OK Go!

Movies With Gray Matter Do Matter..

Big thumbs up to Manchurian Candidate, which I saw with my Mom in the East Village last night. Tightly directed, brilliantly acted, and as current as an Orange Alert, it's a riveting, intelligent political suspense movie, which is harder to find these days than a parking space for a stretch limo on Park Avenue. I like the 1962 original, too, in a retro, cult-film sort of way. I first saw it during its 1986 theatrical re-release, but I hadn't slept in days, wild boy that I was then, and was fading in and out, and years later I rented it.


The current version has a much more brilliant cast - Meryl Streep in the Angela Lansbury role and Denzel Washington upgrading Frank Sinatra's performance - as well as the quirky genius of director Jonathan Demme, who brought us "Something Wild", "Silence Of The Lambs" and "Stop Making Sense." Like the original, which made villains both communists and McCarthyists, this version attacks no single target - indeed the bad guys are in the opposition as well as the government - but creates a scary and paranoid landscape of power-hungry and profit-thirsty politicans and businessmen that cross party lines and national borders. See it!
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Since... my Mom's here for her annual visit. Here's my chance to catch up on movies and theater, starting this weekend. We might see Manchurian Candidate tonight. We may check out NY's annual Fringe Festival, with hundreds of Off Off Off shows for $10 or less. Here's a NYT article that picks a few gems from the (large) theatrical pile.

It looks like I have a few promissing dates coming up.. Yes!

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Dude, Where's My Habitat?

Here's the underside of the MGM lion, in case you were wondering. : - ) It was taken at MGM Casino in Las Vegas, where gamblers can stroll around - and through - a transparent plastic cage housing two lions.. What a great natural habitat for the King of Beasts! : - ) Wonder what they make of all the slot machine noises...

Unintentional Humor, Part 2. Pat Stumpp was kind enough to send me these hilarious signs:

In a mall:
"Toilet out of order. Please use floor below."

In a laundromat:
"Automatic washing machines. Please remove all your clothes when the light goes out."

Seen during a conference:
"For anyone who has children and doesn't know it, there is a day care on the 1st floor"

French Fry Days Vendredi Français

Just spent three weeks, as you know, in the company of my dear friends Denis and Christian from Paris. They went home yesterday (snif). For Christian, who speaks only French, I will henceforth include a bilingual tidbit every Friday. Happy weekend! Je viens de passer trois semaines dans l'agreable compagnie de mes chers amis français Denis et Christian. Hier ils sont retournes en France (son de larmes). Pour Christian, qui est exclusivement francophone, dorenavant je vais mettre chaque vendredi un petit paragraphe bilingue. Je t'encule, connasse!!
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Regular People Or Just Cheese Figures?

Las Vegas is the cheesiest place in the world. Brian actually heard some yuppie unintentionally do a self-parody by yelling to a concierge, exasperated, "But I've Got PLACES to go!"... Las Vegas is more an endless adult theme park than a real city, and the casinos hire people to dress as floozies, bananas, mushrooms, Elvis, anything to get attention. But the tourists themselves often look pretty outlandish. We saw a couple that resembled Colonel Sanders and a Southern Belle, and I turned to Brian and asked "are these tourists or just cheese figures?". And thus, my freshly minted "cheese figure" entered the Brian-Aaron lexicon...
Another Music Cartoon:


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Robbers Steal The Show

Favorite Tombstone Inscription:
"I told you I was sick!" - The People's Almanac, sometime in the 1970s; even if it doesn't exist, it's a winning idea..


Just broke up the week, with Thomas, at Mercury Lounge to catch Robbers On High Street, the marquee name on an $8, four-act bill. ROHS combine the energy of "new garage rock" with the melodicism and novel song structure of "new new wave." The lead singer is a triple threat: vocal, guitar, and keyboard. Skinny college-aged kids with longish hair, the two leads reminded me of college-age Aaron and his musician friend Mark Fried... Coincidentally, the two leads grew up not far from my alma mater, Vassar, in Poughkeepsie, NY.


From last week’s Onion, my favorite feature, “What Do YOU Think?
Question: “According to a recent study, recreational use of Viagra is on the rise among younger men who don't suffer from impotence. What do you think?”

Answer 1: "Is having sex for 48 hours straight some kind of a game to these people?"
Answer 2: "At last, a medical miracle to eliminate the 3 percent of the time 20-year-olds don't have erections."
Answer 3: "This is what happens when the increasingly conservative young people go emulating Bob Dole."
Answer 4: "Wow, there's an illicit market for these pills? And all this time, I've foolishly been using them to try to satisfy my wife."
Answer 5: "If kids today just pop a pill every time they want an erection, how are they going to learn valuable pussy-eating skills?"
Answer 6: "The young people should just stick to the marijuana and the goofballs and let their elders have their Viagra."

Oh dear. My sister Deena's going to need two foot operations to rebuild her heel, which broke in two in a car crash Sunday. She's in the hospital, and in a lot of pain... :- (
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More Fun Than
A Barrel of Hemmingways...

Quote du Jour: "I stopped believing in Santa Claus when my mother took me to see him in a department store, and he asked me for my autograph." - Shirley Temple

Color me underslept.... but happy, in the glow of a great vacation... Great company and scenery, and the space and distance to reflect on my life... But I also tried really hard to be in the moment as we hiked through the bright colors and bizarre shapes of Bryce Canyon and Zion... Having ridden two elephants and a camel in my various travels, I rode horseback for the first time down the steep slopes of Bryce. It was fun, but I just couldn't bring myself to kick the horse to make it go... to the annoyance of those behind me. : - ) Pictured left is Key West's annual Hemmingway lookalike contest. For some reason, Hemmingway reminds me of my late bear of a father...


Music-Related Cartoons:

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Very bad news. My sister Deena had a bad accident yesterday, breaking her heel in two and probably totaling her car. I feel really bad... she's currently hospitalized and waiting to meet with a foot surgeon, this could be a long recovery... Here's a picture of me and my newborn sister 'getting acquainted' in February 1964... More pictures of Deena and my family are on my web site, as is my childhood pics page.

Unintentional Humor, Part 1:
"How To Repair Your VCR." -- The title of a how-to video tape.
"Ears pierced while you wait." -- A sign in a shop.
"Be Kind -- Please Rewind." -- A label on a DVD disc at a rental.

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Planet Home...

What a wonderful vacation. Great company, and thoroughly scenic and interesting. I have pictures and anecdotes to last for weeks! How are you all?











Pictured: Aaron close-up at Zion National Park, and Scenery at Bryce Canyon National Park, both in Southwest Utah.

Frontier-themed cartoons:


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