November 30, 2003

The Jungle

Despite majoring in English in college, there are still some conspicuous gaps in my reading experience. Upton Sinclair's The Jungle was one of those, until Paul lent me a copy. It lived up to its hype as a powerful expose of the turn-of-the-century meat industry, or of the industrial revolution in general before the public began to demand some standards of basic humaneness. I was shocked--shocked, I tell you! And I like that in a book.

But I'm a tough case when it comes to endings. Lots of otherwise spectacular novels simply trail off at the end, or offer a flimsy resolution. This was one of those. Jurgis, the oppressed protagonist, becomes a Socialist and suddenly feels much better about everything. If only he'd been a Socialist all along, he'd have avoided many pitfalls. And if only Socialism prevailed in American politics, people wouldn't be oppressed in the first place.

That was in 1906, when I suppose people still had the luxury of idealizing Socialism. Nowadays, thanks to the Soviet Union, we know that Socialism is at least as prone to corruption, demagoguery, and vicious exploitation as any other, and wouldn't have helped Jurgis. So, The Jungle's sanctimonious ending reads pretty weakly, especially as it's all rhetorical and not actual. Some eloquent Marxists explain to Jurgis how awesome Socialism is, and... The End!

You should read this book anyway, though, as a means of relating with the immigrants who struggled to eke out a living here before reasonable labor laws existed. It's a great reminder of how easy life is for most of us. It also reminds us not to eat the Potted Meat Food Product.

November 29, 2003

It Ain't Gonna Suck Itself

KMUD's music shows play a bewildering combination of music. This afternoon, their Soup to Nuts show included the Cracker song "It Ain't Gonna Suck Itself", compelling me to put down my book and laugh. But before the song was finished, the DJ turned it down and said "I might get in trouble...." The rest of his show consisted of road songs like "Willing" by Linda Ronstadt and country torch songs like Patsy Cline's "Sweet Dreams of You".

Now a later show is playing a song sung by children, "We Don't Want Your GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms)". Some days, every other song is about how the trees are crying about seeing their friends cut down, or how beautiful the world will be if we just pull our troops out of Iraq, or how the US government conspired with Al-Qaeda to bomb itself, along with a thick assortment of random hippie songs. Still later in the evening, they played "Mama's Got A Girlfriend Now".

November 27, 2003

Laurel to Earth: You're Scaring Me!

I'm in my mountain hideyhole, snug and full of soup and wine. Outside, it's deep black and the wind is knocking loose leaves and branches off of the autumn trees and onto my roof. I'm nervous, because there's a vague chance that one of several menacing trees could topple onto my house and crush it. Those things happen.

A moment ago, I thought I heard it happening--the groaning of a tree stooping squish me in my warm little house. And then the house moved! I gasped and put my arms out for balance, and then it was over.

There had been no crashing CRACK of a tree hitting the house. It was "just an earthquake," as we like to say here in California. A small one, too, but incidentally centered only two miles from me. My house is still on its foundation, but now I wish the adrenalin would subside!

Meanwhile, a gorgeous woodpecker has tucked itself under the eaves, head under its wing, keeping warm for the night.

November 23, 2003

Party Girl

Last night was the big housewarming party at the apartment I share with Ben. Since you can never be overdressed for your own party, I tricked myself out in a three-dollar thrift-store ballgown and a fancy hairdo with glitter and two big, pink daisies. My favorite compliment of the evening: "You look like a firework!"

The delightful SkinnyP made a most welcome appearance, just back from his two-month adventure in Amsterdam. SkinnyPaul is also known as StraightPaul, to distinguish him from GayPaul. Stylin' and well-groomed, StraightPaul is often mistaken for a gay man (as am I, occasionally!).

Did you know that the Israeli Army digs Michael Jackson? GayPaul compelled me to dance with him to the Galey-Zahal internet stream, which included "Beat It" and similarly cheesy disco whatnot. By then, we were too tipsy to let our sense of taste inhibit us.

Because our front door doesn't latch and the party-traffic was heavy, my nice cat had to spend the evening in my closet for safety. At first there were howls of protest, but as the party kicked into gear, Sasha decided that he wanted to be in the closet after all, and settled onto his blanket until it was all over. Good kitty!

Today the floors are sticky and my pillow is covered with glitter. All the snacks have been devoured by party-locusts, but there's plenty of liquor left over. Also, I have a headache. I blame Andrei, who brought the fancy Youri Dolgoruki vodka and kept thrusting shots of it into my hand. It was worth the expense, the mess, and the hangover to have our apartment overrun by fun pals! And now that I'm having a margarita, my hangover's not so bad after all.

Someday soon I'll get a proper gallery set up again! There are more pictures from this party in Rick's gallery.

November 19, 2003

Switching to Greencine

After some debate, I decided to make the switch from Netflix to Greencine. Temporarily, my two subscriptions are overlapping while I finish my month with Netflix. Meanwhile, my Greencine queue is already 82 titles long, whereas my Netflix queue generally hovered around 60. Greencine has many strange and intriguing films! Did you know they also have an excellent cinephile-blog?

The right-hand column of my blog has been displaying past, current, and future titles from my Netflix queue. Unfortunately, the Movable Type plugins that generate that stuff won't work with Greencine. Which of you idle Perl programmers wants to adapt these plugins for Greencine for me? In exchange for, say, an individually-wrapped slice of processed cheese food?

The first things I rented from Greencine were all six disks of the HBO series Band of Brothers, and it's the most riveting show I've seen in a long time. Great character development, exhilarating special effects, and I learned some stuff about WWII. I'm not even a fan of war stories, usually, but this was spectacularly well-done and I'd watch the whole series again. My favorite episodes were the Normandy invasion (when your plane is on fire, you want to jump out!) and the battle of Bastogne (exploding trees! amputees!).

The bonus disk includes lots of footage from "actor boot camp", in which the curmudgeonly Captain Dye terrorizes the actors while preparing them for their roles as soldiers. During a rare moment of leisure, one actor does a fine impersonation of Captain Dye:

"Son, I'm gonna tear your head off and shit down your goddamn neck."

Captain Dye corrects him:

"No, you've gotta use an alliteration. 'Tear your head off and shit in your shoulders'."

That's how to talk some trash effectively.

November 12, 2003

Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk

Last night I was the fortunate recipient of a free opera ticket via a friend of my roommate. The show was Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, Shostakovich's adaptation of "the Scottish play". The singing was lovely and the satire amusing, but I'm not a fan of the Soviet style in which the sets were designed. Stark squares and triangles dominate the scenery. In the final scene, Katarina sings that the lake is almost a perfect circle, but in fact the lake on the stage is exactly square.

I found that I already knew this particular Macbeth story, through an angsty black-and-white Russian film, Siberian Lady Macbeth. Though it's not operatic in format, it copies Shostakovich's story precisely. I actually preferred that movie over the opera, as I find the Russian language so brusque that it seems more suited to gruff dialogue than to elegant song.

Now I notice that there are several other film versions of this adaption, including one that predates Shostakovich's opera (so I guess his adaptation wasn't original). Unfortunately, only one of them has been available on DVD, and that one is now out of print. Guess there's not much demand for Russian film adaptations of Shakespearean tragedies. Go figure!

November 11, 2003

California and Grant

For fun, I decided to ride the cable car from my lawyer's office to my own. Waiting at the corner of California and Grant, I amused myself by snapping a few random photos with my hiptop. In the middle is Old Saint Mary's Cathedral, the oldest cathedral in California. Towering next to it is the skyscraper in which my lawyer has her office on the 25th floor.

Also, here's one I took of the Bay Bridge on a cloudy evening last week, from the Muni platform outside my office:

November 10, 2003

No, I'm Not English

This morning, a nice Irish man was operating a pavement-breaker on my street, and I chatted with him for a few minutes to negotiate where to move my car. He asked me, "Do I detect an English accent?"

"No, but I get that a lot and I don't know why."

"You're not from England? Are you Australian, then?"

"No, I'm from California."

People ask me about my "accent" regularly. I grew up in Bakersfield, where we all talk like redneck Okies, and I've never been to England or Australia in my life.

But finally this morning it dawned on me why people think I have an English accent: I must have picked it up during the six years I lived with my Eurohusband. Though he learned English in Vienna, he speaks it like a Brit because that's how it was taught to him. Apparently his speech patterns are contagious! If he speaks to you, I recommend precautions such as covering your ears or wearing earplugs.

November 9, 2003

Mud-Shoveling Mama

I spent Saturday afternoon in the rain, swaddled in Gore-Tex and wool, shoveling out the drainage ditches along my mountain driveway. They were clogged with detritus from last winter's storms, and water was beginning to cut new ruts down the middle of the driveway. It was a satisfyingly back-breaking afternoon, herding the water with my mighty shovel. But I still have more ditch-digging to do next time, plus daffodil-planting before the snow starts.

And, my mountain house has a new kitchen window! It's a large "box bay" or "greenhouse" window, double-glazed, that I got for 1/3 of the MSRP from a contractor whose project got cancelled. Score! Previously, there was no window whatsoever facing the driveway, and the kitchen's only other window didn't provide sufficient light. Now my kitchen is brilliantly lit and I can peek at the driveway without exiting my cozy house. The rain gutters are also new, as is the paint on the eaves. Progress!