This was Fuss' declaration earlier in the month, before he figured out the correct pronunciation. We have to archive his 'cute' statements as they happen or miss them- his language skills most swiftly to enforce verbal orthodoxy. I'm worried about a rocky transition when Halloween disappears from the cultural landscape, it's been his alpha and omega for so long. The Christmas orbital bombardment will create a distraction, but the Little Man seems to find skeletons, bats and ghouls intrinsically more fascinating than reindeer and elves.
We'll see.
In the interest of seasonal 'content' beyond baby anecdotes and overheard snippets, here are some high quality foreign horror flicks Meggsie & I culled from the Netflix streaming archives over the last few weeks. In deference to Meggsie's status as a horror lightweight, they're more creepy & suspenseful than gory & terrifying.
Tale of Two Sisters
Some cultural disconnect sows occasional confusion, but rock solid performances and quality direction make it the best straight up 'haunted house' film since The Shining.
The Orphanage
A+ movie with a twist shock ending that actually shocks, and also manages something perilously close to a happy ending.
Pulse
The pace is rather glacial and it's more of an exploration of existential enuii than a straight up thriller, but it achieves some notable scares nonetheless.
Shutter
A little rough around the edges and with a notably unappealing protagonist, still delivers the scares in abundance.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
true customer tales
gal, extolling the virtues of the Norman Spinrad book she just picked up to her friend: It's SO AWESOME...it's got, like, severed heads sinking their teeth in!
friend, outraged: Severed heads don't sink in their teeth!
gal: EXACTLY! That's the whole point! It's so crazy!
friend, outraged: Severed heads don't sink in their teeth!
gal: EXACTLY! That's the whole point! It's so crazy!
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
The Bookseller's Reward
I caught one of those oh, look, this attic/barn/garage/shed is full of books! buys earlier, the first one in a few months.
It's the kind of thing we used to see all the time but they've been dying off as society's bipolarity about books worsens- people figure they're worthless and throw them out or else they've found an Ebay goldmine and prize them above rubies.
This buy was archetypal, a zigguraut of mouldering boxes with a 98/2 ratio of worthless, ruined junk to good stuff, arriving in the back of a beat up old pickup.
It's the sort of buy that drains your lifeforce.
You know somewhere in that mass of water damaged Reader's Digest Condensed Books, mid-70s Harlequin romances and Book Club sociology texts is one really interesting book, so you sort through each disintigrating box with care and attention, abrading precious brain cells against a seemingly endless wall of concretized mediocrity.
And of course sometimes you come up empty, a reality which births a goblin crouched in a dusty corner of your mind whispering poison.
This time, happily, I found The One.
A 1st edition of Victoria by Knut Hamsun, world famous Nobel winning Norwegian writer rendered persona non grata for enthusiastically embracing Hitler and Nazism during WWII. He's one of those authors you almost never find in the wild who has a devoted following- I automatically grab anything of his I see.
After sorting the books and arranging payment it was time to check on dear Knut and check my assumption of value. I figured a 1st in a partial DJ was a good bet for $35-50, which would justify the drudgery of a buy yielding little else in the way of salable merchandise.
To my amazement and delight there were preciselyzero copies for sale with jackets of any kind.
On the whole internet.
Over the years I must've given The Dust Jacket Speech to enough people to fill the Rose Bowl. People come in with 'valuable 1st editions' they think are worth a mint only to learn that collectible books (fiction, anyway) carry nearly their entire value in their fragile paper dust jackets. That book the internet tells you is 'worth' $500 is worth $20 without a jacket, if you're lucky.
So this was like a reverse judo kick. I'd ignored the DJ because it was in tatters, but as tricky as it can be to get an accurate value from the internet, it's really great at letting you know when something's really, really really hard to find.
And a copy of Victoria in a DJ, even a chewed up DJ, is really, really really hard to find.
=)
It's the kind of thing we used to see all the time but they've been dying off as society's bipolarity about books worsens- people figure they're worthless and throw them out or else they've found an Ebay goldmine and prize them above rubies.
This buy was archetypal, a zigguraut of mouldering boxes with a 98/2 ratio of worthless, ruined junk to good stuff, arriving in the back of a beat up old pickup.
It's the sort of buy that drains your lifeforce.
You know somewhere in that mass of water damaged Reader's Digest Condensed Books, mid-70s Harlequin romances and Book Club sociology texts is one really interesting book, so you sort through each disintigrating box with care and attention, abrading precious brain cells against a seemingly endless wall of concretized mediocrity.
And of course sometimes you come up empty, a reality which births a goblin crouched in a dusty corner of your mind whispering poison.
This time, happily, I found The One.
A 1st edition of Victoria by Knut Hamsun, world famous Nobel winning Norwegian writer rendered persona non grata for enthusiastically embracing Hitler and Nazism during WWII. He's one of those authors you almost never find in the wild who has a devoted following- I automatically grab anything of his I see.
After sorting the books and arranging payment it was time to check on dear Knut and check my assumption of value. I figured a 1st in a partial DJ was a good bet for $35-50, which would justify the drudgery of a buy yielding little else in the way of salable merchandise.
To my amazement and delight there were preciselyzero copies for sale with jackets of any kind.
On the whole internet.
Over the years I must've given The Dust Jacket Speech to enough people to fill the Rose Bowl. People come in with 'valuable 1st editions' they think are worth a mint only to learn that collectible books (fiction, anyway) carry nearly their entire value in their fragile paper dust jackets. That book the internet tells you is 'worth' $500 is worth $20 without a jacket, if you're lucky.
So this was like a reverse judo kick. I'd ignored the DJ because it was in tatters, but as tricky as it can be to get an accurate value from the internet, it's really great at letting you know when something's really, really really hard to find.
And a copy of Victoria in a DJ, even a chewed up DJ, is really, really really hard to find.
=)
Monday, October 25, 2010
true customer tales
BAG EDITION
me: would you like a bag?
older lady, fussing: Um..well...is it a SMALL bag?
me: I can give you a small one.
older lady: Is it a bag I can fit in my bag?
me: sure!
older lady: okay, then.
me: would you like a bag?
older lady, fussing: Um..well...is it a SMALL bag?
me: I can give you a small one.
older lady: Is it a bag I can fit in my bag?
me: sure!
older lady: okay, then.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
true customer tales
beardy dude buys a book.
dude: Are you a Christan?
me: No.
dude: Oh wow man...how do you live, how do you survive?
me, puzzled: Uh, great?
dude: that's too bad!
me: * blank stare, walks away*
dude, wandering out door: well, God Bless America!
I'm used to getting this kind of non-sequiter BS from mentally ill homeless people, not seemingly normal folk who bathe regularly.
dude: Are you a Christan?
me: No.
dude: Oh wow man...how do you live, how do you survive?
me, puzzled: Uh, great?
dude: that's too bad!
me: * blank stare, walks away*
dude, wandering out door: well, God Bless America!
I'm used to getting this kind of non-sequiter BS from mentally ill homeless people, not seemingly normal folk who bathe regularly.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Sleigh F@$*#G Bells
...or, The Old Married Couple Goes to a 'Gig'
It was a fine anniversary get away, topped off by an orgy of rock
The poor weather proved a excellent tonic for Santa Barbara's California Beach Theme Park iconography, and last night I got my lightning storm. A bolt landed smack downtown as we were enjoying lamb vindaloo at the Taj Cafe, eliciting a chorus of genuine screams from the street and knocking power out for a few minutes. Hooray for candelit dining!
After, we wandered vaguely up the street until the telltale hipster spoor of slouched, hoodie-clad smokers and thumping bass alerted us to the hidden presence of the club.
I've never been enthusiastic about these things except in the abstract. It was easy for me to suss out the show and buy tickets and be excited when it was two months off, but premonitions of doom inevitably haunt the day of. Pure idiocy given my 100% success rate over the years. Happily, the wife cajoled me from our plush hotel womb with the paramecium decals on the wall, saving me from the tragic folly of trading a peak musical experience for an all new episode of Cake Boss.
The venue was nice, the gal found my name on her clipboard with no problem, and we secured one of the tables on the dining podium for a base camp (protip: avoid the scrum around the bar by bribing a waitresses to bring you drinks). Proving how out of the loop we are we picked up a couple of tee shirts before the show, which I then had to carry around all night. Silver lining, I was able to wave them overhead like a pirate flag once the crowd reached a fever pitch.
People kept pouring in, opening bands played, we killed time drinking and people-watching. Three gin and tonics set me back 30 bucks, the price of the crawfish stuffed blackened Filet Mignon I'd enjoyed at The Palace Sunday night. I'll take the steak ten falls out of ten, but at least the drinks were made correctly (and you can't attach a dollar value to the spectacle of the 50-something couple mauling each other like teenage first timers who just raided the folks liquor cabinet- the Wife nearly wept when they migrated beyond our field of view, presumably to strip and start humping in the middle of the street outside.
The openers were okay but missing something. The musical ground between 'awful' and 'brilliant' is broad and thickly populated by talented, hardworking bands that can't manage to make real impression. I always want them to be better and feel kinda bad about saying "they were okay", because even being the local opening act for a touring band takes a tremendous amount of work and dedication.
That might be part of my show day nerves. Watching people give something their all when their all isn't enough makes me a little depressed.
But eventually the openers wound down, the place filled up and the hopeful migration to the dance floor began.
It being 'all ages' show, we got about 10 feet away from the stage via the simple expedient of hitting the 'no drinking' side. I was (as usual) the tallest person in the room and had an excellent view of the stage and the tops of a lot of people's heads. The Wife's vantage was less salubrious, but the sonic assault was still able to massage her soul.
I'll post a pic of the shirts later, since they nicely summarize the Sleigh Bells experience (basically the uncensored title of this post writ large in white on a black tee). In the meantime, my humble prose will have to suffice.
They didn't so much take the stage as explode.
One second we're all jostling for postion while a couple of people up front try to get a "Sleigh Bells!" chant going, the next we're being blown back like a field of wheat in a tornado by Tell 'Em.
It was so ridiculously great and huge and over the top, so much better than my sniveling inner critic expected that I roared with laughter, which seemed the only way to adequately express the pure joy of the moment.
And there wasn't much let up.
They played the whole album at peak intensity, with every song hitting at least ten times harder than the recorded version. The only exception was Rill Rill, which is IMHO the best sounding tune on the record, but sort of a muddle live. No matter, everyone had a great time singing along anyway and the whole rest of the show sounded fantastic and hit like a semi truck being towed behind a jet fighter.
The climax was (as I'd hoped) Crown on the Ground.
Youtube pulled the only high quality live clip, but this one at least lets you extrapolate the energy level and volume involved.
It takes a hell of a song to push an already epic show to another level, but from the air-raid siren guitar intro through the fake-out ending the whole audience was fused into a single spasming organism, something primitive and mindlessly evolving like the paramecium from our room.
We howled for an encore, but as the nice lady pointed out when she emerged from backstage to face the ravenous crowd, "have you listened to our album? it's only 34 minutes long- we haven't got any more songs!"
A few albums down the line Crown can take its rightful place as their stadium-annihilating encore, for now it makes a final number nonpareil.
If my point has somehow proven elusive, allow me to make it explicit:
If these cats play anywhere nearby, you owe it to God to go see them and be rocked off your foundations.
It was a fine anniversary get away, topped off by an orgy of rock
The poor weather proved a excellent tonic for Santa Barbara's California Beach Theme Park iconography, and last night I got my lightning storm. A bolt landed smack downtown as we were enjoying lamb vindaloo at the Taj Cafe, eliciting a chorus of genuine screams from the street and knocking power out for a few minutes. Hooray for candelit dining!
After, we wandered vaguely up the street until the telltale hipster spoor of slouched, hoodie-clad smokers and thumping bass alerted us to the hidden presence of the club.
I've never been enthusiastic about these things except in the abstract. It was easy for me to suss out the show and buy tickets and be excited when it was two months off, but premonitions of doom inevitably haunt the day of. Pure idiocy given my 100% success rate over the years. Happily, the wife cajoled me from our plush hotel womb with the paramecium decals on the wall, saving me from the tragic folly of trading a peak musical experience for an all new episode of Cake Boss.
The venue was nice, the gal found my name on her clipboard with no problem, and we secured one of the tables on the dining podium for a base camp (protip: avoid the scrum around the bar by bribing a waitresses to bring you drinks). Proving how out of the loop we are we picked up a couple of tee shirts before the show, which I then had to carry around all night. Silver lining, I was able to wave them overhead like a pirate flag once the crowd reached a fever pitch.
People kept pouring in, opening bands played, we killed time drinking and people-watching. Three gin and tonics set me back 30 bucks, the price of the crawfish stuffed blackened Filet Mignon I'd enjoyed at The Palace Sunday night. I'll take the steak ten falls out of ten, but at least the drinks were made correctly (and you can't attach a dollar value to the spectacle of the 50-something couple mauling each other like teenage first timers who just raided the folks liquor cabinet- the Wife nearly wept when they migrated beyond our field of view, presumably to strip and start humping in the middle of the street outside.
The openers were okay but missing something. The musical ground between 'awful' and 'brilliant' is broad and thickly populated by talented, hardworking bands that can't manage to make real impression. I always want them to be better and feel kinda bad about saying "they were okay", because even being the local opening act for a touring band takes a tremendous amount of work and dedication.
That might be part of my show day nerves. Watching people give something their all when their all isn't enough makes me a little depressed.
But eventually the openers wound down, the place filled up and the hopeful migration to the dance floor began.
It being 'all ages' show, we got about 10 feet away from the stage via the simple expedient of hitting the 'no drinking' side. I was (as usual) the tallest person in the room and had an excellent view of the stage and the tops of a lot of people's heads. The Wife's vantage was less salubrious, but the sonic assault was still able to massage her soul.
I'll post a pic of the shirts later, since they nicely summarize the Sleigh Bells experience (basically the uncensored title of this post writ large in white on a black tee). In the meantime, my humble prose will have to suffice.
They didn't so much take the stage as explode.
One second we're all jostling for postion while a couple of people up front try to get a "Sleigh Bells!" chant going, the next we're being blown back like a field of wheat in a tornado by Tell 'Em.
It was so ridiculously great and huge and over the top, so much better than my sniveling inner critic expected that I roared with laughter, which seemed the only way to adequately express the pure joy of the moment.
And there wasn't much let up.
They played the whole album at peak intensity, with every song hitting at least ten times harder than the recorded version. The only exception was Rill Rill, which is IMHO the best sounding tune on the record, but sort of a muddle live. No matter, everyone had a great time singing along anyway and the whole rest of the show sounded fantastic and hit like a semi truck being towed behind a jet fighter.
The climax was (as I'd hoped) Crown on the Ground.
Youtube pulled the only high quality live clip, but this one at least lets you extrapolate the energy level and volume involved.
It takes a hell of a song to push an already epic show to another level, but from the air-raid siren guitar intro through the fake-out ending the whole audience was fused into a single spasming organism, something primitive and mindlessly evolving like the paramecium from our room.
We howled for an encore, but as the nice lady pointed out when she emerged from backstage to face the ravenous crowd, "have you listened to our album? it's only 34 minutes long- we haven't got any more songs!"
A few albums down the line Crown can take its rightful place as their stadium-annihilating encore, for now it makes a final number nonpareil.
If my point has somehow proven elusive, allow me to make it explicit:
If these cats play anywhere nearby, you owe it to God to go see them and be rocked off your foundations.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Eleventh anniversary, what?!
It's that time again, and we're doing it up in style.
Off to Santa Barbara this evening for a two day respite at the pastorally named beachfront Hotel Oceana. I dropped a few extra sheckles on an ocean view, so of course now it's pouring rain. But all will be forgiven if we get a lightning storm. Our culinary schedule is open, other than a required stop at La Superica. Monday night we'll be at Soho raging with the hipsters to the sonic assault of Sleigh Bells.
True confession...the part I'm most looking forward to is sleeping in tomorrow morning, momentarily free from the tyranny of the Little Man's morning ritual of pounding on my ribs while yelling DADDY WAKE UP in one ear. Have fun with that one, Dayduh!
This will be our longest break from him in two years..we'll see who cracks first, him or the Wife.
Off to Santa Barbara this evening for a two day respite at the pastorally named beachfront Hotel Oceana. I dropped a few extra sheckles on an ocean view, so of course now it's pouring rain. But all will be forgiven if we get a lightning storm. Our culinary schedule is open, other than a required stop at La Superica. Monday night we'll be at Soho raging with the hipsters to the sonic assault of Sleigh Bells.
True confession...the part I'm most looking forward to is sleeping in tomorrow morning, momentarily free from the tyranny of the Little Man's morning ritual of pounding on my ribs while yelling DADDY WAKE UP in one ear. Have fun with that one, Dayduh!
This will be our longest break from him in two years..we'll see who cracks first, him or the Wife.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Blurb Time
Actually more of a title/blurb combo;
No Tears for Hilda by Andrew Garve
She was born to be killed!
No Tears for Hilda by Andrew Garve
She was born to be killed!
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Fussdate
This morning he patted his rear and said "big poo-poo!" and then didn't shriek and claw like a jungle cat while I changed him.
Breakfast with Devra was punctuated by the request "Devra please more juice!"
His selection for post-breakfast show was "Hippo Toys", which is fuss speak for Backyardigans.
He's on the pig's back, charging across a velvet field.
Breakfast with Devra was punctuated by the request "Devra please more juice!"
His selection for post-breakfast show was "Hippo Toys", which is fuss speak for Backyardigans.
He's on the pig's back, charging across a velvet field.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Worst/Greatest Cover Blurb of All Time
or, The Perils And Terrors of Self Publishing.
from Super Constitution by Charles Kim, transcribed verbatim:
Wow!
from Super Constitution by Charles Kim, transcribed verbatim:
THE ONLY WAY TO SOLVE TODAY'S ECONOMIC PROBLEMS exists in the faster and more globalization. Accordingly, this science fiction presents the following visionary story in an epic drama as a hypothetical question.
Wow!
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