Dusk

The party was on Sunday. People delivered. We had - among others - Poison Ivy, the Kingpin, V (the one with a vendetta), Brenda Starr, Ramona Flowers, Corto Maltese, two Supermen, two Rorschachs, and three Endless - Death, Delirium and Desire (though with my deathly pale complexion I looked more like an 80s Toreador).  We also had a rather freaky moment - suddenly several people (including myself) started coughing uncontrollably. At first I thought something got stuck in my throat, but then I noticed it was spreading. After a while three of us had had enough and we decided to get some fresh air. As soon as we stepped out of the club, the bouncer whipped around and barked "Get back inside!" So we did. At this point I started wondering if somebody's tryng to suffocate us, comic-book style, and actually asked Karolina if this was part of the festivities - a bizarre party trick, or something. But the hosts had no idea what was going on either. We learned the answer 10 minutes later - apparently some drunk guy tried to crash the party and the bouncer used pepper spray on him. Then he went into the club bathroom to wash up, trailing pepper spray residue, and returned to his post in case the guy came back. We were ordered to go back inside becuase he wasn't sure the coast was clear.

When it was time for cake and Happy Birthday, people started chanting "Speech!" and "More pepper spray!" The bouncer seemed amused.

Since then, we've had a flood. It started in the south, but as the wave is moving north towards the Baltic Sea, it inevitably has to pass Warsaw. The water level in Vistula has been rising steadily, and the wave is supposed to reach zenith tonight. So after sushi with Bohdan and Karolina, I took a walk down to the river bank to "see the flood" with my own eyes. The city looked almost Mediterranean - music and laughter spilling out of cafes, patios and courtyards packed with smarty dressed people... As I passed Nowy Świat and continued towards the music conservatory, I started seeing more and more cameras, and kind of regretted I didn't have one. It was a lovely evening, too - just warm enough to bring out all the carefully mixed scents of a metropolitan Friday night and get your blood pumping.

As of 9p.m., the water level was almost up to the bridges, and it was quite a surreal sight. I took a walk down the upper embankment (the lower one is already flooded) and saw that the entire right bank is lined with people - chatting, drinking, pushing strollers, taking pictures... River-watching has turned into a social event. In fact, I hear that last night - which is when the water first started rising - so many people flocked to the site that a spontaneous party broke out.

I had my music. There was a pleasant breeze. Some sort of gymnast was performing at Plac Zamkowy, and for some reason all the lights were out in Park Saski, except for the fountain illumination. As I negotiated a path between the trees and statues it occured to me that for a while now I've been featuring less and less prominently in other people's lives. And that I'm not really adverse to this tendency.

Maybe it's a Toreador thing.

Trials

The Ducal Pair's birthday is coming up, and once again it's a theme party - this time it's comic book characters. I had a lot of fun at the last one, so I decided to play ball once again and actually dress up. I even came up with a character I could do, though I actually can't pinpoint when I made the decision. I just remember not knowing who I would go as, and then having known all along.

Anyway, the character demands either serious cross-dressing, or very swanky formalwear. Needless to say, I went with option #2. I checked out tux rental places and learned that renting one for 2 days would cost me around 800PLN (though part of that is a deposit), and GOD FORBID it gets damaged somehow. Oh, and that I should have booked it 4 months ago. The tux rental idea morphed into snatching something from a theatre costume warehouse using my legendary connections, to finally emerge as Oh well, I might as well just buy myself a suit. Which was logical inasmuch as I don't actually own one. The only one I have was bought for my graduation and a) doesn't fit me, b) is filthy, and c) I seem to have misplaced the pants.

Still, it was one of the dumbest ideas I've ever had. Buying a suit is a gruelling, humiliating experience filled with vaguely condescending store attendants, four different sizing systems, outlandish pricetags, and clothes that should look awesome, except they don't seem to do that on you.

I braved that gauntlet with the aid of Ana and Miles, who had to be consulted in English. The teenaged fey goblin at the first store apparently took umbrage with that and started talking to his friend in Spanish, giggling while I changed from suit to suit. Ana wisely put herself in his good graces by loudly pointing out twice that naturally I wore the wrong kind of shirt. After three spins on the merry-go-round, I went back into the changing room with a rather strong conviction that I really don't need this shit. When I emerged, Ana took one look at my face and decreed that we should take a break and get something to eat.

So we ate. And then went to another store. Where the prices alone were enough to make me groan. At that point we were almost out of places to check out, and I fessed up to the fact that I actually dont even know what color I wanted (it's kind of difficult to find one that would be appropriate for a comic book character and all subsequent events with a dress code). I just knew I didn't want anything metallic or blue. In that moment we stopped in front of the last store, and in the window there was this weirdly textured, kind-of-black-but-not-quite one. Miles asked if that's the sort of thing I would want, and to my own surprise I said yes. It was worth more than my computer, and even at half price cost almost twice as much as I was initially prepared to spend. But we went in, I tried it on, and it fit me, and actually kind of resembled the cut of a jacket I had tried on a couple of days earlier, during my initial scouting mission, which magically transformed me into a very smart young gentleman, except one dressed in the ugliest shade of navy imaginable.

So I bought it. And then stormed through shoes (I had to be literally forced to even try the other one on, as far as I was concerned it was an in-and-out operation by then) and shirts. On the next day - undershirt, belt and tie. And today socks and... bling. That last part was the funniest. For some reason I was set on kitschy earwear, but it turned out that the type I was thinking of is considered GOTHIC JEWELRY, and - believe it or not - there don't seem to be any actual gothic stores in Warsaw. Goths have to make do with online stuff. And the online places don't make deliveries over the weekend. So I braved several trashy mall jewelry outlets, feeling very sheepish and - I would imagine - looking highly suspicious, until I found a ridiculous piece that seemed to kind of sort of go with the whole costume.

And so, my odyssey is over. The party is tomorrow, and then... then I'll be left with a Versace suit and a flashy gold ring, to do with as I please. So many options.

Good loglines

Via Pajiba. Kristen Wiig has optioned Clown Girl - a movie about Sniffles the Clown, a girl who tries to resist the lucrative clown-fetishist prostitution trade.

I'm so on board.

Spectacular

Hey, remember Pete Campbell's pristine little wife from Mad Men? Or repressed Annie from Community?

Even if you don't - read this.

Now in widescreen

I finally got pissed off that no youtube video I tried to post fit in the teensy little middle column of the previous layout, and switched templates. It's not as clean and polished, but definitely more embed-friendly. Comments, suggestions?

Back to the old thing until I figure out a way to mess with templates without getting rage blackouts.

Molten spike

So,  anybody seen Kickass?

Strands

It's been a headachey day. I've been trying to shake off a cold for a few days, and finally decided that what I need is some good old chicken soup. This being my world of nevercook, the part of chicken soup ended up being played by Vietnamese Pho from the takeout place. I hope it works.

I ended up in a professional cul de sac. I can either work on a Romanian documentary featuring quaint, rhymed folk ditties, a Polish newsreel featuring quaint, rhymed folk ditties, or a fairy tale featuring quaint, rhymed invocations. I've no idea how I got here, but I blame Twilight.

Which I finally watched, last night. I don't think it's possible to write anything new about the movie, and to just sum it up as "bad" seems completely beside the point. It was such a weird, disjointed creation. Definitely had that Harry Potter adaptation feel of trying to cram and stich together all these elements on a strict deadline, except without any... you know... action. The end credits took me completely by surprise (and were a total what the fuck of their own - who the hell chose that song?)

I genuinely tried to find the appeal, but I suppose I just didn't have the adolescent ovaries. I did like the cinematography. Well, ok: I liked the forest. The landscape shots. Seemed like a place I might want to live, or at least spend some time in.

Then again, I'm guessing they shot it in British Columbia, so that's not exactly news. I also liked some of the music, but my taste does have several glaring, gothic-skewing loopholes...

I could not, however, wrap my head around how remote the whole experience seemed to me. I felt like I was watching a film that was simultaneously its own, ready-made parody. The dialogue was so clunky and hollow at the same time. The girl's acting so... catatonic. She conveyed brain death with very limited means of expression (I swear, there was not a single line she did not either begin or end with a snort or an "um"), but maximum zeal. And then there was the creepy subtext of a mindless, infatuated drone clinging desperately to a guy who keeps saying - sometimes even jokingly - that he might physically hurt her. It all came together perfectly during the shitballs retarded Watch Me Glitter sequence, and the subsequent exchange:

E: I'm designed to kill.
B: I don't care.
E: I've killed before.
B: It doesn't matter.
E: I wanted to kill you. I've never wanted a human's blood so much in my life.
B: I trust you.
E: I try to play marbles with my ex-girlfriends' clitorises, but they're too squishy
B: I totally get that.

Ok, that last part might not have made it into the movie, but it really wouldn't look that out of place. Weird, weird thing.

What else... Ah. I'm madly in love with Jesse St. James. Not the pornstar. The fictional person who says stuff like "I picked the Stephen Sondheim biography section for our clandestine meeting place because only he would be able to express my melancholia." Now with video!

Over and out.

Data dump

Cayce puts the card facedown on the trestle table and signs its virgin back. Something seems to clunk heavily at the rear of her ethical universe.

---

[hilarious perfection]

Looking up now into the manically animated forest of signs, she sees the Coca-Colo logo pulsing on a huge screen, high up on a building, followed by the slogan "NO REASON!"

---

Curled in a body-warm cave of cotton broadcloth and terry, the remote in her hand, she unforgets her father's absence.

---

Cayce and the German designer will watch the towers burn, and eventually fall, and though she will know she must have seen people jumping, falling, there will be no memory of it.
It will be like watching one of her own dreams on television. Some vast and deeply personal insult to any ordinary notion of interiority.
An experience outside of culture.

---

"Thank you. Just a moment, please, while I find my key." Actually it's in the pocket of her Rickson's, ready to be palmed when needed, but she checks the bathroom, the closet, glances behind the black furniture, then notices a large gray carrier bag, with the Blue Ant logo on the side, at the foot of her bed. She kneels to look under the bed, discovers it isn't the kind you can look under, and comes up, still kneeling, with the key, a plastic mag-strip card, in her hand. "I've found it. Thank you very much."

---

[incomprehensible without background information, so you'll have to take my word that it's cool]

"Yes, it ends in .ru Observe the protocol H-B"

Baranov, emailing from the hyphen.

---

Her mother had once said that when the second plane hit, Win's chargin, his personal and professional mortification at this having happened, at the perimeter having been so easily, so terribly breached, would have been such that he might simply have ceased, in protest, to exist.

---

[and an absolutely brilliant conclusion to the story, snuck in by way of an e-mail message from a background character]

Prion now has some connection with a Russian yogurt drink that is about to launch here, purchased I think by the Japanese. I know because it is part of my briefing for work now, this drink. Also because he has it in a cooler at the gallery - revolting! I think he will try to serve it at the opening but absolutely NO! So mystery Internet movie is out, yogurt drink is in.

---

The ending wasn't exactly stellar, but it was a very enjoyable read nonetheless. Next up... The Graveyard Book, I guess.

Strings

Several things, mostly musical.

I've struggled with it for a very long time, but it seems inevitable - I am going to like the Katie Melua atrocity, even with its twee, miscast vocals and crazy transitions. I hear everything that's wrong with it, but at the same time I can't help but see what it could have been, given a better delivery and perhaps a stronger oriental motif. Sidenote #1: the uptempo part reminds me of this thing, which is surprising in that I had managed to completely erase it from memory. Or so I thought. Sidenote #2: amping the poor girl's vocals up to an operatic echo is just setting her up for failure during live performances. She simply does not have the pipes.

Next up: I found a new erogenous zone - classical renditions of pop tunes. Which is what a bunch of kids from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music are doing (though I'm sure they're not the first). Now, if you're a kid from Australia looking for a song that lends itself to a classical interpretation, chances are you're going to end up doing this. And good for you. This, however, seems much less obvious, and therefore all the more... well, fun. Sidenote #1: apparently it's very difficult to look badass while playing the kettle drums (if that's what they're called). Sidenote #2: the lady straddling the cello seems to have no such problem.

Finally, last Friday ao treated us to a musical flashback which included this:

Someone at io9 wrote that this song sounds like losing your virginity at the Rennaissance Faire - and by God, yes it does! But I also used to firmly believe that "To me you're like a growing addiction that I can't deny" is the most perfectly delivered lyric ever. Though I have to admit part of its charm laid in the fact I had no idea that's what it said. And omg Nicole Kidman was in Batman Whatever? Who knew? 

Blindside

It seems I finally got hooked on a new TV series. It hasn't happened in ages, and I must have really been jonesing for an addiction, because I latched onto a huge, sprawling family drama, of all things. No homo.

Well, kinda. Anyway, it's called Parenthood (ugh), and it's kind of like Brothers and Sisters, except well-cast, -acted and -balanced, and without the ridiculous politicizing or hamfisted pathos. It has Peter Krause doing his best everyman-but-way-cooler and Lauren Graham as a disorganized, wild-ish single mom (shocker!), as well as a whole bunch of other actors I don't really know and that old guy who went ranted on Fox about how when he went on welfare the state didn't help him out (I'm not kidding, he really did.) Oh, and a guy who looks exactly like Zach Braff, so I hate him (the Scrubs trauma runs deep), but according to yssy is actually Kristen Bell's husband. Horrible, horrible mug. All of them have genuine chemistry with each other (even the repugnant Zach Braff clone), and at least some of the dialogue seems improvised - they keep talking over each other, cutting each other off, etc., so the whole thing has a very natural feel to it.

The writing is surprisingly good. I've watched 7 episodes so far, and there were only two unintentionally cringeworthy moments - or one, if you happen to have the stomach for watching slow-mo scenes of the "daddy & son on a bike" variety. And even the seemingly stock characters - like the requisite blond career woman with a big burly stay at home husband - have some depth. Blond career woman is actually my favorite character so far, by the way. She's kind of brusque, offputting and doesn't suffer incompetence lightly, so I totally identify with her and wait for the universe to realign itself and provide me with a big burly appendix of my own.

Hrm. Since I already cut the clip out anyway, I might as well post it (but via yousendit, I'm still wary of the youtube copyright hounds). Here's the aforementioned lawyer + husband teaching us all a valuable lesson about the subtleties of comedic timing and delivery.

Incidentally, the series made me realize that I missed out on absolutely all of the hallmark family experiences (well, American, serialized family experiences anyway). I never underwent a teenage rebellion, never had an embarassing conversation about the birds and the bees with my parents, never brought my significant other home for the first time, never spectacularly failed at group sports... then again, I've never had a son with a behavioral disorder either. And what really sold me on Parenthood, I think, was that I still found myself responding to what was going on onscreen. And pretty strongly, too.

Also, Peter Krause gives great overwhelmed father. Seriously, dude can act.

I hope they don't fuck it up too soon with some melodrama. I really do.

Keeping tabs

He was a good find. I hope he keeps putting out music, because this definitely hits the spot. I actually wanted to post this clip instead of the full song, but it could only be embedded as this huge blob that wouldn't fit into this layout... which is an issue I keep running into, actually. Anyway, hope you enjoy.

Abridged

Gonna chuck some quotes at you, as promised. No preface, so just try to keep up with me now (01:23).

Not the first time she's used [the forum] that way. She wonders, really, if she ever uses it any other way. It is the gift of "OT," Off Topic. Anything other than the footage is Off Topic. The world, really. News. Off Topic.

---

Seated, not bothering with the menu, Cayce orders coffee, eggs, and sausage, all in her best bad French.
The girl looks at her in amazed revulsion, as though Cayce were a cat bringing up a particularly repellant hairball.
"All right," says Cayce, under her breath, to the girl's receding back, "be French."

---

Assuming the footage is entirely computer-generated means that your maker eithyer has de-engineered Roswell CGI capacities or a completely secure rendering operation.

Thank you for your attention.

Down for a Jack Move

Here's a small convergence of popculture flotsam that is probably only amusing to me and no one else, BUT each of the individual components is at least a teensy bit noteworthy in and of its own, so...

I'm still reading Gibson's Pattern Recognition. There will be quotes, at a later date, but this is about a chapter title - Jack Moves, Jane Faces. It caught my attention, because I thought it was verb-based (and thus vague in a pretty clever way), and implied a cause and effect thing. Later it was explained that a "Jack move" was actually the main character's ex-boyfriend's name for an unorthodox action, while "Jane faces" belonged in the bedroom.

Part two: Bohdan recently sent me this bit of genius. And today, as I was linking it to someone else, I found out that the best thing about Shortbus  seems to appreciate it as well:

So I listened to it again, this time actually paying some attention to the lyrics, and caught the bit around 0:52. Which gave me a smile. Then I started wondering if it's really kosher to mimic a dead person's lisp, but pretty guy guitar where was I?

The final bit of serendipity happened as I was writing this post and realized I have absolutely no way of working my new favorite photo into it. If you watched the above clip in its entirety you know that is no longer the case (the one I wanted to post originally had no umbrellas in it). So feast your eyes:

The entire glorious buildup can be found here.

Over Indeed

This one's been brewing for a while, but somehow I never found the words. Still haven't, to be honest. Other than Spring is here, and life does not suck.

At around 4:30p.m. the sunset-ish light hits the kitchen windows just right, scattering rectangles of warmth all over my floor.

Mom showed me a peculiar toy store across the street from my apartment. It can only be accessed from the courtyard, and it's filled with really old school teddy bears, hand puppets, caleidoscopes - generally all the stuf that makes you go mushy and nostalgic. And in the back there's this short flight of winding stairs that leads you to a small salon with an old couch, a tea table, a wooden horse, and shelves filled with old, used fairy tale books, music boxes... the decor is so perfectly infused with the essence of childhood it's almost creepy. But it's not. It's wonderful.

I had lunch with Gosia at an Indonesian restaurant nearby. The food was sublime, I'm totally going back. Although the place was deserted - we were the only guests. I hope they don't go out of business or something.

I'm going to Krakow at the end of April, to Berlin towards the end of May, and to a land of comic book make-believe shortly after. Kind of figured out a costume for the last one. Just need white pants.

Yoav's new record is coming out in a few days. Really looking forward to it. After that Natlie Merchant, Sarah McLachlan, Sia and Roisin Murphy. And possibly some others.

The dog days are over.

Bird's Eye

I had a bizarrely unpleasant learning experience recently - namely I came to realize how difficult it is to unequivocally relinquish something, even if you're not really interested in having it. It really caught me off guard and completely shut down my brain, leading to general unpleasantness and a bout of self-loathing. On one hand it kind of gives me insight into why certain situations in my life developed the way they did. On the other - it's certainly not the sort of insight that might result in empathy. Yes, it's human, but it's also low and ugly.

On the other end of the scale, I was also the recipient of a very clever and sweet romantic gesture straight out of a decently written romcom. Something from Sandra Bullock's oeuvre, maybe.

So there it is, the yin and yang of random encounters.