Not on "Trendy-Third" Avenue, as the locals call it, but close - I nearly took an apartment on 21st. While it's actually an extremely pleasant area, full of the colorful Victorian houses that inhabit the city, & living there would have put me within spitting distance of Cinema 21, Powell's Books (the big guy; there's a smaller branch on Hawthorne that I can walk to) & the Magic Gardens (a locally famous strip club), I'm still happier with where I ended up. NW is more "city" vibe than I needed in my daily life. SE is definitely still city, but, I guess, just not as many stories high. Besides, Trimet is a godsend when it comes to getting around, & at least I can always find parking in front of my house.

Inland Empire

This weekend I went to Cinema 21 for the first time to see David Lynch's Inland Empire. First, this is a fantastic theater - it has a balcony, which I think I will utilize in March, when a restored print of Jean Renoir's The Rules of the Game plays (I'm somewhat particular about my theater seating & wouldn't usually sit as far away from the screen as the balcony requires. But I've already seen The Rules of the Game on 35mm, so I'm willing to chance it). If you go to the first showing on either Saturday or Sunday, it's $4, which is a pretty sweet friggin' deal. In lieu of the pre-show ads & "did you know"s of the chain theaters, they have this amazing red curtain in front of the screen, which was partially illuminated by stagelights on the bottom. These provided the sole source of light - but for their stark effect on the curtain, & subsequent dim reddish refraction into the theater itself, all would have been utterly shrouded in darkness. The overall effect was terribly ominous, & filled me with all sorts of anticipation - that once the curtains were moved, anything could be back there, waiting to step out into the light. I couldn't believe that the people around me were talking, that they too weren't subdued into wordless awe. Honestly, I half expected Laura Harring from Mulholland Drive to come out & do the scene set in the club Silencio. (The other half of me expected Steven Soderbergh to show up for Schizopolis redux. Okay, not really.) Actually, I swear the pre-show music was the soundtrack from that excellent film. Which is very fitting in retrospect, as I think in more than superficial ways, Inland Empire is something of a companion piece to Mulholland Drive.

Anyway, the mood was set. I was ready to be boggled. I've not missed a Lynch film at the theater since prior to 1996, which sounds impressive until you realize that he's only had three in the past 11 years. It's been five years since Mullholland Drive. I guess he's been busy with transcendental meditation (omgdavidlynch&donovanaretouringtogether) & his own brand of coffee.

This isn't a review. I'm not going to go into an in-depth analysis requiring the disclosure of plot details (ha! ha!). I didn't read anything about this before I went & I wouldn't want to spoil anything for anybody else - I appreciate knowing as little as possible about a film before I see it. But I will say the following: for the first twenty minutes I thought Inland Empire was going to blow my mind. At the 140-minute mark, I was ready to walk out.

And this morning, I can't wait to see it again.

That's the thing with Lynch's films since Lost Highway, or maybe even Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me - you can't just watch them once. Whether you like them or loathe them on first sight, you simply cannot comprehend them after a single viewing. I mean, sure, his 80s films were great. But they were highly accessible too, & comparatively easy to grasp. Compare the pop art surrealism of Blue Velvet to the dark, fetid surrealism of this film (which you can't really do if you haven't seen it, but whatever). I mean, there's no catchphrase in Inland Empire, no "PABST...BLUE...RIBBON" looneyness. This movie doesn't make a lot of sense. It's all internal. You're in somebody's mind, & the movie is as logical as somebody's mind. Which was part of my problem. See the picture above? (For the record, I would literally kill for those shoes.) That's an extremely rare long shot, for this movie. Most of the movie is shot in close up. I tried this morning to explain to my colleague why that bothered me, & why that was so hard to watch, but you know what? Every thing I said to justify my disdain just went straight toward explaining the film & actually increased my admiration. A lot of the shots are out of focus too, which bothered me far less, but has the same kind of effect.

I must also say, completely out of context, that Laura Dern's performance is devestatingly excellent.

The one opinion which I don't think time will amend is that the movie is far, far too long at 179 minutes. It's Lynch's most experimental theatrical release since Eraserhead. But guess what? Eraserhead is 89 minutes long. I've said it before, I'll say it again - experimental is great. I love it. It should, however, never ever ever be too long. This is more important for experimental film, which asks so much of its viewers, which verily demands your active participation to "create" the cinematic experience, than it is for, say, Catch Me If You Can. That film could easily have benefited from losing 30 minutes, but since it really just wanted to entertainingly suck away 160 minutes & leave the viewer marvelling at its impressive production design, the extra time was only pointless, not painful.

Generally speaking, too many filmmakers are (understandably) unable to discern when, exactly, their films reach the point of tedium, whether they be wobbly student productions or Steven Spielberg or Martin Scorsese screen-tastic, bombastic extravaganzas. Particularly if they are too closely involved in editing. Particularly if they edited the friggin' thing themselves, as I just learned Lynch did (which explains a lot). I mean, good lord, I *heart* David Lynch. His imagery is gorgeous as all get-out. & his use of sound is spectacular. Not to mention, I have a lot of patience when it comes to film. But even I was fidgeting during the last 40 minutes of this one.

In conclusion, I will steal somebody else's words. Manohla Dargis put it really well in her review of this film, when she wrote:

"Inland Empire isn’t a film to love. It is a work to admire, to puzzle through, to wrestle with. Its pleasures are fugitive, even frustrating. The first time I saw it, I was repulsed by the shivers of Lynchian sadism, a feeling doubtless informed by my adoration of the far more approachable, humanistic Mulholland Drive. On second viewing, though, Inland Empire seemed funnier, more playful and somehow heartfelt."

Besides, any movie that has a room full of hookers doing the Locomotion has to be worth seeing twice, right?

EDIT: I've totally ignored The Straight Story in discussing Lynch's films. Due to gross oversight on my part, I've actually still not yet seen it, though I've heard it's a fine picture.

Walkabout

Confession: I saw Walkabout during a time in my life when I was watching between two to three films a day & doing other things that weren't designed to help my long-term memory. Thus, my recollection of things like plot, etc. are most vague. I even forgot that Jenny Agutter, from Logan's Run, was in it. And she's smokin'. Nicolas Roeg's films overall I've sadly neglected, though I did take a shine to Performance, starring Mick Jagger. But, to the point:

Although my impaired recollection means any subsequent recommendation will invariably suffer given my inability to convincingly back it up, the fact is that no amount of college living can keep me from effortlessly recalling the deep emotional connection I felt with this film. That inexplicable burst of pure feeling that takes a movie from "just a movie" into the rarified stratospheres of...ahem...art. & sometime me like to wank about artses.

But here's the real reason I bring this movie up now: apparently they've gone & done up brand new 35mm prints for the 35th anniversary of Walkabout's initial theatrical release. If it plays near you - please go see it. You will not be sorry. I swear! It may not be super-fast-paced, but hey - no transcendental Jesus donkeys in this one. No film-fuck lifetime membership card required. Here's a blurb from a pretty decent review:

"Originally released in 1971, Walkabout provides few explanations that help us comprehend what we see on the screen as a girl and her brother become lost in the Australian outback. Roeg tells a story where the visible, known elements are vastly outnumbered by the mysteries that lay hidden beneath the surface. However, the clues that it provides are so intriguing and compelling that it's easy to get wrapped up in the storytelling, to trust that Roeg's elliptical filmmaking may somehow get at greater truths than those typically provided in conventional Hollywood filmmaking."

If that's not tempting enough, how about this, from the same review:

"My only reservation is the camera's leering tendency to gravitate toward Jenny Agutter, to swing low so that we can get a teasing glance up her skirt or to peer longingly through the weeds while she takes a naked swim. Some of these shots can be interpreted as coming from the Aborigine's point-of-view and are thus explainable, but many others have no point-of-reference other than Roeg's infatuation with Agutter's body."

See? It's deep and sleazy. My favorite. Go see it, bitches.

Oh, all right - I tried to just post the "deep" picture. But damn if I can resist putting the "sleazy" in too:

Portland Fucking Oregon, Part 1

Tried to find the t-shirt that actually says "PORTLAND FUCKING OREGON" on it, but no dice, so I settled for this SFW version. (PDX is one of Portland's nicknames. From the airport code. Yeah. It's gay. But there are still at least 12 million places I'd not live before I'd not live here.)

This is a great city. & I'm sure I'll expound on that to the point of tedium. But here's one reason: the people. Last night, I was walking down Hawthorne Boulevard, starting to cross one of the numbered avenues, & I saw a car coming up to the stop sign at a fair clip. I hesitated - I've been hit by a car as a pedestrian & while not horrifying, it definitely knocked the attitude I'd previously acquired during a summer of NYC walking straight outta me. This evening past, the driver saw me, & slowed, & I continued to cross in front of him. He actually rolled down his window & apologized. "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you." Are you kidding? Could the people here be any friggin' nicer?

I don't know exactly what makes Portland so friendly & laid-back. But it's the "nicest" place I've ever been. When I went to Music Millennium & bought a Caetano Veloso CD, in lieu of the usual record-store clerk disinterest I got a conversation about Caetano, which led to Pedro Almodovar, which led to Ryuichi Sakamoto. At the grocery store, an ID check leads into a discussion of my astrological sign. Asking where the bathroom is leads to a teasing question ("Are you sure you're old enough?") & response ("I promise I won't pee on the floor") rather than a jerk of the head indicating the direction. If I only have one thing to buy & the person ahead of me has a cart, they will actually let me go first.

Maybe it's the rain?

Um, also, there is this amazingly fantastic thing that apparently was all controversial & cost a lot of money to build & people are pissed or something. Its purpose is to transport people from one place up high to a hospital down low on the waterfront. I don't know why & don't really care what the story behind it is. The basic point is that on my drive to & from work, I get to see giant silver sausages floating over the freeway! Allegedly they're meant to look like bubbles, but I ain't having it. Those suckers are sausages. It opens to the public later this month, at which point hopefully I can find/take a better picture, one which is more truly reflective of its meaty float-osity. I am utterly enraptured & can't wait to ride it.

Ooh Baby, Do You Know What That's Worth?

You want to click on the pictures to make them bigger. You really do. Then read this. I am going here for my birthday. Which isn't until August, true, but if you want a cabin at Clear Lake in the summer, you'd damn well better reserve it in January. While the NW folks are being rounded up as we speak, if any of my East Coast bitches wanna come out, well, you'd be hard-pressed to find a better reason than Clear Lake. I'm totally trying to tantalize you.

It is the most beautiful place on earth. No joke. If there were a heaven, it couldn't possibly not look like this. The story as I understand it goes that a volcano erupted about 3,000 years ago & created the lake where once stood a forest. You can still see petrified trees standing in the water. For reals. The lagoon (I think it's technically a "spring", but we always call it the "lagoon") feeds water to the lake at such a rate that (1) the temperature of the water never rises above 34 degrees F & (2) the lake never freezes. No motorboats are allowed. It does what it says on the tin & is, indeed, pristinely clear - you can see the bottom up to depths of 100+ feet. Apparently the fishin's pretty good too. (Side note: it's really, really, really fun to drop small-ish volcanic rock into the blue part of the clear - you can watch them hit the bottom & send up mushroom clouds of sand. Your very own mini-nuclear bombs!)

Anyway, my family went there every year while I was growing up. I used to play with My Little Ponys in the water while sitting in a moored rowboat, & still fairly frequently have dreams set at the lake. One of the best days I ever had involved me drifting around in a rowboat, toes in the water, just watching the bottom of the lake . For like four hours. Course, I was also smoking pot, but I've done it sober too (probably not for quite as long...) & it's just as much fun. Plus, there's a five-mile trail around the lake, & waterfalls within walking distance, & ice caves nearby, & on & on & on.

Sheesh. This Oregon really is a gorgeous place. I feel spectacularly fortunate to have so much so close. Plus, Portland is just friggin' awesome, but that's a whole nother topic.

Screw This Retail Jive

Okay. I never, ever, ever post about work. Why bother? Sometimes what I do bores me, so boring as this blog is, I don't take it there.

But. Today, I appreciate my job. I love my job. I love being a wholesale commercial insurance broker. Know why? Probably not! Do you care? I don't care if you care, so here goes! The brokerage for which I work is relatively new. Growing up, I guess. & in one of their more adolescent moments (before my time), they decided to try their hand at retail accounts. Meaning directly dealing with real live insureds. Ick. Luckily, they quickly realized that this is a nasty, unwelcome path. Not, however, before they'd wound up binding a few of these "retail" accounts.

And what have I spent almost my ENTIRE day doing? Dealing with two of these accounts which are due to renew in February. You know what this means? I have had to sit here ALL DAY filling out applications & highlighting information that I need the insureds to give me & writing horribly simplistic letters with subjects like "Your General Liability Policy". And the grossest part is that this is only the beginning! The inevitable calls will follow. "I don't understand these questions." "What do I need to put here?" Ugh. I've already had one or two of those calls. At least retail agents allegedly have specialized insurance knowledge; hence, they tend to know what you're talking about when you use some obscure abbreviation like, I don't know, "GL".

I thank the heavens that I landed a job as a broker. I would've killed myself if I'd ended up in retail. It'd be off to the looney bin for me if I had to do this all day, every day. Sheesh.

On the other hand, I suddenly have a simultaneous newfound admiration/fear of those with the stamina to do this crap.

Pan's Labyrinth

Pan's Labyrinth is the first movie I've been dying to see in ages, based solely on these two images. Okay, I couldn't help but read the first sentence of A.O. Scott's review so I know it's set in 1944 Spain. And I do kinda dig Guillermo del Toro's films. But beyond that, I know nothing. It could be a giant crapwad. Most people, myself among them, probably hope to find an hour or two of precious leisure time spent on a movie to be rather fantastic, or at least enjoyable. But even if I don't necessarily embrace the whole hog, I admire narrative movies that try to show the audience something different than that they would usually find (i.e., The Science of Sleep; Marie Antoinette). So I'm generally game to see 'em. And you never know - the next one could bloody well be a masterpiece. Besides, I've been a sucker for facial features on hands ever since I saw Jean Cocteau's Blood of a Poet.

So, when Pan's Labyrinth shows up in Portland, you can bet I'll be there. Maybe even on opening weekend (egads!). It looks to be, if nothing else, a feast for the eyes. And it's a fairy tale! Kind of! I think!

EDIT: Ooh, ooh, ooh! It's playing at Cinema 21 from 19 January through 1 February. Plus a bonus - David Lynch's new one is playing the week before. I'm giddy as a schoolgirl.

2007 IST ENDLICH GEKOMMEN!!!

The Space Needle proved to mirror my feelings precisely. Hurrah! I've never been happier to bid adieu to a year.

Also, I think this would be the perfect calendar with which to mark off the days of my 2007 life. It amuses me entirely too much.