food

That was Monday

What can you say about a Monday? I have the next one, the one next week, off. But there fifty-three Mondays in this year, and not every one of them is going to hold thrilling tales. Most of them are just going to be your average…well, Monday.

I slept late this morning and was again rewarded by a slow train — although not anywhere as delayed as last week. I RSVP’ed for a wedding in March — anybody wanna be my plus-one? And at lunch, I took a chance on the Chinese place around the corner and discovered it — or at least my sweet and sour chicken — wasn’t bad at all. And I finished reading a book. I wasn’t super-impressed.

That was Monday.

They say it’s a Wednesday

I’ve lost track of the days, although not enough to be unaware that I’m quickly running out of vacation, just four short days left in this end-of-the-year run before heading back to work. I spent this day doing some of the same as yesterday, working on the Kaleidotrope website. It’s not a major overhaul, at least in terms of design, but it’s taken more than just a few tweaks to go from being a print to an online zine. I’m sure it’ll be a whole new learning process even after I launch.

When I wasn’t doing that, I watched “An Unearthly Child,” the first batch of episodes ever of Doctor Who, from 1963. I received a DVD set of William Hartnell’s first episodes as a Christmas present, and while I’d seen some of the Dalek episodes that followed these, I’d never seen the very beginning. It’s…well, maybe it’s easiest just to say it was a rather different show back then from what it is now.

This evening, I picked my parents up at the eye doctor, since they both had appointments, and their eyes were too dilated afterward to drive safely. We went out to eat at a new Latin place that had been written up in the New York Times (and for which we had a coupon), which turned out to be quite good. Even if service was a little confused. Friendly and attentive, but confused. And even if getting into the bathroom was a ridiculously complicated production number: first through a very heavy beaded curtain, into a dark room where you had to stumble around to find the light switch, only to discover to discover the toilet was behind you. Limited space, but a little ridiculous.

Anyway, the food was quite good.

And then we came home and I watched All About Eve, which was really terrific. Bette Davis, in particular, gives a deservedly iconic performance, but the whole film’s great fun.

And meanwhile, it’s gotten remarkably cold and windy the past couple of days. One might almost be tempted to start believing in winter again.

Thanksgiving cornucopia

  • We live in a country where pizza is a vegetable. I’m just saying. [via]
  • Harry Potter director developing all-new Doctor Who movie. Not at all a sure thing, but still, when do we stop remaking things? Maybe when the last remake is still on-going?
  • Genevieve Valentine on Immortals, which she describes as “a batch of snickerdoodles with thumbtacks inside.”

    The labyrinth and Minotaur are well turned out, and their showdown takes place in a temple mausoleum, where an archway of stairs frames a goddess’s head that’s inset with candles to make it glow from within. It’s the sort of thing where you think, “Man, that’s good looking! I wish this stupid scene would stop so we could just look at it.”

  • I really don’t know what to think about actress suing IMDB for revealing her age. They both seem to have a perfectly valid point.
  • Massive plagiarism might help your book sales [via]
  • Billy Crystal will be hosting the Oscars this year, giving me another reason not to watch. Which is not a dig at Crystal, necessarily, who I generally like…you know, back when he made movies people watched. But it’s such a safe, boring choice. The Academy really missed a golden opportunity to let the Muppets host the Oscars
  • Tilt-shift Van Gogh
  • Polite Dissent on Forgotten Drugs of the Silver-Age:

    The more I think about it, for all intents and purposes, Jor-El was a mad scientist. He espoused scientific theories well outside the accepted norm and performed numerous unauthorized scientific experiments of questionable ethics.

  • Mysterious D.C. rampage leaves smashed cars in its wake. Seriously, it looks like the Hulk went through there. [via]
  • And finally, the Center for Fiction interviews Margaret Atwood:

    I think it’s a human need to name – to tell this from that. On the most basic level, we need to distinguish – as crows do – the dangerous creature from the harmless one, and – as all animals do – the delicious and healthful food object from the rotting, poisonous one. In literary criticism it’s very helpful to know that the Harlequin Romance you sneak into when you think no one is looking is not the same, and is not intended to be the same, as Moby Dick. But stories and fictions have always interbred and hybridized and sent tendrils out into strange spaces.

Wednesday various

  • You kind of have to love Umberto Eco’s answer to the question “What’s one thing you’re a fan of that people might not expect?” He said: “My last grandchild.”
  • John Seavey pitches Evil Toy Monkey — The Series. I’d watch that.
  • “It was nearly toast, but Coney Island Bialys and Bagels is on a roll again after Muslim businessmen Peerzada Shah and Zafaryab Ali recently took over the 91-year-old mainstay of the Jewish noshes.” Now if we could just figure out how the Middle East is like a bialy shop… [via]
  • Ken Jennings suggest weaning ourselves from our GPSes:

    But as much as I love GPS, I worry that wayfinding is yet another part of our brains that our culture has decided it’s okay to outsource to technology. A famous 2000 study on London cab drivers showed that the hippocampus, the brain’s seat of spatial knowledge, grows physically as our geographic knowledge increases. Many people believe their sense of direction is hopeless, but in reality, that just means they need more practice. In experiment after experiment, researchers have learned that repeating a few simple exercises can turn lousy spatial thinkers into good ones. Without that exercise, our skills get flabby.

  • And finally, Firefly the Animated Series. Oh, if only. [via

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Thursday various

  • I could be reading this wrong, but I think the New York Times compared Joe Frazier to Hitler.
  • And Ethel Merman to Kim Kardashian.
  • When is honey not honey? Apparently when it’s most of the honey sold in stores in the U.S.. [via]
  • So presumably you’ve heard of If Day, right? It was “a simulated Nazi invasion of the Canadian city of Winnipeg, Manitoba, and surrounding areas on February 19, 1942.” Yeah, I’d never heard about it before either. [via]
  • And finally, Cormac McCarthy’s Yelp page. Hysterical:

    He pulled another cold french fry from the greasestained Happy Meal box. He ate it slowly. The sun rising behind him over the limestone bluffs. The barren valley and the road winding through it still in morning’s blue shadow. He wiped his hand on his jacket and checked the breech of the big Weatherby. Bullet as long as man’s finger sitting there. He lay down on the blanket, the rifle’s barrel resting on the saddlebag, and glassed downcountry with the telescopic sight. The dusty road was empty. He waited. [via]<.blockquote>