netflixed

Never again will I automatically think "Some Like it Hot" when I hear or read about Billy Wilder. I will automatically think "Ace in the Hole."

#5

In her Afterward, Ursula K. LeGuin mentions the difficulty of this novel, and its rewards. I read it seeking unusual and interesting children's lit for middle schoolers; this book is alas too tough for my youngins, and likely for many early teens these days.

But it is marvelously imagined and a joy to read. Young Kay is an orphan living in a grand manse with a horrid governess. Kay is wakened one night by The Midnight Folk, who set him on a series of nocturnal adventures in a quest to restore a long-lost treasure his Grandfather was to carry to safety for South American clerics. Animate toys, traitorous felines, witchcraft, and hidden passages abound. I loved it, and there is thankfully a sequel called "The Christmas Box."

Friends in the Press

Good buds Ellen Cherry and Rob Thorworth in the Baltimore Sun. Both of them deserve wider audiences and more attention for their songwriting.

And I've only met David Glaser once, but I like his CDs a lot too.

I saw this trio play at the Austin Grill in Canton about a year ago, and I'm sorry to have missed them at El Rancho Grande, which is only a quarter-mile from my house.

#4

For a short bio, quite substantive, and a breeze to read. While taking a quite positive view of King and his accomplishments, Frady is not engaged in hagiography: the failings are here, too, rounding out a complex and insightful portrait. I might have to check out more of these Penguin Lives books.

Sick Day

Two things about me:

• I have little tolerance for repetitive, unproductive meetings
  
• I don't often call out sick from work

Since I would have to be deathly ill to miss school on a day when students are around, and since there are two full days of repetitive, unproductive meetings scheduled, I am using sick time.

I don't feel guilty. I AM sick. I've been continuously sick since September with a rotating combo of sinus/throat/flu symptoms. And my neck and left shoulder hurt like a mother after I slept in some unintended Yoga pose all night Monday. And I've already written two lesson plans today to boot! I'll be far more productive here at home.

February and March are a long bleak stretch, if memory serves from last year. We've got the oasis of President's Day, and that's it.
I need to rest and re-charge now.

netflixed

The Wayward Cloud is a sequel to What Time Is It There? While not quite as aesthetically pleasing as its predecessor, this cloud is mostly silver linings.

The young watch-seller from What Time Is It There? continues his voyage along the margins of capitalism, moving from the sale of tacky baubles and plasticized crap to the Taiwanese adult film industry. The female object of his obsession has returned from Paris and is now busily responding to a terrible drought in her home country by collecting discarded plastic bottles, filling them with water, and stashing them around her house.

This is a deeply funny film, but only if you think David Lynch and Stanley Kubrick are hilarious. It functions with the anarchistic gusto of Goddard's Weekend or Pierrot le Fou. Director Ming Ling-Tsai is boldly silly, and unafraid of repulsive images. A quite refreshing film-maker. This is an inventive, raunchy, ridiculous mix, and even includes some zany musical numbers with nods to Busby Berkely and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.

There is a lot of sex and nudity and there are numerous graphic scenes: the main actor is making a porno, and part of the fun is how Ming pokes fun at that genre as well. A meditation on desire and need and priorities in late-phase capitalism.

A New Venue

So another local Irish joint has hired Move Like Seamus to play multiple gigs this spring. Soon we'll announce several shows at Lucy's in March, April, and May.

Already scheduled at Mick O'Shea's: February 27th and March 17.

Ice Ice Baby

It's a good thing school is closed today. I slept on my neck wrong and can't turn my head. That's a liability in a City School classroom.

Tomorrow and Friday are Professional Development days without students. I'm thinking this neck thing, and my sinus infection, are good reasons to use sick time, of which I have about 150 unused hours.

Five-day weekend! Woot.