Entry for February 26, 2008

I haven’t had much to say lately. My life continues on an even keel. No drama. No pathos. A few financial problems that are par for the course for everyone. But I don’t like playing absentee landlord, so I thought I’d stick my toe back in, ever so briefly.

Christi vs. the Ants:

One of my favorite movies when I was a kid was The Naked Jungle, with Charlton Heston as a rancher fighting an invading column of fire ants. It’s based on a terrific short story called “Leiningen vs. the Ants” by Carl Stephenson. I’ve spent the last few days re-inacting that story, on a smaller, less desperate scale. We have an infestation of those tiny, sweet-eating ants right now, and I’ve been opening up a can of whoop-ass on them for the last couple of days. The little bastards are persistent. They keep showing up even though a thorough cleaning of my kitchen has left an expanse of metaphorical scorched earth for them. We’ve laid the ant bait, now we get to wait to see if they die off. If they keep coming, well…hell.

The Oscars:

Feh. I had no interest in the Oscars, but in the news reports from the event there are enough pictures for me to decide that my vote for Best Dressed (among the women, anyway) would go to Laura Linney, followed by Helen Mirren and Marion Cotillard (who wore the most adventurous dress of the evening). I wouldn’t vote for Tilda Swinton, who wore an awful outfit, but I love Tilda and I think she gave a hilarious thank you speech when she won for Best Supporting actress, calling out George Clooney for his dedication to wearing the nippled rubber Bat-suit under his clothes at all times. Here’s a more stylish Swinton speaking about film to the San Francisco Film Festival:

And so it goes.

The Hurdy Gurdy Man

Hmmm…the Thompson show was unexpected. I didn’t know he was still doing the 1000 Years of Popular Music show, in which Thompson completely ignores his own music in favor of music from the 1100s on up. Felicia was taken a bit aback, too, though she was pleased as punch with the medieval songs she knew. “What’s that instrument he was playing at the beginning?” she asked me after the show. “It’s a hurdy gurdy.” “Oh! So THAT’s a hurdy gurdy.” It’ was amusing. I can’t say that I ever expected to hear Abba and Richard the Lionhearted within a 15 minute period, but there you go. And where the hell does he find his singing partners? Judith Owen was the featured singer, and I have no doubt that she could have knocked some of Thompson’s own songs out of the park if they’d played any of it. Which they didn’t. She’s married to Harry Shearer, of all people. Here’s a version of Spinal Tap’s “Christmas with the Devil” that she did with Shearer:

Thompson’s other collaborator was Debra Dobkin, who also sang and played the drums. I think the highlight of the set was an Elizabethan madrigal called “Shepherd’s Pipe,” in which the three singers harmonized with a clarity that sent shivers up the spine.

The Blue Note seems a different venue entirely without a pall of cigarette smoke hanging in the air, by the way. This is the first time I’ve been there since the smoking ban.

A whole mess o’ guitar

We’re going to see Richard Thompson tomorrow night. If you’ve never heard him (let alone heard of him), he’s a guitarists guitarist. Jesus, the man can play. Doubtless, he’ll be playing this tomorrow night:

…which he screwed up the last time we saw him. It was pretty funny, actually.

If you prefer a rave-up, he does stuff like this, too:

Enjoy.

Laissez les bons temps rouler!

Some quick thoughts for Super Fat Tuesday.

Carnival is derived from Latin: carne vale. It means “farewell to the flesh.” The festival that precedes Lent is a fond goodbye to meat and more carnal pleasures. Is it any wonder it’s such a party. The license to sin won’t be reissued for another 40 days. To this end, I vowed to eat nothing but meat today. And have all the sex I could before I chafed myself raw.

Yeah, right. Then I went to vote. I’m sure that all of the election workers, wizened as they are, are very nice people, but they pretty much killed any sex drive that may have surged through me today. I did go to lunch at a cajun restaurant, though. I had jumbalaya, which is also my favorite Hank Williams song.

Ah, the election. I chose to vote on the Democratic side, though I toyed with voting on the Libertarian ballot. My candidate, Chris Dodd, dropped out a couple of weeks ago. My plan-B, John Edwards, bowed out last week. Both were still on the ballot, but that’s playing with fire. I have no guarantee that their delegates are going to fall in a direction I’d like if either of them tries to play kingmaker at a brokered convention, so it was time to suck it up and make a choice. I went with Obama. I have reservations. I have more reservations with Hillary. After years of voting for mediocre middle-aged white men, who’da thought I’d miss it? Go figure. It will be an interesting election.

Incidentally, voting is fun.

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It’s getting harder and harder to find Rosemary and Olive Oil Triskets. This alarms me, because it’s the pattern with products that are being phased out. In response to this scarcity, here’s an open letter to Nabisco: if you discontinue these crackers, not only will I stop buying your products, I’ll break into your homes and offices and replace all your furnishings with lawn chairs. You have been warned.