don't see this
latest comments:
Where was the twinset option? | helenaChess Sets | edward
In Defense of the Craft | dwight
Since everyone's being shy... | dwight
Make it so. | helena
$4 Million Gross | edward
How about 40 acres and a mule? | dwight
Speaking of Hume, did anyone else see a parallel in how last year there was a huge earthquake at this time and this year there was a huge tsunami?
I've dealt with plenty of physical pain. But overall, nothing I've ever experienced can compare to what many people must be feeling this week. I'm grateful I don't have to. No one should have to go through a disaster like the ones this year or last.
This is why I get annoyed when people make flippant remarks about "bad areas" of DC or how they feel scared to walk down a well lit city avenue at nine o'clock. Perhaps they have valid concerns. But in the grand scheme of things, most people in America (myself above all) have it better than 99% of the other people in the world. This doesn't mean that we shouldn't strive to make life better. That would be counterproductive. It does mean, however, that we should exercise some humility when expressing how tough we have it when our credit card bills pile up. Or when garbage collection is delayed a day, or if traffic makes us ten minutes late to work.
Yes, yes, I know, I'm a hypocrite. I like to complain as much as the next person. But in the dusty recesses of my mind, there's a tiny recording which repeats at a low volume that my lucky streak is just that: random chance. And we all know how random chance works out.
During the holiday interregnum, a few notes.
I've now noticed that almost all of my family, and even most of my friends, have some sort of portable music player. Not having one, I don't feel bad. It leaves a future gift slot open.
As far as personal booty, I managed to accumulate a large number of items which will go unmentioned, just like last year. I will point out that I received a very cool globe I wrote about earlier.
Every night that I've been able to, I've tried to polish off a book in front of a fire. The last one I've finished will be reviewed shortly, and was a marvelous work, despite almost running to 900 pages. In addition, the novel is set in the 18th century, leading to all sorts of Fun with Capitalization and Spelling of a Technologickal Nature. That and a Series of Infernal Devices. It reminds me that today, just as in the past, most people view machines as a sort of dark magic, to be negotiated by those Who Know Best. How illogickal!
I'll try to throw up some reviews of the games/books/music I've sampled during the break. But I'm promising nothing until I arrive back in the district.
One minor addendum: reading a book about how to engineer a tsunami in the pacific is fun. Opening the small town rag to read that such an event has actually occurred a few hours post book completion is scary. It's a good thing causality is a sham.
On Monday I went to see Lemony Snicket’s “A Series of Unfortunate Events”, which I basically enjoyed. But I made the mistake of seeing it at the Muvico Egyptian 24 at the Arundel Mills Mall. For those who have never been, this theater is designed to look like some kind of Egyptian tomb, complete with hieroglyphics and kohl-eyed imagery. There are rudimentary sphinxes in the lobby flanking the entrance, and to top it all off, a giant statue of an Egyptian god guards the main entrance.
My issue is that the designers didn’t pick just any god—Horus or Sobek or Bast, for instance. No, they picked Anubis, the jackal-headed god of death and dying.
Why? What are they trying to say? Are we to think we’re entering paradise? Are we symbolically staving off death? Or are we actually experiencing it, by sitting entombed in the dark for two hours? When we leave, have we changed in a fundamental way, or—by wasting the afternoon—are we just closer to our graves? It’s a sign I just can’t unpack.
I’ve given this rant before—to Forrest, to Edward and Deborah, and at many DW parties, for instance—and someone (thankfully, not the aforementioned brilliant folk) always says, “They probably just thought it looked cool.” Part of me is tempted to agree. But as someone who was nearly a religion major, I have to argue that you can’t pick and choose the meaning of a sign or symbol; each one has its own weight, resonance, and history that cannot be blithely ignored. For instance, the Confederate flag will likely always be a symbol of racism—Southern Republicans’ offensively myopic efforts to defend it notwithstanding—and no one’s going to get any slack for hanging up a swastika and saying, “But I thought it was just a curvy cross…” Granted, Egyptian imagery doesn’t carry anywhere near the tragic history of the previous two symbols, but I’m picking extreme but familiar examples to prove my point, which is that Anubis meant something to people, and still does, and that has to be acknowledged.
Plus, architects are pretty smart guys and gals on the whole, so they probably knew exactly what they were doing. (The fact that Muvico’s Anubis has skeletal-looking ribs supports this reading). And given the dizzyingly PoMo nature of Arundel Mills, I have to assume some joke is being played. Now I don’t mind an architectural joke or two; I love Williams’s ironic columns, and a certain wicked part of me grins gleefully when I think of how many “moral” right-wing conservatives are essentially being asked to worship at a pagan altar every time they see a flick. But on the whole something about seeing movies at Muvico always leaves a vague bad taste in my mouth. Because something is being offered up as a sacrifice…and I can’t shake the feeling that it’s us.
Hooray! We won Washington!
State, that is. Still, a great victory in a season of doubt.
So who’s your inner rock chick?
For the record, I’m happy to discover I'm Ani Difranco and/or Liz Phair. (My answers to the first six were C, F, D, E, D, E. But on #7 I keep switching between A—my first answer—and B or D—also likely candidates.) I guess that means I’m walking out in the rain, but only after I f--- and run.
Since the only thing better than one inner rock chick is two outer ones, try Tegan and Sara on for size. (Observant City Paper readers will remember they came through both D.C. and B-more around Thanksgiving; sadly I missed them.) The duo are twins from Canada with a nice double vocal sound (their voices are as—if not more than—identical as they are) that has a certain hard-to-categorize-jaggedness…maybe somewhere in the vicinity of The Breeders. Their lyrics are often troubled and loudly introspective—that of a girl asking pointed questions to someone across the street whose windows she is voyeuristicly gazing into. Nothing on the new album leaps out at me demanding to be a TYSBLTRN, but it’s all pretty good, and the previous album was downright great. Try “I Know I Know I Know” or “Walking With A Ghost” off of So Jealous, or the incredible “I Hear Noises” and “Living Room” off 2002’s If It Was You.