a few reviews and a stalagmite

• Thursday night’s D’s experience was quite satisfying — the service, which had slipped for a while there, was plenty good, and the Chicago veggie dog doesn’t disappoint. What did disappoint me was seeing that Mario’s pizza is gone, and apparently has been for some time. I’m beginning to contemplate perhaps moving to Regent Square sometime in the future, and that’s one plus that gets scratched from my list (alongside “clay tennis courts at Frick Park,” because the city doesn’t keep them up anymore — good grief).
• Two or Three Things I Know About Her also was worthwhile — it began a bit slowly, I thought, but the central garage scene was wonderful (the same scene repeating over and over again from different vantage points, underscoring the impossibility of truly seeing or representing an event — though it perhaps didn’t need to be underscored given the tendency of Whispering Godard the Narrator to drive home certain points). The son of the main character, roundabout six years old, was also notable, at one point describing in detail a dream about twins on a dangerous precipice becoming one, representing (as he sees it) North and South Vietnam, and at another point detailing his take on the girls in his class using deductive reasoning to evaluate the possibility of friendship with them.
• Friday night, the New Yinzer event at the Brillobox wiped me out early from overstimulation, but before I lost my ability to keep on, I got to see some good folks read and hear a little music, and down a Blue Point Toasted Lager, pretty favorable in my opinion (though I’m no connoisseur).
• Saturday brought a performance by a band featuring my two bandmates, which was pretty sweet, replete with rock-out part in which I learned that Spencer is as good a drummer as I if not better (and I’m pretty sure he hasn’t been playing too long). Then back to the Brillobox for another try (I kept my composure this time) and Wax Fang (a dude who sounds like Cat Stevens singing with a kind of proggy pop-rock band, much more enjoyable than what it sounds like based on what I just said) and Centipede E’est (who put me in a good state by showing a Steelers DVD and playing New Sudan, somehow creating a beautiful geographic nexus through multimedia layering — especially pertinent while God Grew Tired of Us is showing at the Regent Square).
• I live more and more within a realm of run-on sentences and emdashes.
• Check out this huge ice phallus that formed underneath our furnace exhaust pipe (this picture makes it look like the Phallus From the Black Lagoon or something, given the fog):

• More later. This is already too long and far-reaching. Cheers!

D’S bullet points

• Last night, skipped out on the avant-garde once more in favor of hanging out with peeps and getting some studying done. Tonight, seeing the Godard film at Regent Square (last night for that) and getting a dog at D’s. Most likely the reason the veggie dogs taste so damn good at D’s is that they’re slathered in meat juice, but so long as you don’t stare at the grill (and I don’t), you can pretend that ’s not the case. Plus, their fries are my favorites in town, except maybe Rudy’s in Monroeville. Also, their beer selection is immense, although you’re a bit hard pressed find something to drink on the cheap there (but they have mighty fine root beer on tap, if you’re into that).
• I’m simultaneously annoyed and excited that my favorite ad from the Super Bowl is currently featured on the main page on Youtube: Emerald Nuts — “Boogeyman.” The complete absurdity of sticking Robert Goulet into an ad of any sort in 2007 appeals to me a great deal; having him mess up your desk at work when you nap appeals even more; the clincher is toward the end when he jumps up into the ceiling.
• The Budweiser “Crabs” commercial is another that I enjoyed; at first, you expect a cliche: animals stealing beer from a picnic and partying. They end up worshipping the cooler instead. This almost derailed the usual stupid water cooler commentary, except I caught Jay Leno Monday night making some clever reference to a beach and girls and crabs. Errr, not funny, moron.
• Also notable: the totally insane Garmin ad.
• Among the stupider entries were the Doritos ad (with the guy in the car and the sexxxy lady, made by some schmucks as part of a contest) and the GoDaddy and SalesGenie ads, which just plain made me never want to do business with those companies (I stand by my assertion last year that GoDaddy didn’t have enough money, after paying for the airtime, to actually make a decent spot).
• The plumbing is back to (relatively) normal at this point. The story is long and sordid and perhaps for the most part doesn’t need telling. Suffice it to say that no one died, and the house didn’t burn down, and we’re able to drink water from the faucet again instead of from the toilet. (Aside: I’m tempted to create a tag on here called “about clogging,” as to label just these sorts of posts.)

this is all you get right now

The last couple days have been cold and slightly taxing; tonight I did a lot of homework and at one point snatched a plugged-in-and-operating electric coil space heater from underneath a gushing hot water pipe without unplugging it. Some days it’s enough to wonder exactly what I’m doing still alive, given the choices I make.

facts and opinions

• This morning it was -2 degrees and my bus did not come, so I waited through the entire length of Harvest (okay, the bus came when the last song was starting) for the next one. Somewhere around the 15 or 20 minute mark, I began reflecting on how beautiful things are when it’s this cold (the sun was shining, which was a plus). At this low temperature, though, everything seems to slow down even as it continues at its normal pace, because everything leaves a trail: cars and trucks and buses spit out vapor trails like jet planes; people steam at the mouth, drops of liquid spilled freeze almost on contact with the first solid surface they find. Traces are more present in this kind of cold than most days, serving to represent movement and memory in a way we’re not used to. Take a second to look at it next time you’re out in the cold snap and maybe it’ll distract you for a moment from your nose, which just froze and broke off and is rolling down the street and into traffic.
• Last night was the Super Bowl, and yes I watched (for the most part) and yes I had some favorite commercials, which I will enumerate at a later time. I need to be free to speak at length on this topic, and I’ve wasted enough time so far today.
• Next weekend I was thinking of visiting the parents, BUT, one thing happening Friday night and two things happening Saturday night may keep me here. Friday night is: Love Bites the New Yinzer. Fun people reading, fun bands, fun DJ’s. Perhaps a lot of different things for one night, but no lack of fun. Saturday night is: a show at the Underground at CMU (in the Morewood dorm building) which includes a band that features my two once-and-future bandmates, plus Spencer, which is called Architeuthis. And also, Centipede E’est and Wax Fang at the Brillobox. It’s been a while since I’ve seen Centipede! Or maybe not . . . maybe a month and a half.

comics on fire

Here’s a comic we haven’t discussed lately: Sally Forth.

One of the reasons I don’t talk about Sally Forth as often as some other comics is that it’s one of those that I can’t just snag online and repost here — the images of recent strips are protected so you can’t save them to your computer (or link to them from elsewhere). I guess I could take a screenshot, then save that and post it, but that would be a lot of work and would set a dangerous precedent, eh?

My point in bringing it up is twofold. First, I realized only yesterday that all week we had been privy to Ted Forth’s workday life in the strip, a first for it. Being centered on Sally as the working mother, of course, Ted’s work has always been essentially ignored; in fact, lately, it became something of a joke within the comic: someone (I’m pretty sure it was that impudent strumpet Faye) cracked wise about not knowing what Ted even did during the day. I began to postulate that perhaps he worked for an intelligence service of some sort.

Here’s what we know: he apparently works in some sort of office, and it’s populated exclusively by white men, and it would appear actually that one of them is G. Gordon Liddy. And this morning, just as I was thinking of writing on this subject, I saw today’s strip, in which one of the co-workers makes a joke about not knowing what they do at their workplace.

Liddy’s presence suggests to me that perhaps this workplace is in fact Radio America, which would explain a good bit. If I worked there, I probably wouldn’t want to tell others about it either, and I wouldn’t be surprised if, in order to keep employees from realizing what stupid media content they’re responsible for, the higher-ups there kept workers relatively in the dark about what the tasks they did all day accomplished (kind of like working for the Manhattan Project).

Anyway, the second reason I write about Sally Forth is this: in snooping around to try to find an image of a recent strip that I could cop, I learned that the current writer of the strip, Francesco Marciuliano, writes a pretty great web comic called Medium Large and also runs a standup series in Manhattan. The web comic in a lot of cases appropriates characters and situations from famous comics and cartoons, sort of in the style of the myriad “Family Circus” spinoffs, but without one particular comic being used every time. Worth checking out.

two or three things i know about me

I skipped out on avant-garde film last night, which may have been a bad choice, but at the same time I had a bit of a headache (I think I get one every 8 days now? Check back next Thursday) and anyway, when I went to go home, I ran head-on into a pretty great game of Apples to Apples. I also completely forgot to complete an assignment for class. Whoops.

Speaking of missing things, I think I may have missed the last El Topo/Holy Mountain screening at Melwood tonight? But I got my homework done, at least. In other exciting Filmmakers news, a restored Two or Three Things I Know About Her is opening at Regent Square tomorrow; I vow to go at some point before the run is over.

Also, my mother fooled me into watching a two-hour special (actually, half of a two-part special) about the history of the Supreme Court on PBS last night by giving me the false impression that there was a special about The Supremes on. Move over, Ashton Kutcher; you’re not the only one punkin’ folks.