Tom Hanks Hair: A Review
Sunday night we finally attended a showing of “The Da Vinci Code.”
We love the idea of excommunication with a popcorn chaser…
It was true to the book’s details, though they took a couple of liberties. For the most part it was forgettable. When it hits network TV, I’ll be watching something else.
It wasn’t the worst movie ever made. It just wasn’t particularly dramatic, suspenseful or charming. The book was far more interesting. I think it would have been more successful as a mini-series. This book would have made a bitching
Masterpiece Theater!
I didn’t think Silas was nutty enough. Opus Dei was like a literary crutch -- its importance dimmed. The Vatican was almost like a rumor here. Audrey Tattoo was adorable, but she seemed almost unnecessary here – she interjected a cutely accented thing here or there, but did not seem very intelligent or vital or even alive. And although I
truly hate Tom Hanks hair, I only found it distracting once or twice through the whole thing.
I wanted more!
Just read the book or other suggestions I'd made earlier about
hot summer reading.
Fleet Week
Oh. My. Gawd. THE BOYS ARE HERE!!!
The Fleet. A whole fleet of sailors and marines, a few army guys and the odd air force dude (aren't all air force dudes, well, odd?). That last one is going to cost me dearly, but it seems tasteless to make fun of the army guys for their illiteracy. Especially on Fleet Week. The holiest holiday of the pre-summer.
Big ships full of seamen in and out of our harbors for a whole week. Yeah, that's Fleet Week. Say it again!
Pressed uniforms, shiny brass and shoes, buffiness and a "ma'am" here and there for good measure. Fleet Week is just a lovely, lovely thing to behold.
I love Fleet Week.
Ahh, Fleet Week!
OHMYGAWD: It’s Fleet Week!
I love (LOVE!) Fleet Week. Sailors. Every. Where. Yum.
Fleet Week is my favorite holiday after Halloween. Boys in Dress Whites! For the adventurous, there’s
plenty to do. (Do tell!)
A Navy fetish, you wonder? Well, I have always said I’m just a
gay man trapped inside the body of a woman. (Sit back and think on it boys…)
Madame Esme Saves my Reading Habits
I finally read something! A book. Cover to cover!
On Friday, I started reading about 6:40 p.m. before the bus rolled out. I read the whole trip to Sunset Park and continued reading through the night – with breaks for chatting with Mom, watching TV and dinner… I finished the book after midnight and I felt like a brand new woman.
The book:
Educating Esmé: Diary of a Teacher's First Year by Esmé Raji Codell. It was an interesting read, very funny and inspired. Sometimes sad and at others annoying. Madame Esmé has my respect because it was her mission to make the kids in her classroom read and write; and I think she had ingenious ways to do so. Whether you ultimately agree or disagree with the way she does things or how she evaluated her first year is another matter.
Those of you with young children might like to check out her website at
Planet Esmé. If you live in or near Chicago, you can visit her bookroom and create a living experience for the little ones – much like you do with rock stars and the like.
I read a book cover to cover. Perhaps my reader’s block is a thing of the past now. And just as we hit
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle! I don’t know whether I want to read a Holmes story or chill to snuff [nudge nudge wink wink].
"It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it."
-- The Hound of the Baskervilles
John Hicks Breaks Pianos
It has been years since we extricated ourselves from the jazz scene in New York. In fact, that scene stopped its resurgent heyday after we left it completely. The 1980s and 1990s saw clubs and festivals embrace musicians from around the world, and especially homegrown ones. And I’m not talking about those annoying adult contemporary types either. Before Wynton took over at Lincoln Center, the City loved jazz like it had in the Golden Age!
Mom’s favorite artist was John Hicks, who used to play the night after New Year’s (her birthday) at Bradley’s on University Place. After the last set, John would set up a snifter of Martell on the piano and serenade his number one fan with the most ethereally beautiful music.
The last time we saw John was in a new club in Brooklyn around 1999. We had not seen each other in a long time and he’d been busting to see me. He spotted me at the bar and ran over and took a yellowing newspaper article from his wallet. He explained that he’d gone to play a gig in Los Angeles and that each time he performed a piano tuner was called in. It was a more extensive story, but the punch line was that he wanted me to savor the headline from the Los Angeles Times:
JOHN HICKS BREAKS PIANOS.
The last moment we ever shared was a great cackle.
Last night, Mom was scanning the newspaper and her face portrayed a pain I’ve seen before and soon tears accompanied the awkward sigh. John is no longer with us. We loved John, spent some really good times with him and will miss him. God bless his generosity of spirit for having shared his talent with us.
Click on John’s image for information about his memorial celebration and also to listen to MP3 clips of his piano breaking brilliance.
In Praise of the Non-Zealot
Today would be
Omar Khayyám’s birthdate, and as the land he loved is torn apart by man’s perverse sense of righteousness and the promise of yet another armed conflict for Dubya’s live toy soldiers, I bring you 2 quatrains from his masterpiece (for no other reason that it is the man's birthday and he was so rock-and-roll ahead of his time):
The RubáiyátLXVI
I sent my Soul through the Invisible,
Some letter of that After-life to spell:
And by and by my Soul return'd to me,
And answer'd "I Myself am Heav'n and Hell:"
LXVII
Heav'n but the Vision of fulfill'd Desire,
And Hell the Shadow from a Soul on fire,
Cast on the Darkness into which Ourselves,
So late emerged from, shall so soon expire.
Make of that whatever you will. (It is little things like these that drive the NSA batty and I am sure will become fodder that will come back to bite me.)
Happy Mommy's Day!
Yesterday, as I sat on the bus headed home, I literally felt life escaping me with every painful breath. The air quality sucked, I was exhausted and my only comforting thought – to be home with my Mom – simply couldn’t surface through the haze of the internal war between allergens and anti-histamines.
After I settled in, a young mother and her precocious two-year-old entered and sat in front of me. For an hour I listened as the little girl related her day to her Mommy excitedly, she sang for her, and she peppered her endless chatter with hugs and kisses and “I love you, Mommy!” Every time the bundle of sweetness said the word “Mommy!” she did so with an enthusiasm and unabashed love that it made me smile for the entire trip home.
She soon exhausted her Hit Parade of songs after at least two renditions of the "ABC Song," the "Row-Row Song," the "Itsy-Bitsy Spider," "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" and another song to which only she knew the lyrics. The mother, trying to outwit the child said, "That's it, there are no more songs..." Baby Girl thought on it for a few seconds and said, "Let's sing my birthday song!" (Hey, it is
her birthday song:
it has her name in it!)The mother asked her to be quiet; people were tired and needed a little peace. I told her, “Aw, she’s just happy and excited to be with her mother.” God knows, even at my advanced age, that’s all I ever want. My true happiness has Her semblance. In fact, when Jeff called me a Momma’s Girl, he hit it perfectly in the head and I proudly carry the label!
Mother’s Day will be a simple and humble affair this year; made all the giddier because I still have her within reach to kiss and to hug and to squeal “Mommy!” If the Universe grants me nothing else, I am already ahead of the game.
Happy Mother's Day!
GRRRL POWER!
One hundred and thirty four years ago today, Victoria Woodhull became the United States first female candidate for the Presidency. Since that time there has been a woman here and there nominated for the job but it hardly ever comes to anything but a fizzle and fair business for vanity lapel pins. She was followed 100 years later by Shirley Chisholm but not much has changed in that political landscape. I don’t expect much change in my lifetime either. Let’s face it: Americans are
terrified of women in power.
“All talk of women's rights is moonshine. Women have every right. They have only to exercise them.”
There’s a wealth of information about the late Mrs. Woodhull
here,
here,
here,
here and at her Foundation’s
website. Information ranges from her views on equality and marriage to her fights for First Amendment Rights. Of course, it’d be too easy to try to imagine how she’d fit into partisan polemics now, but ultimately a useless exercise.
“All that is good and commendable now existing would continue to exist if all marriage laws were repealed tomorrow . . .”
Victoria (yes, I dare posit we’d be on a first name basis), was ahead of her times and slightly nuts. But I always fantasize that while the Victorian era and its aftermath had all these enchanting details to them, I’d probably be stoned to death in a Village square or burnt at the stake. So it’s a reserved “slightly nuts” meaning that she was probably more spirited than the times allowed and therefore my heroine.
"I have an inalienable constitutional and natural right to
love whom I may, to love as long or as short a period as I can, to change that love every day if I please!"
Feliz cinco de mayo
The quick lesson plan tells that
el dia cinco de mayo is also known as the day the Mexican army and its citizens held a bloody fight also known as the Battle of
Puebla. The Mexicans won! And every year since, we party and rejoice. Hooray!
Thing is, I never understood why our brown cousins get all excited about this. Beating the French isn’t exactly an extraordinary task. I mean, anyone who wears a poofy shirt to war deserves to get bitch slapped, right?
Pass the Freedom Coronas!
Seriously, this has been a long week made worse by the prolonged exposure to pollen and psychotic behavior. Exhausting and surreal without the benefit of alcohol or controlled substances. I look forward to a weekend of interrupted sleep and the semblance of serenity, if no actual peace.
WORST Allergy Season EVER!
When contemplating your own savage carnage
(“Please, God, scratch out my eyes, my sinuses, my lungs with your merciful claws!!!”), you know this is serious crap. Not enjoying the season as much as some do. Starting to hate trees... Hoping to go into a coma and be out of it until June or so, but that’s just as unlikely as Divine Claws saving me from this living hell.
And this is why we all need medical insurance. If I had any, I’d be three-layers of dead brain cells in some sort of drug to numb this misery!
I’ll probably have more to share when I become clear headed again. Though that has never stopped me before.
Sunday night we finally attended a showing of “The Da Vinci Code.”
