another post in the "negligent parenting" series (see yesterday). tee hee.
we're gonna go get dairy queen!
in memoriam
last summer, rhan and i took a trip to denver with our good friends to see bjork and joanna newsom at the red rocks. we were gone for two or three days and it was a wonderful trip--my first to denver and my introduction to the phenomenon of joanna newsom live. many happy memories.
around this time, i was mother to a blue betta fish named cassavetes. he was a pretty enough fish, though surly, i felt, and i parented him recklessly from the start. once i accidentally dropped him in the sink and panicked like an idiot--cassavetes naked and flopping around, me too squeamish to pick him up with my bare hands to get him in the bowl, finally fumbling for silverware and spooning him in. and that was the first day i got him home.
so we go to denver, and i suppose it should have occurred to me that i couldn't leave him unattended for that long. but it didn't, because i was an optimist.
or i didn't care. who can say, really?
so we get home after a few days and i see that the bowl is miserable, the water all clouded over and dark. i look for the fish; cassavetes isn't moving. still optimistic, i think for a moment that he's alive but not moving, as bettas are given to periods of total inertia, but after an investigative poke with the blunt end of a butter knife, rhan declares the obvious: "that fish is dead." dead. expired. ceased to exist.
so we flush little cassavetes down the toilet and abandon his scummy bowl to the dumpster. an ignoble end to a pretty rough fish life, even by fish life standards.
i was to cassavetes the fish what a lifetime of hard work and alcohol was to cassavetes the man, minus the lasting influence and legacy of brilliant films.
though in my defense, cassavetes the fish never expressed any interest in filmmaking, at least not when i knew him, so maybe there were no regrets where that was concerned.
anyhow, i offer this post in remembrance, as much as it makes me sound like an awful, awful person. never let me have a fish again.
who needs to think when your feet just go?
my current desktop is this great evah fan illustration called "this is auto chop." rhan noticed the other day, however, that one of the little dancing men appeared to be kicking my hard drive:
sorry the image is so pixelated, but i had to make it big enough for you to get the full effect. tee hee hee. kick out the drives, motherf*ckers!
some light on the screen
I. stanley kubrick is one of the few commercial filmmakers i can think of whose talents were appropriately rewarded--rewarded with resources, autonomy, relative privacy, and most of all time. when you step back to look at how long he spent perfecting every film he made, how he was given free reign to do so, and, as a result, how few films he actually completed in his lifetime--it is astonishing, enviable, and as close to justice as i have ever heard of in that crazy business.
watch "stanley kubrick: a life in pictures" in its entirety here. we did last night, sort of by accident, because once you start it's quite difficult to turn off.
II. continuing with our mini robert altman festival, we started "the long goodbye" last night. why am i just now learning how cool elliot gould is? there's a great deal of him talking to himself in this movie so far, which i love (another beautiful detail that made "no country" so great, as an aside), so i'm excited to finish it. oh, and it features the best opening sequence involving a cat ever committed to film:
a fantastic start and loving tribute to picky cat owners everywhere. genius.
III. a fun shot from pedro almodovar's volver, a movie i like more every time i put it on. it's the film that made me a penelope cruz fan and a ladies' night movie of the highest order. i mention it only because i'm watching it right now, switching periodically between windows to write a little, watch a little, write a little more.
movies with dinner, movies in bed, movies in the background
and still not time enough to see them all!
the answers to all your questions
are right here.
this is fantastic news, everybody!
(you're on a roll, coudal partners)
friday night grab bag
rhan recently introduced me to the delicious vinta cracker, manufactured by the industrious people at dare foods. this would explain why each cracker says "DARE" on it, which without knowing seems baffling and a little self-important.
dare yourself, cracker. i eat you.
rare images of boots being good. lately our cat has developed a disconcerting routine in which he yells at the door to go outside and within moments yells at the outside door to come back in again. it's awful. to make matters worse, i received incontrovertible evidence last night that our downstairs neighbor, whom we have never actually spoken to but who has already complained to the landlord about us (jerk), is as sick of the meowing as we are. i won't be a bit surprised if we receive serious noise complaints in the coming weeks. dilemma!
when i'm not listening to the cat yelling, i've found great joy in mulatu astatqé, in particular this beautiful song called "tezeta." rhan says this song is like a breeze, which is an apt and beautiful way to describe it. i put "tezeta" on a mixtape for my coworker yesterday, and i hope she enjoys it as much as i do.
it is a welcome respite from the gray days outside.
in brief: shelley duvall
we are in the middle of watching robert altman's thieves like us (on a roll from having recently seen they live by night), but we are pausing to think about shelley duvall--that she was (and is) rare and beautiful and cool, and that when she's on screen, you can't look at anything else. thank goodness for people like altman, who embraced her talent so marvelously. cheers and kudos and cheers again.
not from what we're watching, but it's robert altman again:
go here and fall in love a little.
good night!
i think that's a goose
we did very little with our wednesday off. in fact, our sharing these links is probably the most meaningful thing we've accomplished all day. so please--enjoy!
from juliet: regrets (hobbies)
from rhan: pere ubu
(thanks to coudal partners and the daily swarm)
some field trip highlights
the shadows of chris burden's "urban light," the installation that sits in front of the new broad contemporary art museum down the street from our apartment.
rhan says that there are probably thousands of people who took some variation of this photo this week. astutely noted, but it is a lovely view.
a trip wherein i reconsider my long-standing aversion to jeff koons.
the trees against the sky--a beautiful, clear day.
for the evening: bruce nauman & violins
listen to the hypnotic soundtrack for violin film #1 (1967-68) here.
for those who have seen it: doesn't it remind you somewhat of jonny greenwood's breathtaking score for there will be blood? nauman's influence is wide-reaching, if not prescient.
there's not much i can say about bruce nauman that hasn't already been said, but what i can add is that he affects me in a way that no other artist does, and that he strikes me as honest--so honest--and that is what makes him exceptional.
many thanks to ubuweb for their unfailingly generous access to things like this.
just-married people like to be alone
we saw it at the new beverly yesterday on our date night number two--the second in a series of dates leading up to valentine's day. ho.
it was my first nicholas ray film. like other movies of that kind and of that period, it was full of certain predictable elements--cliches, melodrama, weird names like keechie, bowie, chicamaw, t-dub, tensions between thieves and ill-fated young people. there were baffling aerial shots. there was bloodless violence. and then there was poor rhan sitting next to me, pinned in his seat for the duration between paper-crumpling man and nose-whistling, forward-leaning man.
also, someone farted audibly during the movie, which is worth noting.
all that said, there is something oddly contemporary and excellent about "they live by night," and i would recommend it highly. i have a great deal to learn about movies like this (and from movies like this), so it was a nice evening spent to finally see it.
while watching i had red vines and a cup of coffee. rhan had coffee and a clif bar. the new beverly has a remarkably cheap concession stand, which is just one of several good reasons to see a movie there. cheers, gratitude, and happy sunday to all.
i didn't know what time it was at all
so we just discovered the new destroyer song last night.
please listen to it here.
what a heartbreaker.
(thanks to catbirdseat for catching me up)
a recap of yesterday
a sample of donald barthelme's teaching syllabus, lifted from the believer.
(click images to enlarge)
i've been feeling pretty low these past couple of days--uncertain about myself, uninspired, friendless, lonesome. it's a function of a few things, i think, not the least of which is living in los angeles, where everyone seems to be polished and busy and wrapped up in the world of their own problems. i don't know. in any event, i hope this feeling lifts soon, because it's making me tired and irritable.
in spite of all this, though, yesterday was a lovely day. the plumber came and fixed our stopped-up sink and leaking toilet. we got a late start after he left and walked straight to IHOP, because rhan has had a hankering for IHOP since we saw a billboard with eggs on it a month ago. (note: IHOP is not so good.) then we drove towards brentwood to go to dutton's bookstore but on the way spontaneously decided to visit the getty, paid eight dollars for parking, and gave the art a cursory glance before buying coffee and a rice krispy treat (which was the highlight of the getty for me). finally went to dutton's and purchased "the teachings of don b." and "the collected stories of amy hempel," the latter replacing the copy i lost some months ago. the books are good and a highlight of the day, too.
we did all these things, but what i really want to talk about is how unenthusiastic we both were about all of it--the lunch, the museum, the bookstore. all day long we kept saying, "what do you want to do?" and then "i don't know" and finally "what's wrong with us?" but for some reason, despite all that, it was the best day we've had in a long time. laughing, joking around, commiserating all day long. i am a believer in that therapeutic sort of commisery ("commiseration" is correct but an uglier word), and yesterday was indeed a testament to how much somebody saying "i feel shitty, too!" can somehow make you feel less shitty, and then you're just both shitty, together.
i need to read more. maybe don b. up there can help me. i need commisery, at least a little bit, and more regularly. i need to stop thinking about what other people think. i need more days like yesterday, at least until i can figure out how to have days better than yesterday. any suggestions?
next in line, please
my contribution to the workplace redecoration project,
on display in the window for all who order to see. too hostile?
we've been looking forward to these
for fun, play them both at once!
thanks as always to blogotheque.
the first of the month: february 2008
i have an enthusiastic, almost superstitious love for the firsts of all months; to my mind, they are small holidays worth celebrating and remarking upon. thus in honor of today's occasion, i present this list of things that are ushering my february in:
SONG: "japanese candy" by little teeth. i am looking forward to their full-length record and upcoming visit to los angeles.
HEROES: i've joined rhan in his love and admiration for john huston after watching an extras doc on "the treasure of the sierra madre" dvd. oh, to have a john huston-sized life, and with even a fraction of the style and bluster. 
FOOD AND HABITAT: i am reintroducing home-cooked vegetables into my diet and tempering those vegetables with cookies. also, i am taking my coffee in these white ceramic bowls i purchased recently, which have, i am convinced, improved my morning experience by at least twelve percent. finally, i am deciding to always have fresh flowers in the house--one bunch on my desk, one in the bedroom.
RESOLUTIONS (or, "january was a bust"): read at least three books this month. take more photographs. watch at least two movies a week (not including movies in the theatre). return all phone calls and emails promptly. exercise a little at least.
(1) ATTAINABLE GOAL: that, or not letting this happen so much anymore.
oh yes, and one more thing:
today marks nine months of being married to rhan--nine full-to-bursting, sweet and exciting months of being a wife. happy anniversary.
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