(To the world outside my tears I refuse to explain/I wish it would rain [oh how I wish that it would rain] . . . Til it rains, I'm gonna stay inside/Let it rain, Let it rain . . . I'm not feeling that soggy at all, but the Temps are very wise.)
* I have been trying to write a Joyce Kilmer parody ever since I ordered from Manny's Deli on Wednesday ("only God can make a k-nish") but it just hasn't come together.
* Query: WHY are Canadian home design shows so much better than American? Hmmm? Significantly so.
* Diner was on last night. I really luv that movie - there isn't a bad performance in it --anybody--and that includes MICKEY ROURKE and STEVE GEFREAKIN GUTTENBERG. Especially the latter. They are GOOD. Barry Levinson's self-satisfied melancholy hack-dom shows only in the slightly sapped-up ending, but even that gets relieved a bit by the credits. Tim Daly is good-lookin but also wary and kinda creepy, S Guttenberg is so HAPLESS and sincere, Mickey Rourke totally convincing as this guy over his head, even Kevin Bacon great in unusual ways as a not-entirely-likeble talented fuckup and same with David Stern who generally excises any unpleasantness in favor of folksy charm--the scene where he yells at Ellen Barkin for screwing up his album storage is totally gross and convincing. Even small parts like whoosits like the guy who plays Bagel is totally believable and the woman who plays Guttenberg's mother is one of the great lil parts ever on film. It's also believably sexist, this film. I dunno - I think it's one of the more convincing period films out there because it doesn't try too hard. It's thorough, but keeps it's paws off. Except, of course, musically--OY. Always the first thing to go. It's all period music, it's just used very hamfistedly. The whole movie could use a little less PPI in a few crucial places in general to be totally perfect. Not to mention - I have always wanted to name a pet "Modell" after the Modell character in that film. It's a perfect name to yell.* On TV simultaneously tonight: Pearl Harbor and the TV movie about Flight 93.
?
What a freakin trip. I turned the TV on in time to watch the last 1/2 hr. only of both, flipping back and forth as planes themselves crashed and crashed other things, people hugged and those watching the situations had no idea what was going on (that hasn't changed, advances in technology aside). The Pearl Harbor movie ended with a pilot, his wife and son frolicking in Hawaii (very odd--that's exactly my family), partially because as I understand it from my grandmother, wives didn't see their pilot husbands for months after 12/7--they were constantly out scouting. Anyhow.
If I had watched the whole thing of both maybe I'd have something of import to say, but as it is, (crying, of course) I found my mind trawling down tired corridors of how/if we know who our enemies are, technology being turned against us, etc., etc. I even felt confused about war we're fighting now - maybe it's the same one. I dunno.
Someday I'll get this essay in me about the military written. It's gonna be the murkiest bit of prose to ever hit paper, but how else do you nail down phantoms.
(I feel very much like a parrot when I talk about Bush, but it is SO hard, has been so hard from the very beginning, to listen to his hawkish war-mongering when the man never had to serve himself. All roads lead to rantyBushrants, okay - )
* I finally realized that the real joy in watching "Dog the Bounty Hunter" is that Dog is Marlin Perkins to his sons' Jim Fowlerness. They and his wife with the big bosoms and blonde hair god bless her run around doing the real work and Dog spends most of his time fluffing his biceps and getting all teary-eyed listening to criminals' sob stories while he runs around in his boots w/ 6" lifts. Hilarious. What a marshmallow! Plus the fact that he's constantly trying to mint aphorisms with the camera rolling is hilarn. Just doesn't always work.
I have been thinking recently watching Dog (today's journal theme: Hawaii) about the fact that the criminals are usual natives. The occasional whitefolk, but still--pliz scuze bleeding heart--it is a very short mental hop from all these brown faces being arrested to the very recent history of islands being taken over, colonized, turned upside down...pineapple plantations and missionary positions and years of queenly monarchy smashed to bits. People living in tents on the ocean doing meth vs. heroic second home real estate in Maui. I dunno, not sure you can own paradise.
Probably been thinking about Hawaii a lot just since talking to my grandmother about her experiences at Pearl Harbor last week (always fascinating). She reminded me of all the huge flying bugs there, so maybe there really is no such thing as Paradise.
* PLAN ACCORDINGLY: May is BETTE DAVIS month on Turner Classic Movies. Quit school, leave your job, whatever. It's going to be a bumpy night.
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