Perverse R-rated Addendum to G-Rated Holiday Song Post

Many many oh so many years ago, Jeff and I and another friend Jeff spent a festive Christmas eve at MoMA watching the much-loved holiday classic, Cocksucker Blues.
Somehow wasn't quite the stuff of tradition.

TradishUUUN, tradition! or lack thereof!

God Forbid We Celebrate Thanksgiving Like Normal People

As the child of bohemian, peripatetic  parents, I yearned for traditions, for anchors, for terra firma, for a chance to say, “We always…” about something. “We always make pancakes on Sunday morning,” “We always go see the Christmas windows at Lord & Taylor.” Nobody else seemed to notice we were missing something, so I set out to create some traditions for us, for my family.

I tried to establish an annual tradition where my dad – a man raised in a Kosher home in Borough Park, Brooklyn – would read “A Visit from St. Nick” in his booming voice every Christmas eve. He obliged one year, not unhappily, but it didn’t take; nobody but me cared.

One year – age 8 or 9 -- I gave myself a job usually assigned to a bachelor uncle or the guy who owns the hardware store. For the benefit of my little brother, I dressed myself up as Santa Claus, wearing my snazzy red vinyl coat (Santa as styled by Fiorucci?), and relieving the medicine cabinet of its entire stock of cotton balls. No surprise, this little attempt was a  one-off.

We certainly had no real Thanksgiving traditions, not even at the most basic level, i.e., we couldn't even claim that every year we sat down with family and ate turkey somewhere, anywhere. A couple of times we went to my grandmother’s or my aunt’s in Brooklyn (our big tradition in this scenario was always to be late; sometimes there would be shouting about it). One year my mother tried to make a goose. There was the time we went out to dinner, deeply offending my fantasies of what Thanksgiving was supposed to look like – and I don’t think anyone even ordered turkey. Yet another time my mother woke herself up at 4:00 a.m. to start cooking the damn Bird.

I’ve never liked Thanksgiving. I don’t like turkey white meat; it tastes like nothing, and has a texture reminiscent of a woodchip. And I guess I didn’t like Thanksgiving because of what it represented – a lack of family traditions, our family’s inability to make statements that began, “Every July 4th we…” or “Every time it snows, we…”

As an adult, as a parent, I haven’t really turned things around in this department the way I thought I might, once I was the grown-up. It so happens I’ve had some very lovely Thanksgivings over the past couple of decades, but there’s no “Every year for Thanksgiving, we…”. Jeff and I spent one exceptional and unusual Thanksgiving, pre-kids, in Venice. The mist rose obligingly off the Grand Canal, and there was nary a roasted flightless bird to be found. Another time, we had a lovely Thanksgiving at the country house of friends (a converted farmhouse in a field – a Gourmet magazine photo spread-ready setting), with our kids, and their kids, and another pair of friends and their kids. And here and there, back in Brooklyn, I even managed to turn out a couple of passable birds myself with the help of scandalous amounts of butter.

And one time, 10 years ago, when I was 8 1/2 months  pregnant with my first kid – too pregnant to go anywhere, too pregnant to feed anybody – Jeff and my in-laws and my mother and my sister-in-law and I had a Thanksgiving dinner at a lovely restaurant a couple of blocks from home. Cucina, helmed by Michael Ayoub, was the first “good” restaurant (read: Manhattan-y) in Park Slope, the first one that might induce Manhattanites to cross a river. It no longer exists. There was another restaurant at that address for several years, and it, too, is now gone. This year, Michael Ayoub returned to the site and opened up a new restaurant. And guess what, that’s where my little family is having Thanksgiving this year.

Phew!  I officially have the right to say, “Every ten years we have Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant at 254 5th Avenue that is owned by Michael Ayoub.” A tradition! Michael Ayoub, you'd better cooperate.

Enjoy your version, be it unique to this year, or an always and every. And pass the yams.

ScrooGrinch Songs for the Season - Follow-Up

From some contributing editors:

Happy Xmas (War Is Over) - John and Yoko

I think this is the closest thing to a Beatles Christmas song, but please do correct me if I'm wrong. And send a link!

2000 Miles - Pretenders 

Chrissie's voice tempers any threat of over-done sentimentality. 

River  - Joni Mitchell 

Why don't you just kill us, Joni?

The Christmas Song  - Nat King Cole

What's to be said? The ultimate.

Last Christmas  - WHAM

New one on me! How is that possible, how could I have missed all that hair?

And something I just remembered:

Christmas Wrapping - The Waitresses

Not to be confused with the "Square Pegs" theme song, though it may actually be the same song

Xmas Songs for Scrooges and Grinches - Holiday Tunes That Don't Make My Teeth Ache

Xmas is coming, sort of, eventually; time to start force-feeding the goose. And time for me to wear ear plugs in chain drugstores because most Christmas music sends me looking for bridges and open windows on high floors.

Below, an incomplete list of holiday songs I can tolerate and some I even like:

(NOTE: in many cases, the vids are lame – I am providing links largely for the music):

Christmas, Baby Please Come Home – Darlene Love and Phil Specter and some backup mix of his regular crew of girls; plus Phil Spector’s bizarre-o spoken Christmas message to You, the Listener – where he sounds a hell of a lot like Squiggy -- at the beginning (or maybe it’s at the end?) of his iconic Xmas album (couldn’t find a sound clip)

Christmas Time Is Here - Vince Guaraldi Trio doing any part of the Charlie Brown Xmas special score 

Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth - David Bowie and Bing Crosby's freakazoid yet beautiful duet of “Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth” 

Christmas for the Jews - Darlene Love SNL Claymation Short-- I started humming this on Nov 1

The Who Song (Welcome Christmas) - from The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, of course. I always think of it as "Yahoo Doray."

Also, “You’re a Mean One, Mister Grinch,” though not sure this actually counts as a holiday song

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas - warbled tremulously by Judy Garland in Meet Me in St. Louis (grab a full box of Kleenex before you click!) 

Run, Run Rudolph -Chuck Berry

Santa Claus is Comin' to Town - The Boss

Little Saint Nick - The Beach Boys - 

Blue Christmas -  from the Elvis '68 Comeback Special
(I must say, I’m right there with the screaming chicks – sexiest rendition of a xmas song ever?)

The Christmas Song (Chestnuts roasting...) - Sinatra 

Santa Baby - Eartha Kitt  

Let It Snow Dean Martin rendition (suave) – I’ve brought me some corn for poppin…

Let It Snow Sinatra rendition (swingin’)

Christmas in Hollis - Run-DMC

O Holy Night - Paul Schaeffer’s 15 second impersonation of Cher singing “O Holy Night” 

What’s on your list? Check it twice, naughty or nice!

Ever in Search of Fun and Food, my dad was

Memories of my dad, who would've been 89 today. In list form.

Some food Dad liked, from high to low and in between, in no order:

• Caviar
• Mallomars
• Whitefish
• Mama liga with pot cheese, sprinkling of caviar
• Helzel
• 2 buttered rolls
• Borscht, cold, with sour cream
• Frozen cheese blintzes, again with the sour cream
• Halvah
• ½ a grapefruit, eaten aggressively with a spoon, juice flying, a person could go blind!
• Smoked Nova Scotia salmon (not lox)
• Jarslberg cheese on a Carr’s water cracker
• Hot peppers
• Pickles
• Franks-in-blanks
• Enough free samples at Dean & Deluca to make a lunch
• Cantaloupe
• Fig Newtons
• The leftover escargot garlic butter cadged from me with dunking bread – at the old Brasserie
• Egg creams (no eggs, no cream)
• Raw egg – tap a little hole in one end, sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper, and suck that sucker out. Served as a great parlor trick performed at our kitchen in the morning after a sleepover, disgusting and thrilling my little friends. Don’t try this at home in the age of rampant salmonella.
• Instant coffee prepared thusly: heaping spoon of coffee “crystals,” heaping spoon of sugar, AND heaping spoon of honey, served in a small yellow-taxi-themed mug (tire for a handle) Tony gave him
• Breakfast at the Candy Kitchen in Bridgehampton
• Pretty much anything my Aunt Clarice made and brought from Brooklyn

Some things Dad thought were fun, from high to low and in between, in no order

• Reading T.S. Eliot
• Going grocery shopping at the A&P or Gristedes in East Hampton
• Schnorring (funny Yiddish word for begging) lunch at Dean & Deluca, see above
• Playing pinochle
• Starting a company with $1500 he won in a pinochle game
• Breaking tunelessly into song, at top volume
• Humiliating his offspring by doing things like inexplicably yelling “Bop!” in a supermarket (again with the supermarkets!)
• Visiting me in college and dining at our on-campus greasy spoon, The Pub
• The Tonight Show
• Seinfeld
• Thelonius Monk
• Chet Baker
• Al Jolson
• Cole Porter
• Rodgers and Hart and/or Hammerstein
• Bach, iconic performances by Wanda Landowska on harpsichord
• The NY Times crossword puzzle
• William Safire’s column
• Illegally driving on to the beach in East Hampton in a dune buggy -- then getting stuck in the water, having to be pulled out by some large yellow machinery – not sure if that part counted as fun
• Dancing to the rock-n-roll music
• My childhood art work
• Speaking in Yiddish with Norman Podhoretz at fancy parties 
• Xmas tree shopping at Hren's Nursery and joking around with JP Fecteau
• Going "macho frio" -- his made up term for not wearing a coat, but layering, layering, layering, plus "muffler" (tx Tort)
• His family

Some things Dad disapproved of

• Being bored

I'm Not Throwing It Out and You Can't Make Me and I'm Not a Hoarder, exactly

I don’t believe that fashion-makeover-show trope, If you haven’t worn it in two years, throw it out.

I may be making a massive rationalization for my over-stuffed closet. And over-stuffed dresser drawers. And my over-stuffed other closet. And, well, you get the picture.

But for every cry of, Holy shit, how is it possible I still have this Laura Ashley dress? Oh wait, I know – Rose can wear it someday! We can make pillowcases out of it or doll clothes or napkins or fancy silver-polishing rags! there’s another head-slapping moment of, Why did I sell that adorable little Tocca coat to Beacon’s Closet for 4 dollars? Why did I give away those J. Crew riding boots? 

And for every plea of Jeff’s that starts, Do you think we can we get rid of …  there are the smug, satisfied occasions that go like this: I am so glad I never threw out this little Brooks Brothers Barbour-style rain jacket (a treasured item from back in the day when there were only two Brooks stores in the world, the Madison Avenue location, and somewhere in Japan, and not like now in every mall and airport) that I sported freshman year in high school, because today is the perfect day to wear it (ok, can’t zip it, but it’s not really that cold, right?).

And that is what I’m wearing today – a Brooks Brothers boys size 20 olive-green Poland-made (whuh?) rain jacket with drawstring waist and tan and black and red plaid lining and a hood. It’s making me happy. Coming out of a childhood that wasn’t quite rooted, a little nomadic, slightly insecure, I think I treasure – even objectify – certain objects from my past as sort of half-baked family heirlooms, even if they’ve only ever belonged to me, and not handed down from previous generations like normal people’s family heirlooms.

And think about it, if they ever decide to revive Freaks and Geeks, which takes place exactly when I was a freshman in high school (see above, re coat), they can borrow it for some background character who’s neither freak nor geek, but a wanna be preppy-type like I was. I’ll need it back though. Family heirloom and all, you know.

Get Out of My Way, I'm Walking Here

Something occurred to me today: Jack and I are the New Yorkers of the family. Jeff and Rose are, well, the not-exactly-New Yorkers of the family.

Sometimes (often) I look at my son and think, WHO are you? HOW are you you? I think of myself, in my most self-deprecating modes, as lazy and low-energy. Meanwhile, he careens through life, his energy can be explosive, his emotions are full-force. And he's been like this since approximately Day 3. A little background, if I may semi-digress. This kid almost did me in in his first 6 months of life. He never slept and he always cried. Cry isn't the accurate word; it's nowhere near adequate to describe the tortured screams that were always either in progress or moments away from starting. Sometimes he could barely be held safely in arms. He arched his back with great strength, almost flipping himself backwards. And he regularly scrabbled at his own head, leaving scratches, in seeming agony. 

In desperation, after exhausting more traditional approaches, we took him to a holistic healer, a local acupuncturist who didn't use needles on babies as young as he, but had some other mystery methods. She smiled at us in sympathy, and took him from us, laying him down on a blanket in front of her. She smiled at us again, a kind, but just slightly patronizing smile, to say, "I've got this." Guess what, she didn't. He started to wail, and her hocus pocus didn't stop him, if anything, it enraged him more. She was taken aback; she seemed shaken. Still, she found something positive to say: "HE HAS A REALLY STRONG LIFE FORCE,"  and we clung to this comment, held on to it like a life preserver. This is all an old war story now, but apparently not irrelevant.

Finally I think Jack and I have a lot more in common than I'm quite willing to acknowledge, since he can aggravate me so intensely. He's not as alien to me as I often feel he is. Jack and I are hard-wired New Yorkers. He and I are perpetually in a rush; we share a sense of urgency; we have to BE somewhere, dammit, and you are slowing us down. That you can be Jeff or Rose. They don't seem to care if they're late, they amble, they take their own sweet time. FUCK, Jeff, let's go! Or the g-rated version, for Rose: ROSIE! pick up the pace! We're late again. I speak to them in italics.

I'm not making a judgment. Or, I am, but I'm not sure what the verdict is. Should Jack and I slow it down a little? Should Jeff and Rose PICK UP THE FUCKING PACE? Or can we accept -- or, sigh, at least tolerate -- our foursome's diversity of speed? The way we New Yorkers, despite our sometimes-angry energy, ultimately tolerate each other, and even tolerate those goddamn rubbernecking ambling tourists on the sidewalk in front of us near Herald Square while we're rushing to work. All along the way, I mutter curses and threats under my breath, but this is where I live. End of story. And Jack and Jeff and Rose are what they are, even when my fists and teeth clench in a barely-reined-in fury. End of story

Fuck You, Dear

I said fuck you to Jeff this morning. On the subway. Muttered it, but no doubt the woman next to me heard it, and maybe surrounding straphangers, too.

This is not part of a normal course of events. As much as 2 married people can, we basically like each other, even sometimes a lot.

But last night was a rough one. Jeff home late, so me alone to nag, cajole, beg, and eventually stomp my feet and scream a little, to get the kids to do their homework (a nightly teeth-pulling with Jack), and eat their goddamn second dinner (2 bowls of Honey Nut Cheerios for Jack, Annie’s Organic Fake Spaghettio things for Rose), then drag more homework out of Jack, then ice cream, as promised, then a scuffle over sprinkle equity, then a kerfuffle over who brushes teeth first, leading to increasingly desperate texts to Jeff – “Where are you” and “WHERE ARE YOU” and “WHEN WILL YOU BE HERE” and I think a “HURRY UP” to drive the point home.

More of the same this morning, all weekday morning standard-issue stuff:

get out of bed, I said get out of bed; come in and eat something; no, I can’t find the little green bag full of silly bands, why didn’t you ask me last night; Jack, change your shirt, you wore it yesterday AND slept in it last night, I don't care if it's your favorite Rangers shirt; I’m writing down a list of all the things you need to do before you can read: 1. Get dressed, including socks; 2. eat breakfast; 3. pack your backpack; what is your red folder doing over here?!; Rosie, if you don’t like this outfit, FIND SOMETHING ELSE; Rosie, now we’re late!

You can fill in the rest, there are no surprises.

So then a rare subway ride together with Jeff, and he reminds me he’ll be out of town for work next week—3 mornings, 3 nights to fend for myself in a Park Slope top-floor apartment version of Lord of the Flies; I’m pretty sure my head will be impaled on a wiffle-bat pike, buzzing with insects, before Jeff is back. And no one will have gone to bed before 10, and I’ll stay up till 1:00 every night to have a few zoned out moments where nobody’s trying to rip me limb from limb, dice me into equal-sized chunks, split me down the middle. So I’m mad and I’m sad and I’m anxious, and I’m not getting the sincere apology -- the handwringing, furrowed-brow apology I feel I’m owed, but instead the reaction implies hell, we’re all strung out, so what do you want from me, I have no choice, and in that moment, in that second, it’s all so completely unacceptable, and the F-U flies. Enjoy, my fellow subway passengers, a little water-cooler story for your co-workers. “A lady next to me on the subway said Fuck U to her husband, and then she sat with her head in hands the rest of the way to work!”

I acknowledge it – complaining stressed out working mom blather is as interesting and creative and original at this point as is complaining about the weather. Another treasured hobby of mine. But like the weather, the issue persists. This is how it goes for working moms (and we all work, btw, but we’re not paid for that work), and that’s tough shit for us. In this country, that’s how much this work is valued. Like, not.

And that, dear children, is your bedtime story tonight. Hope you don’t have nightmares! I know I will. And no, you can't have another glass of water!

Something About Nipples

Once upon a time, in another decade, I penned an anonymous blog on gawker.com for about 5 weeks. Not so popular, but I thought I'd share one particular post, mostly because it has nipples in it.

http://gawker.com/196439/diary-of-a-park-slope-mommy-dont-be-a-tit

Warning: this piece is very neighborhood-specific, so may read like an annoying inside joke. But remember -- nipples!

Yikes, I just reread this for the first time in a while, and it's um, a little ... forced, maybe?

Cringing just a leetle.

But then again -- nipples!

Weather, You Rat Bastard

My grandmother once told me that as a child growing up in Ireland, she never felt dry. Once she settled here she probably relished the blasting radiator heat of certain old NYC apartment buildings. 

That's how I've felt all week. Soggy. Our floor boards are damp, I think I saw toadstools growing out of our books, and we're going to have to relocate our towels to Arizona for a week if we ever want to use them to dry ourselves with again.

For someone who knows how boring it is to talk about the weather, I sure do talk a lot about the weather. But it's become so extreme lately: tornadoes ripping up trees in Brooklyn, a punishing 113 degrees in L.A.. Raining frogs and locusts somewhere no doubt. Sure, climate change sucks -- but it does punch up the elevator weather talk, and gosh, Auntie Em hasn't been name-checked so much in, well, forever, probably.

If I can't bust out with a soaring rendition of Somewhere Over the Rainbow tomorrow, I'm going to have go all wicked witch on someone's ass and release the flying monkeys, and snatch your little dog, too, my pretty.

Uh Oh, I Might've Shot My Wad

If you have wads lying around you want to unload, you know, message me.

S My Mother Did to F Me Up, but probably not irreparably

Sent us to school with SALMON salad sandwiches instead of tuna.

Sent us to school with peanut butter and jelly on RYE bread.

Dyed my lovingly faded Levi's BLUE.

Child Services! Bring in the Wonder Bread, bring in the Fluffernutter! Toss the Tintex!

Who Knew I Was So Angry?

Sorry!

:-)  :-)  :-)  :-)  :-)  :-)  :-)  :-)  :-)  :-)  :-)  :-)

See how smiley I can be? Drop by anytime! There's a donut hole in it for ya!

Something for the Fellas: A Mother's Lament Expressed in Sports Metaphors

Jeff/Husband/Dad is due home tonight.  He's on deck, he's warming up in the bullpen.

So bench me, Coach. Send me to the showers, Ump. Throw me in the penalty box, Ref. PUT ME ON THE D.L. -- I have a fake doctor's note! I don't want to play anymore!

And for you dudes who prefer Boomerang Network to the Yankee channel, JANE, GET ME OFF THIS CRAZY THING!

I Can't Get It Up for McGovern Anymore

I don’t know if I have the energy to be a liberal anymore. I don’t even know if I have the energy to be a moderate.

Below is a list of the politicians and organizations who have emailed me over the past 3 days (and today’s only ½ way done) pleading for money and begging for action:

1. People for the American Way
2. Human Rights Campaign
3. BarackObama.com
4. NY.BarackObama.com
5. Bill Clinton
6. MoveOn.org
7. POTUS himself
8. Joe Biden
9. Food & Water Watch
10. Kristen Gillebrand for Senate
11. Rep. Anthony Weiner on behalf of the DCCC

With my limited (or nonexisting) disposable income, where does my $10 go? It’s like choosing among 100 abandoned kittens at an animal shelter. You just wind up crying.

I was hardly a red diaper baby, but my mom had McGovern for President bumper stickers up in the mudroom, and she boycotted grapes and lettuce. When I was in 6^th grade she called the school to insist we watch Carter’s inauguration, and later I wrote a letter to Amy (our cats had the same name).

Silly child, I voted for Mondale, and thought he would win. A woman vice-president! Could it be? My college friends and I went to a Geraldine Ferrara rally, and were thrilled to see Susan Sarandon scuttle by us on the street afterward.

Foolish girl, I voted for Dukakis, and thought he would win. A Jewish first lady! How about that?

Then Bill Clinton, thank God, Bill Clinton! I registered voters, I phone banked till late at night from the office of the UFT in Downtown Brooklyn. I finally voted for a winner. I dreamt about him, even! Not exactly sexual, but sort of sexy. He and another woman and I were spooning – Bill in the middle, natch – on a bed below deck of a yacht. And when he disappointed, I stayed forever, dumbly, true.

A lull next: Gore irritated; Kerry enervated.

But OH! With O we were BACK, baby. My friend Judy and I rode a bus to Philly and canvassed for hours in German Town, making notes on our clipboards when one of our addresses represented a boarded-up house, or one that no longer existed.

When I gathered some mom friends for a monthly night out, I demanded that everyone come with $10 in hand that I would collect and mail in to the campaign. I brought buttons and we all wore them in the bar.

I sent money, and then I sent more money.

And holy shit, holy fucking shit, he did it, we did it. And I rejoiced.

Fast forward to midterm elections and I’ve run out of steam. I can’t take in all those kittens!

I haven’t unsubscribed to any of those emails, but now they go directly to my gmail archive, where they’re a little easier to ignore. The email lists I want to get on? Citizens for Indifference, Americans Advocating Apathy, Join Together to Disengage! I won’t though, I know it. I’m trying to think of a good metaphor for us glutton-for-punishment liberals – maybe Wile E. Coyote? Something or someone cartoonish and elastic. Squish us with an Acme anvil, and we spring back into shape so we can be comically kicked in the face by a kangaroo wearing boxing gloves.

C'mon, up and at 'em before they declare a K.O.

My Baby Takes the Morning Train, goddamn him to hell and back

For my $, the 3 great truth-sayers of the 20^th C:

1. Prince
2. Papa John Philips
3. Karen Carpenter

Match the Monday-bemoaning lyrics to the philosopher who penned them.

a)      Rainy days and Mondays always get me down. Hanging around, nothing to do but frown.

b)      Just another manic Monday, wish it were Sunday, cause that’s my fun day, my I don’t have to run day…

c)      Monday, Monday, can’t trust that day. Every other day of the week is fine, but whenever Monday comes you can find me crying all of the time

Of course none of these geniuses had to get recalcitrant kids up and dressed and fed and off to school on time and get themselves into little office-appropriate get-ups with the light out in the closet while their husband (goddamn him to hell and back) was out of town.

A new coping strategy this a.m. – chanting patience patience patience under my breath – just led me to being anxious anxious anxious, patience times negative 3. 

Tomorrow will try something different, muttering shutthefuckup shutthefuckup shutthefuckup under my breath, alternating with putyoursockson putyoursockson, PUT YOUR DAMN SOCKS ON.

And Wednesday: Homer Simpson-style choking and threats of military school.

Oh, one more thing. Do my eyebrows make me look fat?

David Denby Is a Dick

For non-New Yorker readers, David Denby is the sucky half of two alternating movie critics at the magazine; Anthony Lane is the "scan the Contents and keep your fingers crossed it's  Anthony Lane this week" half.

This week Denby spoils but good the new movie based on Ishiguro Kazuo's Never Let Me Go, with a fuck-you-gentle-reader lack of alert. I read the book (quietly disturbing, slowly suspenseful, modern Gothic with, I think, shades of Shirley Jackson menace), haven't seen the movie. If you read the review... movie spoiled. Done. Hello, Crying Game. The critics - and even the audiences - managed to keep their big fat traps shut on that one. Denby’s just being a pill, spoiling it for everyone. Sad power trip, David. 

Denby's other crime this week? Referring to the "new" Woody Allen movie as intriguing. How intriguing – a male senior citizen leaves his wife of decades for a perky prostitute (heart of gold optional), and suffers some consequences. I rarely get to the movies (first it’s pesky kids [mine], now it’s pesky bedbugs [theirs], keeping me out of movie theaters), and I won’t be seeing this one. Why would I? I’ve seen Woody Allen make this movie a dozen times by now. I don’t care enough about Woody Allen anymore to be angry about the retreads he churns out every year, presumably out of dumb habit; he broke my heart a long time ago.

But Denby – he must be savoring a revenge fantasy – his own wife of many years left him a few years back, for a woman (level of perkiness unknown).

Not dicky enough? Maybe, but Denby will generously provide me with more ammunition on what I like to think of as Anthony Lane’s off-weeks.

Maybe my new thing is ranting not about movies I haven’t seen (I’ll leave that to right-wing extremists; they’re so good at it), but reviews of movies I haven’t seen. Like a 2^nd reviewer, once removed.

Ok, bye.

Lost&Found&Lost

Jeff and I are slogging our way through the last season of formerly addictive Lost, and I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but I DON'T GIVE A SHIT. OR A RAT'S ASS. OR A FLYING FUCK. Or a shitty rat's ass or a rat fucking while flying. Etc. What was once gleefully ridiculous is now tediously, lugubriously, mirthlessly ridiculous. Inevitably, I fall asleep 45 minutes in, and I go, Jeff, what happened, and Jeff goes, I don't know, it doesn't matter. And it doesn't. The only characters I can bear the sight of anymore are Hurley and Miles, the only ones who aren't acting so hard they make my teeth hurt. Claire's hair is a really bad actor, as it turns out. No range, at all. 

It's a self-serious Gilligan's Island now, with new goofy characters emerging from the jungle every episode -- Fu Manchu guy and Evil Locke and always some tough-ass girl with a tank top, sweaty hair, and a gun --  and myriad opportunities to escape, bungled. But without the sophisticated wit, elegant plotting, and adorable costumes of the original tale of our castaways.

Maybe this is my new thing, ranting about shows that are no longer on the air and that everybody stopped caring about 18 months ago. 

Um, ok, bye.