“Why does man kill? He kills for food. And not only food: Frequently there must be a beverage.”
― Woody Allen, Without Feathers
A reminder of what one of these looked like at the unveiling
I’ve been thinking about the themes (and there are quite a few) of the amazing movie I saw yesterday, Everything Everywhere All at Once. One of the themes is to enjoy and appreciate the ordinary things every day.
This morning I was thinking about this while I waited for my coffee water to boil in the microwave (3 minutes and thirty seconds) I stood in the little break area staring at the soft drink machine. It had a little red LED screen and across this was scrolling, “Ice Cold Coca Cola – 29°.” I know the twenty nine degrees isn’t really possible… but still.
I thought about how much work went into making the plastic bottles of Coca Cola, transporting then there, then creating the frigid atmosphere inside the machine. All I had to do was swipe the little piece of plastic in my pocket and the delicious ice cold beverage would be mine.
It really is a miracle. I actually love Diet Coke – and after a five mile bike commute it sounded like it would be something I might really like. I did settle for my coffee then, but all day I thought about those red scrolling letters, “Ice Cold Coca Cola – 29°.”
“Every Rejection, Every Disappointment Has Led You Here To This Moment”
— Alpha Waymond, Everything Everywhere All at Once
My bicycle locked up in front of The Alamo Drafthouse theater in Richardson, Texas. They have the coolest bike racks.
Partly out of desire… but mostly out of necessity (we are down to one working car) I have been riding the five mile commute to my work on my bike every day. The mornings are OK – except I have to get up twenty minutes before dawn so I’m riding before it gets too hot – the rising sun slowly burning away the morning fog. The afternoon commute is already too hot, though – here in Texas it’s already in the mid to high nineties most days.
There was a movie I’ve been wanting to see – Everything Everywhere All at Once. It was showing at the Alamo Drafthouse here in Richardson at 6:15. My commute is five miles, it’s three or so miles to the theater, and four and a half home from there. Easy riding – except for the heavy rush hour traffic around downtown Richardson and coming off Highway 75. So I sneaked out of work a few minutes early and rode up to the Alamo.
It was hot and I was sweating like a stuck pig. A bit embarrassing, but I arrived a bit early so I bought a cold beer (Lakewood Temptress on tap) and sat in a dark booth in the back of the cool bar until the movie was announced… I was able to cool and dry off enough to at least be almost presentable.
The movie is getting a lot of hype —- and it deserves every bit of it… and more. It is not a perfect film – it is way too ambitious for that – and when the filmmakers have a chance to go for it… the do that and more.
I can’t really explain the plot. It’s the story of a middle aged Chinese woman named Evelyn (played by the incredibly talented Michelle Yeoh) and her immigrant family (with a very American lesbian daughter) that lives in a tiny apartment over their failing laundromat. They are straining with family drama and friction and are about to undergo an IRS audit. At that point Evelyn discovers that there is an infinite multiverse made up of all the different realities that each person has created with every decision they make. Not only that, but there is an evil creature named Jobu Tupaki that is jumping through the multiverse, destroying everything. Jobu makes Thanos look like a piker. Evelyn, this failing version of Evelyn, this worst of all possible Evelyns, is the only person that can stop this.
She is torn between saving all the universes and trying to complete her IRS audit. Things get strange after that.
This is not a sufficient explanation of the plot or an adequate description of what the movie feels like – those things are impossible. You have to see it to believe it.
Boiled down – it’s the eternal struggle between the googly eye and the everything bagel (really). You have to see it to understand.
Just see it.
I want to see it again. It is so complex, layered, with so many references and symbols – one viewing is not enough (maybe a hundred wouldn’t be enough). Plus, it is a movie with a heart – a giant beating, sometimes bloody heart. It’s really funny too.
Oh, see it in a theater. I can’t imagine watching it for the first time at home, alone.
It was dark when the movie was over, but I have good lights, the traffic had died down, and my ride home was uneventful (and maybe a little fun).
I slept like a stone – dreaming of people with hot dog fingers and sentient stones.
“Am I tough? Am I strong? Am I hard-core? Absolutely. Did I whimper with pathetic delight when I sank my teeth into my hot fried-chicken sandwich? You betcha.” ― James Patterson
Daisies
I watched another Czech New Wave movie on The Criterion Channel – “Daisies” – a very odd and unique film.
Two somewhat attractive young women decide that since the world is going to hell in a handbasket they will do whatever they want. A lot of what they want is to convince older men to take them out to expensive restaurants where they eat and drink wine to excess – then take the men to a train – pretend to go with him – then jump off and run home without.
The movie is surreal and jarring – there is a scene where the women cut up the very film stock with scissors – until it is reduced to a jerky collage of heads and body parts. There is no plot – only the two women messing around. There is one scene with one of the two covering her naked body with the display cases of a Lepidopterist who is passionately in love with her.
At the “climax” of the film (such as it is) the two ride a dumbwaiter up through a series of odd tableaux viewed through a tiny grimy window until they arrive at a giant hall set with a log table – chairs for twenty or so – and a sideboard groaning with food. They start out sampling here and there before graduating to gorging themselves and finally a full-blown food fight where they destroy the feast. Then they appear wrapped in twine and newsprint trying to clean up their mess as best as they can – in apparent penance for their chaotic destruction.
They finish – happy and satisfied – stretched out on the table amidst the broken crockery and stained cloth until….
“The moment we cry in a film is not when things are sad but when they turn out to be more beautiful than we expected them to be.” ― Alain de Botton
Valerie and Her Week of Wonders
Waiting on a workman to come by and cut up a downed tree – I wanted to rest a bit and take in a film – something streaming from the Criterion Collection. I decided to dive back into the Czech New Wave and chose what is often regarded as the last movie in that movement (It was released after the Soviets invaded the country and clamped down on artistic freedom and everything else) – Valerie and Her Week of Wonders.
The movie has been described as a fantasy film, as a horror film, as a coming-of-age film, as a vampire film, as a fairy tale, and as soft-core pornography. It is all that and… maybe… more.
What it is not is a linear consistent plot-driven film. It is a hallucination inside of a dream, jumping around, people change identities, die and come back to life. There are elements of lesbianism, incest, rape, reincarnation, magic, and eastern European folklore.
Valerie is a beautiful thirteen-year-old that comes of age (symbolized by drops of blood on blooming daisies) and is then thrown into a mystery of magical pearl earrings, a vampire grandmother, an evil presence that might be her father or her uncle or an anthropomorphic polecat. I guess what we are seeing is the symbolic introduction of the young girl to the mysterious world of adult sexuality – seen through a warped and horrific kaleidoscope.
It obviously is not a movie for everyone – but I’m not everyone and I liked it. It was a fun way to wile away a bit of time while waiting for something else to happen.
For weeks, at work, Craig was seized with an odd obsession. He thought constantly about sneaking away in the afternoon and seeing a movie. It had been unbelievably hot – though it was a typical summer. Thirty-plus days in a row of triple digit temperatures. Coming up on two months without a drop of rain. This day after day of baking was affecting Craig’s brain – broiling his thoughts.
He thought of the multiplex down the street from his work. He thought of the cool darkness. The isolation and peaceful quiet, interrupted only by the cacophony of the film soundtrack itself. The crankle of ice cubes in a big paper cup, the swoosh of a straw, the smell of popcorn.
He dreamed of the time when he could lean back and close his eyes and feel the cushioned seat that jiggles a little, modern stadium seating, plenty of legroom. A modern bastion of entertainment, a pantheon to air conditioning. Cool whispers, dust filters. His fingers would feel the little paper stub in a pocket, a ticket to ride, escape.
It didn’t matter what the feature is… as a matter of fact, the more banal, the better. Some teen comedy maybe, or modern special effects smash hit mindless electric drivel. Escapism, is what they call it.
In his imagination he tells the girl at the front desk of the office, “I have an off site afternoon meeting,” and strolls out to the parking lot. It is only a five minute drive to the gigaplex; He sees himself locking his cellphone in the glove box of his car. The ticket seller, the ticket ripper, the concession slogger are all bored, the afternoon weekday crowd is light.
The worn carpet, the signs over the doors, the posters (coming soon)… He could see it all when he closed his eyes.
He didn’t do it though… He couldn’t do it. He worked in a factory, He was a critical cog in the machine. The oiled parts, hot and constantly moving, never know when his attention is needed.
So he took a hurried lunch, drove past the theater on his way back. The best he could do is to lean back a little between phone calls or emails, when nobody was standing in front of his desk with some question.
Lean back and close his eyes, try to smell the popcorn, hear the roar of the coming attractions.
Some might find me borderline attractive from afar
But afar is not where I can stay and there you are
—-Sparks, Johnny Delusional
Sparks, Propaganda album cover.
There are so many thousands of streaming choices, yet it is so hard to find something to watch.
For some reason I chose the documentary The Sparks Brothers on Netflix. The title is a joke, of course, there are no Sparks Brothers. There are brothers – Russel (the good-looking heartthrob singer) and Ron (the odd-looking genius songwriter and keyboardist) Mael – and there is Sparks – a long running (25 albums and counting) and very odd band… but there are no Sparks Brothers nor Brothers Spark.
I have a little history of Sparks fandom. I missed their early years – we forget in this internet age how difficult it was to track oddball musical groups from Kansas and Nicaragua – no matter how interesting and good they were. I do think I saw them on Don Kersher’s Rock Concert in 1974 – but other than Ron’s Hitler mustache and strange demeanor – I didn’t remember much.
A decade later they re-invented themselves to fit in with the MTV generation and they had a hit song, Cool Places:
I hat a bit of a crush on Jane Wiedlen (at any rate, she was my favorite Go-Go) and I became a Sparks fan. My roommate was also a fan (and a more accomplished student of popular music than I) and we actually went to a concert at Tango – on lower Greenville – here in Dallas – probably in 1983 or 4. I remember the show and really enjoyed it – but Tango was my favorite spot in the world at the time (I was in my mid-to-late 20’s) and any concert there was a blast.
Not long after that I was married then with kids and any attempts at keeping up with alternative music was drowned out in a three decade long tsunami of art projects, soccer practice, and working my ass off to pay for everything.
Now, from watching the documentary, I discovered that the two brothers went through a number of dry spells – but kept reinventing their music and getting the occasional hit in the occasional country and have survived until this day. I think I’ll dial them up on Spotify and make up a playlist.
The fun thing about these documentaries that follow a band for decades is how you can watch and relate what the band was doing to your own life at that time. It actually manages to give a little more perspective on your time in this world of strife and pain.
I learned a few interesting things about the band. One, I had never appreciated their lyrics. Ron writes from the heart – and though the songs are often funny and quirky – they had a dark heart. I think I’ll copy some over, there might be something to learn, some inspiration in there somewhere. There sure are a lot of them.
Another tidbit is a live project they did – in 2007… at that time they had 20 albums out and were about to release their 21st… they performed all their albums in order, one per night, for 20 nights – culminating with their new album on the 21st. Think of how hard this would be – hundreds of songs – they rehearsed for months – how would you remember the songs from the 1st album while you were working on number 20?
Finally, I learned that Russell Mael had a brief affair with Jane Wiedlen back in the day. Lucky dog.
The clusterfark in Uvalde is just a symptom of a much bigger pathology. It is a symbol of the failure of every institution in our society. And the solution is never to revamp the institutions and eject the parasites heading them. It’s always – always – to take power from us and give it to the people who screwed up in the first place.
Mojo Coffee, Magazine Street, New Orleans, Louisiana
(click to enlarge)
“The man, who wore a dark black wig and lipstick, turned out to be an artist and climate change activist who said he pied the prized painting in protest. ‘Think about the Earth. People are in the process of destroying the Earth!’ he declared as he was led away by security guards. ‘Artists think about the Earth, that’s why I did this. Think of the planet!’”
As Karol Markowicz tweets, “An environmental activist trying to destroy the Mona Lisa is in line with what leftism is right now. They think their righteous cause means all of their behavior is OK and this is reinforced by a friendly media who covers riots as if they are peaceful protests. It’s wrong.”
Remote and hybrid learning during the COVID pandemic led to large declines in academic achievements, especially in high poverty districts, according to a study from Harvard University economist Thomas Kane.
“High poverty schools were more likely to go remote and the consequences for student achievement were more negative when they did so,” the research team with Harvard’s Center for Education Policy Research reported.
I have friends with school-age children. Every one of them says that the schools are a disaster post-pandemic and the kids have been irreversibly harmed. “We have destroyed an entire generation,” one parent of told me – and keep in mind they were talking about their own children.
There’s no doubt that Democrats are seeing a perplexing disconnect with the public: In one particularly daunting example, the onetime recipients of the now-expired expanded child tax credit have, according to polls, moved from supporting the Democrats to supporting Republicans—all despite the fact that no member of the GOP supported the expansion of the credit. But the carping over how the people are failing to truly see the distinction between the parties only underscores the self-pitying tone of the administration and its leader at the moment.
Real Americans prefer an economy with low inflation and increasing wages — like we had before the lockdowns — to an economy that practically requires child tax credits just to get by.
I received a random internet ad for merch from the “Grumpy Fuckers Coffee Shop.” I liked it – not enough to order anything (at least not right away) but I did look up the address on Google Maps – 253 Gunt Street, Cardiff, Wales. I wanted to see what the storefront looked like. I was a bit disappointed when I discovered the address didn’t exist.
I used to never remember my dreams… and when I did they were gray, ordinary, and frustrating. Lately, they have been vivid and memorable, if more than a bit disjointed. Maybe as the dreams of my waking life are slowly extinguished… the sleeping ones come alive.
Last night, among other things, I dreamed that I shot someone…half on purpose (my tiny revolver had a hair-trigger). The bullet went through his neck, but he survived. He was pissed, though.
That’s all I can think of right now – I have to go to sleep – we’re a car short and I have to ride my bike to work – and that means I have to get up before dawn so I can leave as the sun comes up. Otherwise it’s already too hot.
In the meantime – here’s something I wrote in December, 1998.
I’m writing another entry sitting in the van, waiting in a parking lot. This time it’s a long way from home. I have a focus group at eight thirty, on the tenth floor of a big office building, at Park Central on the northern arc of Dallas’ LBJ freeway loop. I have better things to do with my time than sit here, but they’ll pay me a hundred dollars, cash. Allowing an hour to get here, it only took twenty minutes, so I found this lot in a commercial strip right off Central Expressway. About a half hour to kill before I drive back to the building, that’s how long the batteries in this old Dell can hold out.
I had wanted to go exercise after work and there is a club located between there and here. I forgot my damn shoes again, can’t very well work out in steel-toed safety boots, so I stayed in my office a couple hours late. Time is becoming so precious, it drove me nuts. Nowhere to go, no money, nothing much to do (I was so sick of work, it was tough to get anything extra accomplished). So I sat and did some light computer stuff and watched the hands turn.
At least the van is a good place to type. The middle bench seat is roomy enough for me to hold the laptop on my lap, there is enough stray light from the parking lot to illuminate the keys without washing out the screen. Also, the van isn’t stalling. I was about to give up yesterday, when I put another fresh tank of fuel in her, and presto- no more problems. My guess is that the recent cold snap condensed water into the gas tank, it took a refill to work itself out.
Across the street from here is a big hospital. This is where both Nick and Lee were born. It seems like I’ve been there a hundred times, for childbirth classes, medical emergencies, routine checkups. We don’t have the HMO anymore, so we don’t come back here now. One reason I dropped it was because I was concerned about the drive from Mesquite, it scared me to think of Candy driving over here in the awful traffic with a sick kid strapped in beside her.
The traffic is scary. The intersection of LBJ and Central may be the busiest in the Metroplex, maybe the country. Lines of white, lines of red. Going either seventy or stopped. I constantly look at these thousands and thousands of cars speeding past and wonder where all these people are going. What are their dreams? Are they happy? Do they really want to go where their car is pointing? Why are they in such a hurry to get there?
Honk! Honk! Honk! The car alarm on a big sedan is going off. A woman gets out. Is it her car? Is she confused by the alarm and can’t shut it off? Or is she stealing the thing? I don’t care. It stops, she gets back in. Nobody calls the police. There the car goes.
Behind this strip, this line of office supplies, fast food Chinese, medical equipment, and podiatrist, is the dark slash of a creek. I know that linear wilderness better than I know the wild street; the White Rock bicycle trail runs back there. It starts five miles to the south at the lake and winds along the creek embankment, using the floodplain to cut through these civilized islands unseen and undisturbed. The day was dry and warm, I wish I had my bike and was able to get some late season fresh air back there today. Or I wish I had a nice light and could run the trail now. Swooshing along in the dark, heart pumping, legs pumping.
Oh, well.
I think I’d better wrap this up, save the file and get going. I’m not sure exactly where to park (there is a maze of garages around the office complex) and I don’t want to be late. They won’t give me my money.
Thanks for listening to me ramble, thanks for helping me kill a few minutes away from home, thanks for the memories and the city at night.
Bill Chance 