Hot enough for ya?

This is one of those nights where I have the window fan on high, but I'm still a little sweaty. Not so much that I'll have trouble sleeping, thank God. But when nights like this occur in September you have to beware. Because the summery weather can end at any time, and you may not be prepared for it. I assume someone finds it funnier that way.

Huh?

The constant refrains of "Never forget!" and "Remember 9/11" get more inexplicable the more you think about it. It's not really the kind of thing you forget. They don't really encourage lobotomies that extensive anymore.

So while you're remembering, what should you do? Learn? Empathize? That would be a healthy response. Then there's the path of stewing and resenting. I don't want to dwell too much, but there are certainly people out there making that choice.

Excerpted from a thoughtful and probing response:

Then that goddamn Saving Private Ryan movie and Tom Brokaw's book about "the greatest generation" came out, and every Baby Boomer in the country, especially the millions with access to a microphone or an op-ed page, were begging the fates to send them their very own Hitler to sock on the jaw like Captain America. I'm pretty much convinced that the response to 9/11, or rather the response to Bush and Cheney's response to 9/11, would have been very different if it hadn't been timed to coincide with so many Boomers' midlife crises.

But this is the baffling part. I can understand envying the soldiers of World War 2. If you weren't there and your only source is the movies, it's easy enough to believe it was all the adrenaline rush of battle, alternating with being serenaded by the Andrews sisters.

But envying the homefront? Being nostalgic for a time when everyone had to agree on the war or be exiled from polite society? The idea of wanting to go back to this is hard to fathom.

Get Bach to where you once belonged

Borrowing movies from the library, it's better to get them on DVD, because you don't have to deal with rhe rewinding rigamarole. But sometimes curiosity gets the better of one even when the film is only available on VHS. Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould was one such case.

It came out in 1993. partly financed by the CBC. Colm Feore, who plays the eccentric musical figure, has also done a lot of B-movie villains. That's not too surprising. His Gould is cerebral, cunning, and a little arrogant, the way a good Bond villain is. It just happens that he's a benign character. (And if he were evil he'd probably be too smart to explain his deathtraps.)

It's an unusual movie. Not weird, because nothing weird happens. But it has a fittingly playful structure which makes it enjoyable to watch.

Non-Facebook status update

Right now I'm writing this in a Starbucks with wi-fi, because I don't have Internet service at home. Why not? Because I don't. The bill's paid up, the equipment is hooked up, and it's just not working the way it should. Anyway, I took the day off today but the only time the cable guy could make it today didn't work for me, so I have to wait until tomorrow evening to get it fixed.

What else is up? Various and sundry things.

When a man starts losing his hair, he'll at least think about shaving his head to cheat the hangman, as it were. Monday I actually went ahead and did it. May or may not keep it up, depending on whether I like the results. This I can tell you: Anyone who does this, at least the first time, isn't going to get much more use out of that razor blade.

Also I put my number on the Do Not Call Registry. That's probably overdue. I used to have a roommate--and we're still friends--who enjoyed telemarketing calls because he liked fucking with the salespeople. I could see enjoying that, but what I'm getting now is an unending stream of auto dialer calls. Don't pick up, they'll call back in five minutes. Pick up, say "hello" and you won't get an answer, but they'll still call back in five minutes. There's a company in Seattle called "technologygolf" that's apparently too shy to ask me out. This I do not need.

And today I went to Miriam Hospital for prospective volunteer orientation. Even during the week, I think I can squeeze in four hours to help. There were apout eight people at the meeting, not counting the volunteer organizer. There were a few high schoolers and at least one pre-med student looking for experience. The remainder were adults like me, bored and/or at loose ends. I was kind of surprised not to see any retirees. Maybe it's more of a summer thing for them.

Ground to Major, bye-bye Tom

A Golden Book-ish illustrated version of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" is an unlikely idea, but damned if it doesn't work. First found it through Popped Culture, to give credit where credit is due. Since Bowie himself could easily be floating in a tin can for all he's made known of himself lately, I guess it's good to make use of the music he's already given us.

Let love in

If it's possible to not love Billy Wilder, I don't know how. There's an infectious joy running through his movies, even when the subject matter gets dark.

Which it doesn't in Love in the Afternoon. It's a sprightly romantic comedy where the sexual innuendo is pretty single-entendre. But that's okay. It's not as gloriously wacky as Some Like It Hot, and it doesn't have the heart of The Apartment, but those two are among my all-time favorite films, and a high standard to match. It has a lot of great jokes, and gives them a good summary in its last act.

The trailer below isn't that great. I'm starting to think trailers that managed to sell the movie without giving away the entire plot have always been the exception. But it does have a glimpse of the sauna scene, complete with gypsy musicians. That's one you have to see.

Ongoing service advisory

Hi there. I'm having connectivity problems, and have to varying extents for a few days now. Thus the sparse blogging.

Update: Yeah, this was weird. I began having loading problems just after Irene, although I can't say the two things are related. Over the course of a few days it became impossible to watch videos online (they'd play for three seconds then have to buffer for an hour) or listen to radio stations online. The latter is a problem because reception on my actual radio is limited to half a dozen tightly formatted commercial stations. Also it got to the point where any page might get stuck while loading.

I cleaned out my Internet history, which did nothing. I ran Norton antivirus, which turned up four pissant tracking cookies. I downloaded the latest version of Flash, but nothing helped. Until it did, and today the problem seemed to have been solved, somehow.

In deference to the late Mr. Clarke, technology has advanced to become indistinguishable from really annoying magic.