New Stuff

You never know what you're gonna learn that you didn't know the day before.

When I woke up today, I didn't know this was gonna be the day we all learned who Deep Throat was.

But we did.

I now eagerly anticipate the:

- re-release of "All the President's Men"
- the Mark Felt interview on Dateline, 60 Minutes and Prime Time Live (the latter of which will no doubt inform us he had an affair with one of Woodward's secretaries)
- the Woodward book on the subject
- the Bernstein book on the subject
- much discussion on keeping sources secret for 30 years.

Also tonight, filed under things I didn't expect to do:

- Meet Alfonso Cuaron, who is a hottie
- Meet Darren Aronofsky, who is not
- get drunk off of one screwdriver
- try to get Cuaron to come with me to Brooklyn to see this. In my stupor I was thinking the parody was done of his Harry Potter, not the first one. Fortunately, the man had to pack to go to London to, well, make a new movie and politely turned me down. But he did take my card.

And it's only Tuesday!

Reading is soooooo hard!

"Sherre Sachar comes from a book-loving family. Her father, Louis, is an award-winning author, and the graduating senior thinks that settling down with a good book should be one of life's great joys. But as she prepares to leave high school and head to Cornell University in the fall, she is tired of reading. The extensive required reading in her high school classes — including Advanced Placement English Literature, where she flew from one classic to another — left her with no time to pick up books she thought would be fun."

My AP English class was one of the best I ever took. They gave us a list of books to read over the summer, everything from "Red Badge of Courage" to "Heart of Darkness" to the (dreadful) "Billy Budd." I had a teacher, Mr. Sampselle, who was dry-witted and hilarious and let us call him "Uncle Dave." I was thrilled to be forced to read the classics, as the lame-o classes I'd taken up until that point had given me "The Odyssey" and "Great Expectations" -- and that was 9th grade. And that was pretty much it until the 12th grade with Sampselle. We had a ball, I learned a lot, and yeah, I read a lot. It's Advanced Placement.

My big whine is that I wasn't forced to read more classics. Yeah, I might have picked them up on my own, but fact is I needed some guidance with the bigger picture in several books, and having a class to help me through "King Lear" was beneficial. I just wish I'd taken classes where they led us through some of the other greats, because in the end I feel like I got short-shrifted. My friend Julia was reading "The Count of Monte Cristo" and a book about the history of Mary, Queen of Scots, in 6th grade, and I tried to tag along. That was about the sum total of my classics reading before 12th grade.

The fact that a reader gets "burned out" by too much required reading -- screw off. Don't take the class. Sit with the lower levels and manage your way through the easier stuff. It's called learning.

Now, later on in the article a girl opines that they basically had to read the texts and explicate them until they bled, and I agree: That stuff is a pain in the ass, and can sap a story of some of its fun. I mean, as Mark Twain says before one of his books kicks into gear, all metaphors and so forth are completely unintended. It is important to understand the story beneath the story, but the fact that "Red Badge of Courage" is an anti-war book ... you know, I can get that on my own. But knowing about "Heart of Darkness's" "noble savage" trope, and the metaphor of the river as heading into death -- that's good stuff. That shows up everywhere. It's useful.

My brain probably was tired, too, and I remember being completely pissed that of all the books we studied, not one was on the AP Essay portion of the test, and I had to dredge up what I remembered about Richard Wright's "Black Boy" to write something coherent -- a book I'd read for fun. That said, I should have just thrown caution to the wind and done "Gone with the Wind," which if I remember right is what my canny friend Lynda wrote about.

I wish people would quit letting students whine for being too well educated.

Hands across the ocean — shake or wave?

So, because I have an inability to just let things rest, I have now gone and stuck a stick in a place that was, so far as I knew, fairy stable.

It's a completely self-indulgent gesture, but knowing that I have a hard time not knowing all the gory details about a thing, I've long wanted to find out the answer here. So last night I sent off a brief email to a total stranger to confirm he was who I thought he was.

And got an immediate email back this morning confirming it -- but from a different email address. A little hostile, even: "Why do you ask? Who are you?" they wrote back. I've since replied.

More details as this progresses. The way I see it is this: The hotter the teapot grows, the larger the uncovered tempest is. If it all just is a big shrug, then there was nothing worth wondering about in the first place. Based on that one responded-to email, I put this tempest at a 7 of 10 (with 10 being explosive).

My big concern is that this total stranger will now contact people I have known before ... and it could get ugly.

My bigger concern is that he never writes back.

Oh, I guess I am a big drama queen when all's said and dne.

The art continues

This is the Luke Chueh artwork I really wanted; he's just issued it in a second limited edition print, and so I will now have three. And then I gotta stop.


"The Soundtrack of My Life"

Spring fever

I'm not sure if it's in the air or what, but the number of crazy people in my neighborhood has been growing exponentially in the last few months.

When I first moved here I didn't notice any; it's a pretty stable family type neighborhood. And then one morning a squirrel woke me up with chattering, and I was pissed because it was something unreasonable like 8am on a Saturday. So I got my water pistol and went squirrel-hunting. I was just getting him to go when this woman on the ground walking her dogs yelled up at me and I took aim and and then ducked back in. I've since seen her later on but she doesn't seem to connect me with the incident. She walks two overly-hairy hounds who look like they really could use a bath, and if you approach her with your own dog she'll keep you locked in place at least 20 minutes. This alone is not a crazy thing. But if she catches me and the dog running out for our late-night pit stop (which involves running outside, doing the thing, and fleeing back inside) she breaks out into cackles of laughter even if she's halfway down the block. So, a little more nutty. Then one time I was walking my dog back into the house and she was (dogless) leaning up against the wrought iron fence and standing next to what I thought was a folded-up grocery cart but was likely more like one of those cart/walker items. Since she likes seeing Ciara fleeing down the sidewalk home, I gave the dog her head and we ran, and as we passed her she let out this blasting series of epithets and claimed we were trying to run her down and couldn't we see she was taking a rest right there and what is wrong with people today!

The next time I saw her she made no reference to the event. So now I treat her with a wide berth. And think of her as the Crazy Dog Lady.

Now we have at least two more, neither of which I have any intention of interacting with: One, a great big hulking guy who's over six feet and probably 275 pounds, unshaven and kind of sloppy but not quite homeless looking with a really deep voice. He's the nightmare crazy man because he looks like a Sopranos enforcer and makes bizarro comments when you walk by. You feel like he's going to lunge out and grab you and try to send you back to the Planet Zoltron. I've seen him more than once and he's the kind of person who you hope isn't talking to you but maybe he is so you'd better pay attention in case that pisses him off and then suddenly he's continuing on his muttering way.

I'm reminded that briefly we did have a semi-crazy homeless woman living in the hood, who is now gone: She was Asian and sat in a very low-to-the-ground beach chair on random corners and often had an umbrella over her head.

So, this morning I saw our third. I was walking Ciara and heard a woman on a far opposite corner of the block yelling in what I think was Spanish. Since I couldn't make out what she was ranting about at first I thought she was yelling at someone across the street, but as we got closer to that side of things, there was no one there. A teenaged boy was standing and waiting for his ride, but I've seen him before and she didn't seem to be addressing him. We continued down the street and by the time we got to her corner she'd crossed and was standing about a yard or so from the boy, continuing to rant. Then she very deliberately jumped up and stamped down with both feet on the pavement about 6 or 7 times. When we got back around again, she was gone.

So, I'm beginning to worry about the water in the Heights these days.

If I lived in South Park....

I'd probably fart a lot more.

And I'd look like this:



This image brought to you courtesy of this site.

The Weekend in Central Park

Friends in from out of town with their triad of offspring (adorable and weepy in alternating moments; we went to the zoo, climbed on things, petted goats and got ice cream) ... all within the general Central Park area.

At the pooping elephant statue:



Becoming turtles. This is my favorite shot.



Then returned to the park at 8:15 this morning (!) for the 10K AIDS Walk which took us through the park and out the top, down Riverside Drive and back in again. Foot is hurting! But who can resist any charity effort that includes these dancers right at the very end?



Favorite shirt: "I'm not gay, but my boyfriend is." Worn torn and clipped to the back of a man's shirt. The man in question was in electric blue clingy pants and carrying a cane across his shoulders. Always entertaining!



The crowds. I think they were expecting half a million. I raised (with generous help) $275, so imagine that amount times half a million. Sweet.

Awww, a baby!

So, we're starting to very slowly go through my late grandmother's things.

While I was home recently I came across a small photo book called "Grandma's Brag Book."

Since we never thought of her as "Grandma," only "Buddie," it seemed fair to call it "Buddie's Brag Book." And, of course, put the contents online.

Have fun!

Celebrity Skin

I can't decide what's worse:

1) This site
2) Being on this site (mercifully, I am not)
3) Being on this site and being part of an overstock discount. Poor Dr. Drew!

Surely, a joke. Yes?

Snopes has nothing to say on the subject.

New favorite game

Guess The Google

Ah, wasting time really is an art form.

High art!

I bought art!

Well, prints of art. But signed and numbered prints!

I love this guy: Luke Chueh. Sometimes the titles of his works are as good as the works themselves ("Everything you love will destroy you" is the title of a drawing of a big pink bunny stepping on a cowering human) but there's something both adorable and melancholy about his style.

Here's what I got (because they were the only ones available):


Possessed

and


Locked


I am a patron of the arts now. Heh.

Small things

There is a munchkin in our cafeteria.

This guy (not Mickey Rooney) is selling his book, which recounts his time on the set of "The Wizard of Oz"; apparently he was either the mayor or a minister or something like that. He also appears to have kept the costume, or gotten a replica, as he's dressed in a purple and green hat that curls on the end. He also looks like an old woman from a distance.

Sometimes you don't know whether to laugh or cry.

P.S. That is not ME in the photo above. Just a pix I nicked b/c I don't have a camera with me.

Up front, in the back

I can't hear you, this moron next to me is squealing.

I am a special person; I got to go to the New York premiere of "The Interpreter" tonight. It's luck more than anything else, really, not like I had anything to do with the production, which kicked off the Tribeca Film Festival (which itself oddly doesn't have much going on until the end of the week, but details, details).

And I had very nice seats -- not exactly dead center like Ms. Kidman and Mr. Penn, but actually right at the back before the raised mezzanine seats began, and a bit to the left so exiting proved quite easy. The Ziegfeld is a lovely old restored theater which gets most of its play from premieres like this. I've had crappy seats there and they're not horrible, but in a situation like this you like to see where you "rate" in terms of equality of seating. Not good enough to be with the stars, true, but apparently good enough to be on Kyle MacLachlan's level, because he and the woman who was probably his wife sat next to me. On the right.

On the left, on the other hand, were two of the crappiest women to sit next to. You'd think they never left the house. Truth: The woman directly next to me was okay, but her seat companion on the other side was ridiculous. She'd loudly whisper plot points ("his wife is DEAD") which weren't totally spoilers but were nevertheless advancing the plot beyond what we already knew, and so getting ahead of the game, and then she had a tendency to actually squeal or clap when seeing certain locations in the film -- Silvercup Studios, the Chelsea Hotel. I did hiss "get a grip," but not very loudly. I'm not good on the confrontation, only on the later grousing. But really, people. Shut the fuck up. Honestly.

The party afterwards, held at the refurbished Museum of Modern Art, was lovely. I refuse to pay the $20 admission, but at this rate I'll soon see the whole thing thanks to screenings and parties afterwards. They opened up much of the ground floor and upstairs balcony area, plus a good section of the gallery area. So while everyone hoovered up the steak, chicken, salmon, cornbread, onion rings, asparagus and dozens of little tiny bite size desserts, pushing and shoving and shouting over one another, a scant few of us retreated to the galleries and studied over Cezanne and Hockney. I'm not a modern art fan; frankly I don't think it's arty to create a "room" made of concrete by building a room, filling it with concrete and removing the perimeter walls. But some of the stuff was quite startling, like the wall-sized shot of the Rhine or the glass-encased miniature pots and dishes. And it was nice and quiet. I had seen Indie Movie Mogul guy leaving the theater earlier and was hoping to dazzle him with my dress and cleavage, alas, he was nowhere to be found in the party. So I ate, meandered and looked at a lot of people I didn't know, and a few I did (hello, random Anthony Edwards sighting), then left, running into first my co-worker on the street (just coming in with his friends from a different "Interpreter" screening) and then passing by Richard Belzer and Robert Klein leaving the party and heading towards 5th Avenue. Of course my first thought was: "They've both been on Law & Order!" rather than "There go two great stand-up comics."

One-track mind, seriously.

Retract! Retract!

Of course my wonderful friends and relatives have come through for me on the AIDS walk, so I am a loser with no patience and am retracting yesterday's grousing. So far I have $125 and raised my goal expectations!

It's nice to have lovely people like my friends and loved ones.

I also am wearing a T-shirt that reads "Simon & John & Nick & Roger & Andy" right now, so clearly I had a good time last night. Will write more soon, once my ears stop ringing.

Wondering

Okay, while it may be tacky to solicit friends to donate to your charitable campaigns, like walking for AIDS, at least I'm doing it for a good reason.

I can't think of a good reason why those same friends either can't drop a dime or email me back to say "gee, I'd love to but I just can't. Good luck!"

Or maybe the emails got lost along the way.

I will focus on Duran Duran and all will be well.

Setbacks

So, through a series of unplanned events (getting home late, eating at 8pm, playing with the dogs after eating), I ended up having "Nanny 911" running while I half-watched, half-threw balls, half-felt the biological clock turning back, and back, and back, and back. The kindly if completely insane red-haired mother had four screaming brats and a fifth child in her part-time-working, sleeping with the remote on his stomach, magazine readin' husband, who just took up space and occasionally hauled a child up to his bed by his arm.

Oh. My. God.

It is endearing to see how in an hour (or a week, depending on how you're measuring things on TV) that a complete disaster like this household can be fixed (I sense lots of writing and "acting" of pre-arranged scripts, despite the "reality" format), but you can't orchestrate kids like that. They're telling mom to "talk to the eyeball" and scribbling on pillowcases and basically beating the snot out of each other (a sentiment I appreciated, but it doesn't make for good households). When the husband whispered to the horror-struck nanny watching in the background that his wife was doing his laundry, and "isn't that cool?" with a smirk, I think the clock re-set itself to my pre-birth state.

Then I ended up watching another horror story called "Supernanny" (pictured above) which I've seen before, but again featured multiple children, overworked, soft-hearted mom, and clueless dad (though much less clueless than the Fox dad). Once again, in a week/hour the whole thing is fixed up and we can all sleep soundly in the perfection of the Family Unit: White, upper-middle class (these kids have more toys than God), husband/wife combo, big house. No others need apply.

Anyway, speaking of toys and God, here's the bestworst present I've ever seen. Buy multiple messiah for your kids, and watch them battle it out: "No, my Jesus is right!" "Well, my Moses will kick your Jesus's butt." "Maaaaaaam..."

Call Nanny 911, straightaway.

I'm walking

Yes indeed, I'm walking.

May 15: AIDS Walk NY.

aidswalknewyork2005.kintera.org/randeedawn

Whee!

Is it tacky to hit up your friends for donations?

Saturday in the park

Since Ciara hates going out -- and the one time I took her to Central Park her little head seemed ready to explode -- I left her home today and took Carrington out to Central Park. Which is by no means an easy journey: It's about 10 minutes walk to the subway, then he goes in a travel bag because no dogs that aren't contained are allowed on the subway (I found out once the hard way), then the train to where we changed for the 6 and then uptown -- in Yankees/Orioles traffic, gah -- and then walk from Lexington another 10 minutes or so to the park. But I have to tell you, the little guy was a trooper and loved all of it. He never acted tired, and lapped up water when I gave it. Everybody who saw him loved him, except for one odd voice I heard as I walked in the park: "Look at that mangy cat."

Huh?


I prefer "scruffy."

Anyway, little kids, adults, everybody loved him. And the great thing is that once somebody engaged me about him I could say he was up for adoption, just go to the Web site. (He's not up yet but should be soon.) Also, while there I was able to take some pictures.


I see a squirrel!


I see another squirrel!

It was truly an awe-inspiring day -- totally amazing. Bright blue, warm but not hot, people kicking soccer balls, playing baseball, sunning, walking dogs -- a lot of dogs, every shape and size -- rollerblading, bicycling, eating (Carrington particularly was attracted to the people with food). Sitting down outside the Boathouse for a quick breather to watch the toy sailboats motor across the water, I heard a saxophonist playing "New York, New York." It's like being in a movie to live here a lot of the time.


Cleopatra's needle, framed by not-yet-in-bloom cherry blossoms


The view of Turtle Pond from Belvedere Tower


The Turtles of Turtle Pond (sounds like a kids' book)


Flowers near Shakespeare's Garden

And now, he is called Carrington

Doggie is in the doggie protection program, so he's not Kurt any more -- he's Carrington. I kid you not; this is right from the rescue people. So, here are some more pictures. If you know anyone who wants a beautiful lively cairn, have them fill out the adoption form over here. Is he adorable or what?


Let me down!


Love me now!


Taking a rest after all this cuteness.


Watch out, Carrington. I know where you sleep. When are you getting out of here?

Dog fight

I read the fine print on the Dog Policy, and it seems I am allowed to have two dogs; if one goes I have 6 months to replace. So sez the managing guy of the co-op, too, so I submitted both doggies for acceptance. We'll see how this goes.

Meanwhile, here are the kids!


Kurt! I'm Kurt! Can't you see? Love me! Love me!


I'm Ciara. I'm pouty. There's a strange dog in my house.