June 21, 2003
6/21/03 Columbia County, NY Complaining
Complaining about the weather is something that should be restricted to a quilting bee from the 1840s: nothing, except perhaps unrefrigerated halibut, ages worse than reading about how bad the weather was during a particular era. But this is a blog, a diary, and if I'm going to be reading this years from now (or if I get tremendously famous, and my biographers are picking through this thing posthumously) they and I need to know just how bad it has been.
I used to think that moving to Florida was the most efficient way to bring quick death to your dreams. Old people did it, and slid into early dementia, their brown carcasses hanging off their cancerous bodies, tennis lessons featuring players who can barely move, games of mah-jongg where nobody says anything for three days. Now that doesn't seem so bad anymore.
The weather since mid-October has been one dreariness after another. It is so bad that the New York Times is running a different story each day about the collective mood of the Eastern Seaboard. To put it into numbers, it has been one of the coldest winters since 1888, the coldest spring since 1940, the wettest June ever recorded, the daily temperature has averaged 15 degrees below normal each day, and it has rained in New York City 29 of the last 52 days. Up here in Columbia County, it has been colder and rained more. Even Tessa, who normally views the weather with the same insouciance she reserves for hockey, finally lost it today.
On behalf of New England, I would officially like to extend my middle finger to the troposphere and say FUCK OFF ALREADY. I first posted this little forecast I made for March - almost four months ago - and it still holds true today. Just change the temperatures by a few degrees, and you've got it:
June 20, 2003
6/20/03 Columbia County, NY God,
God, you are so fucking stupid. How opaque and dim-witted could you possibly be? I have to admit, I'm confused - are you just so racist that you figure all good brown people are dead brown people, and just leave it at that? How can 43% of you still think Iraq was behind the World Trade Center attacks? Or let me put it differently: how can 60% of you have said that the major reason for war in Iraq was their alleged WMD, but now that we haven't found any, YOU DON'T CARE?
Has the partially-hydrogenated French fry oil at McDonald's coated your brain with a gelatinous sheen of fat so impenetrable that no new information can get through? Were you so obsessed with sticking your dick into things during high school that you never even learned where the Middle East was? What kind of moral outrage needs to happen before you wipe the ocean of Count Chocula-flavored milk from your wife-beater T-shirt long enough to question the pabulum oozing out of your 24-hour news station?
George Bush has LIED to you motherfuckers. He told you LIES to get you to fight his war, and now that he - and his band of blood-lusting compatriots - have been found out, YOU DON'T GIVE A SHIT. You make up 4% of the world's population. Let me tell you something: the other 96% cares about this. A LOT.
Ted Rall writes that Bush should be impeached even if they find a huge cache of WMD, but I disagree. My small group of friends, my family, and I don't deserve this president, but you absolutely do. You and he are a match made in fucking heaven. Have fun with each other; I'm learning French.
Sucez ma pipe,
Ian
June 19, 2003
6/19/03 Brooklyn, NY We had
We had our first public screening of The Pink House today, and to sum it up quickly, it was a pretty amazing evening. Now, understand that I was more than prepared for a disaster; it would not surprise me if people had thrown vegetables, if the roof caved in, or if I contracted SARS during tonight's screening - I usually go into these situations expecting the absolute worst.
But tonight, I felt like we really had 'em. Once we got over the rockiness of the beginning 1934 sequences (which will require some figuring out), they laughed at pretty much everything, even the "Atlas Shrugged" line and Windy's "reservations" punchline, two bits of arcana that I feared might be too clever by half.
About 20 minutes into it, I actually enjoyed watching the movie again. I thought of how seamless my mom's music was, how genuine the actors seem to be, and how easy it is to forget the horror that went into shooting the script. At the end of the screening, the audience - about 20 people around our demographic - stayed for a very helpful discussion, where a few of the movie's flaws were trotted out. The interesting thing was this: every time somebody thought "x was a problem," somebody else said that "x was my favorite part," so there was no consensus on any one thing. There are about 6 or 7 trouble spots, but now we know where they are.
Everyone filled out comment sheets, and one of the questions was "Would you recommend this movie to a friend?" We got one "maybe," then 15 said "yes," 2 said "yes!" and one said "absolutely!" And yes, Chip, your line got a good laugh.
Tessa and I have endured many screenings that, in her words, "made me want to strip off my skin and go running, screaming through a tidal wave of alcohol." My own reading of this script at the Screening Room in February 2000 was so interminably miserable that the producers felt like I might want to give up. I drank a vat of infused Stoli and soldiered on. Tessa came up with an edit of Five Wives that she adored, only to be told by a screening audience that they'd love to see it "when it was done."
Tonight, we had one agenda: tell us we're not full of shit. Tell us we might be on to something. Apparently we're not totally full of shit, and in a business where bursts of clarity are so rare, it's nice to know that at least we have that going for us, which is nice.
me, Tessa, Karen and Jessie outside the Ars Nova screening room this evening
June 18, 2003
6/18/03 Brooklyn, NY Did I
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Did I ever tell you I do calligraphy? If there is one art form that is the opposite of a digital world, it is the fine art of handwriting, which I took up during a desperate spell of spazmosity right around the beginning of puberty. There are three things I can do in this world that very few can: I am about six months away from being back as a concert violinist, I can build a dipole and send Morse code at about 35 wpm on a ham radio, and I can do four or five distinct alphabets in calligraphy.
I owe all three of these weird skills to the soul-drubbing loneliness of middle school, when I was so unbelievably friendless, dorked-out and weird that I took on projects like these as a way to stay afloat in a world I didn't understand. Violin was obviously something that had been cooking since I was seven or so, but it was around 13 that I got pretty good. Ham radio itself is basically Female Repellant (which was fine by me, since I probably couldn't find a nipple in 1980, even with directions) and calligraphy is just one of those things that seeps into your hindbrain if you dig art supplies like I did, while the Iowa winters provided long days indoors, calligraphing frightening verse to a buck-toothed girl in Luxembourg.
Suddenly this nascent "talent" was needed this week when it came to our wedding invitations, so I trekked over The Art Store in the East Village, and ventured down into the bowels of nibs and inks, a place I hadn't been in about a decade. Calligraphy looks like it was a quick fad about seven years ago - perhaps Martha Stewart got temporarily involved - leaving lots of fun, yellowed crap behind on sale.
If I were to actually do all of our wedding invitation addresses in calligraphy, I would need about six months for lettering, and ten months for recovery while my doctors searched for a new arm. As it is, if you know some basics, just using a nice flat-nibbed pen and india ink with your own handwriting will give you something that looks good enough for jazz.
I encourage everyone to learn at least one simple alphabet in calligraphy. It's a study in patience, a Buddhist-like "forced slowness" that will take you to a place far beyond what is available on the internet, or even in conversations with friends. There are atoms of the ancient scribes in all of us, and you can hear them calling you, with ancient howls of tendonitis in the castles of France, as well as the sated delight of an entire tome hand-lettered for kings.
I do not, however, recommend either violin or ham radio, unless you already have a girlfriend.
June 17, 2003
6/17/03 Brooklyn, NY A little
A little belated Father's Day props to my dad:
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my father, the symphony conductor, holding Michelle, the 5th sibling, with Beethoven's 5th Symphony embroidered on her diaper - an awesome publicity shot for the local paper (1972)
June 16, 2003
6/16/03 Brooklyn, NY My solitude
My solitude has really been getting the better of me; I think I'd make a really shitty monk, a very bad movie projectionist, and if I went to a "writers colony," I wouldn't get anything done. Even the satellite radio failed me on the way home from upstate today - I finally turned it to the 24-Hour Humor With Dirty Words Station, and while it, too, was boring, I think that channel makes stand-up comedy seem downright approachable. If some of these comics have careers, then perhaps I should go into it. Fuck, I can talk about airplanes and my wife.
Part of my isolation has brought on a completely irrational wistfulness for the days in Chapel Hill when there was something going on every night. It may have been a lame going-on, but it went on nonetheless. I miss those parties at 505 N. Greensboro St., which is something I thought I'd never say. I miss our parties, too, but there was always too much Den Mother in me to drop my sense of possession long enough to have another kamikaze shot. I should have been more like Salem, who had more fun at our parties than anyone else; he didnt mind his own bed being barfed on in the sake of the greater good.
Matt McMichaels could always be counted on around 4am or so - long after the girls we were after had gone, Matt was still up, game, drinking and talking shit with Caleb Southern. Same with Greg Humphreys, who was always quick with the 12-string once the beer ran out and we were left with nothing but Midori and vermouth. Jesus, listen to me.
I realize that sort of unplanned bacchanalia, casual nightly get-togethers and constant "in medias res" of a tight-knit town is largely the domain of ones mid-twenties, but I truly feel as though I haven't seen any of my friends in six months. Lindsay and Dana went to Venice, and the only reason I know is because I drove them to the train station. Perhaps social intensity is only fueled by chicks and alcohol, two things I've given up (except for Scotch) and everyone else is looking at carpet swatches and finding a babysitter. Is there going to be anyone left to go play darts and steal cookie dough with me when I'm 46?
June 15, 2003
6/15/03 Columbia County, NY You
You know how "other families" seemed weird when you were growing up? To me, Other Families were the ones that opened all their presents on Christmas Eve, used Colgate (we were a Crest™ family), and had a funny-smelling "rumpus room." Thank god we never even thought of naming a place in our house the "rumpus room"; it all sounded like "calculated fun" to me.
I bring this up because I'm using this blog tonight only to talk to Tessa, who is in Texas and can't be with me to see her plants at the farm. Her cell phone makes me miserable (sample conversation: "Hello ba-... ye-... and I thought I would g-...people at the me-... ... ... - ere, you know?") so this is as good a way as any.
Being a good and diligent fianc, I took pictures of her flowers - you can click on any of the images for a big fat picture - but I warn you now: only you vegetation enthusiasts could possibly find this interesting.
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Okay, this is the clematis vine growing on our porch, which is pretty cool. Chopin the dog likes to dig a hole underneath it and cool his belly. I like these flowers, they have attitude.
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These are the flowers in the front right part of the bed, but I don't know what they are (zinnias?) - but there is some sort of rot happening on the petals, perhaps from an aphid. There are all sorts of weird, translucent bugs all over the place right now.
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Salvias in the back, behind the construction, seem to be holding on. Behind them in the shade, you can barely see some wicked yellow flowers coming out, and a shitload of white daisies. By the way, the aptly-named Bachelor's Button is done for. Poetic, huh.
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The herb garden is not flourishing, and I don't think it is all because of my bird feeder. Maybe we need to eat some of this stuff. The basil looks like its asking to be made into pesto, no?
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And the pice de resistance: the first peony came out. These things smell so good it should be illegal. I'm with you, baby, these are the best flowers ever. Except for the poppies that make Jaegermeister, of course.