Category: Entertainment

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Brighton and London, 12 – 20 May 2003

I took off for 10 days to visit my friend Mary in Brighton, UK.

The photos include a 100 ft inflatable sculpture of a cube-headed Pinocchio in black, courtesy of American artist Paul McCarthy, now on exhibit at the Tate Modern, as well as various city images and a somewhat abandoned building that my friend Sherry’s friends are converting to artist spaces. Thank you to Iain and Storme for accommodation at their beautiful flat in Bounds Green! Not present, but viewable elsewhere on this site, are those pictures of the condoms from Nasty Nip.

A series of stills from a train ride from Brighton to London:

Sometimes British English to American English gets lost in translation, like for instance, pork products. Of course, this is to bind into a bundle, but I’ve only heard that with sticks or cigarettes. Pork bundles?

“Hundreds of families entered the nationwide search, resulting in a nail-biting final. The Doody family from Dudley, Wolverhampton beat off stiff competition to take their place as The Faces of Mr Brain’s Faggots.”
from Hibernia Foods’ Mr. Brain’s website

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Crunching on Day 4

Crunch time. I have some serious work to do this week – I’m on Day 4 of another cleanse, and keeping any war news on TV and radio off, and just skimming the BBC to get updates. It’s healthier that way.

I saw my friend, Julie Cascioppo, perform at the Sorrento Hotel in a cabaret act tonight. It was decidedly mellow, as the Sorrento has a conservative clientele. It’s a beautiful space, and reminds me of what older cities take for granted in terms of architecture. Julie wowed the crowd with her sultry jazz numbers, and as it was her inaugural show at the Sorrento, she brought an entourage of friends and acquaintances. I admire her, as she really struggles for her art, and does what she can to be an artist and improve herself, without selling out.

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Head of State

I saw “Head of State”, and loved it. Of course, I got to pay a matinee price (thank you, student ID). While it’s goofy, it has some strong underlying themes, particularly the idealistic underdog win. Of course, in the movie, Chris Rock’s character wins the election, with Bernie Mac as his VP.

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The Hours

Tonight I saw “The Hours” with my friend Camille. The movie ties together the stories of three people affected by Virginia Woolf’s “Miss Dallaway”: the author (1910?), a housewife (1951 Los Angeles) and a party host (2001 NYC). A memorable line, as Woolf speaks to her husband about the trap the suburbs are: “If I must choose between Death and Richmond, I choose Death.” I can’t help but wonder that someone feels that way about Schaumburg, IL, or San Jose, CA, right now. While it wasn’t a spectacular movie, I was caught up in its underlying theme: what it means to exist, and what it means to live. It brought back to my mind one of Woolf’s books, “To the Lighthouse”, and the difference between matter (the superficial) and form (the spiritual), and that brought back to life what it means to me to be living, and why schooling and the diversity of opinion and perspective is so important to me right now.They’re doing house-to-house searches for weapons now in Iraq. I wonder how Gore would have handled this? Of course, we probably wouldn’t be at war right now, except with Al-Qaeda.

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Anytime you have the Pope and the Dixie Chicks against you, you’re not long for the White House.”

A British fighter plane is down, several American soldiers have been captured, and Turkish troops appear to be moving in to the Kurdish section of Iraq. This isn’t going to be clean like the Bush administration hoped.The Oscars tonight have had a very limited response to war, except for a brief and passionate speech by an actor from the film “Y Tu Mama Tambien”, and Michael Moore’s acceptance speech kicker, which drew applause and boos from the audience for his criticism of Dubya: “Anytime you have the Pope and the Dixie Chicks against you, you’re not long for the White House”.

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The jealous boyfriend

This cleanse, the war, and the weather are affecting me in sluggish ways. I went out for pizza and karaoke last night with my brother and his wife. The atmosphere of the bar was really depressing, and offered me new insight to whether this is the best use of my time.Tonight I met a gentleman, and when I use that word, I don’t mean that at all. I would characterize him as extreme-low-self-esteem-and-jealous-boyfriend-man. At a birthday party tonight, I talked to a woman tonight, for the sake of conversation, without realizing I was under the watchful eye of her jealous boyfriend, who let me know rather directly that she was off-limits. He was almost mob-like in his delivery – and waited to tell me later on in the evening because he wasn’t sure if I was gay or not. He asked me if I was, and I honestly thought he was gay – and when I said no, he let me know that she was with him. I still had a great time with everyone else, but the experience reminded me that there are men out there like that, and that there are women who probably don’t know another alternative.

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Willard

I saw “Willard”, starring Crispin Glover. Creepy, unsettling, and worth every penny.

Diana found a new place to live starting April 15th. It’s at the Opera Plaza building – almost like a mini city inside. I couldn’t live in that sort of dwelling – it’s too hotel-like, and I reserve that living for the occasional trip to Vegas.

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Real Time

After class (regretfully, I missed the first hour and what proved to be an amazing video about an alleged race riot at Thurgood Marshall School), I caught up with some politically oriented television. I finally got to see an episode of “Real Time with Bill Maher” – and it’s better than “Politically Incorrect” ever could have been. It’s much more daring and experimental, and one of two reasons to succumb to HBO, the other being “Da Ali G Show”.

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NYC “inevitable”, say Seattleites

A big gathering at Molly Maguire’s tonight, and I meet two more people who are moving to New York. Something’s catching.

“You know him. He was the guy who used to walk around downtown capturing crows in a cardboard box – the guy whose girlfriend led him around with a dog collar at the Catwalk?”
Overheard on Capitol Hill

Pundits are declaring the Iraq war “inevitable” again, and the terror alert has been reduced to “Elevated”. I think I’m going to turn off the media for a couple of days for a well-deserved break. Like homework, for instance.