I'm your late-night head rush

[sovay]

The introduction of my niece to the park on Capen Street was a success: she wants to come back in summer, when the little sea-sculptured fountains are working. In the meantime, she swung back and forth on the track line of the larger climbing structure and adroitly avoided the bossiness of another child who was trying to order all of her friends to follow her over a prescribed route. We made grilled cheese and tomato soup for dinner and she seemed to enjoy the industrial-musical cool jazz of Shirley Clarke's Skyscraper (1960), the interiors of which eventually resulted in my father unearthing my grandparents' Selectric for her to type on, although it will need an intense dusting first. I came home correspondingly fried and spatch hit me with Harry Elfont and Deborah Kaplan's Josie and the Pussycats (2001), which has a genuine pop-punk banger of a soundtrack and suggests Frank Tashlin tackling the '90's anxiety of selling out. A chain of perfectly logical music choices afterward led eventually to the greatest version of "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair" that will ever be recorded. Tomorrow I believe the plan is for a larger park.

Comments

[sorcyress]

Josie and the Pussycats is so good and then it has _such_ a disappointing little ending. Like, they set up some _amazing_ bullshit in the first ninety percent and then ended it with a "haha ugly" joke.

Maybe I just love Posie Parker and thought she deserved a more glorious comeuppance.

~Sor

[minoanmiss]

Yay!

[asakiyume]

Hurray for parks with climbing structures! Boy I had so much vicarious fun with those when my kids were little. And hurray for typewriters! Of my kids, Little Springtime was the one who was most fascinated by them. We have several manual ones, and she banged away delightedly on them. I still have some of the poems she typed on them.

How old is your niece now?

[gwynnega]

That may be even better than the Muppet version of "Danny Boy."

[sovay]

That may be even better than the Muppet version of "Danny Boy."

The furious pecking is the cherry on top.

[nineweaving]

There aren't enough nieces in this world. So happy that you have one of the best.

Nine

[sovay]

Hurray for parks with climbing structures! Boy I had so much vicarious fun with those when my kids were little.

Her favorite playground feature is a zipline, but in its absence she will accept tall things that can be climbed on top of and then slid down.

And hurray for typewriters! Of my kids, Little Springtime was the one who was most fascinated by them. We have several manual ones, and she banged away delightedly on them. I still have some of the poems she typed on them.

That's wonderful. I don't think any of the typewriters of my childhood (the Selectric was the typewriter of my adolescence) survive.

How old is your niece now?

She turned ten at the end of last year. The twins are a little older, but most of the time the same age.

[sovay]

There aren't enough nieces in this world. So happy that you have one of the best.

We think so! And we tell her.

[sovay]

Yay!

I like my niece a lot.

[sovay]

Maybe I just love Posie Parker and thought she deserved a more glorious comeuppance.

Her levels of supervillainy were fabulous. I was prepared for it in the case of Alan Cumming, but I'd never seen her in a similar role. I love her in The Daytrippers (1996).

[minoanmiss]

I love your deep friendship with her. It shines out of every mention.

[mrissa]

It's got Alan Cumming AND Parker Posey? Why did I not know of this?

(Not Posie Parker, that's the transphobe. The mnemonic I learned for remembering which is which is: if your Parker is Posey, everything's rosey; if your Posie is Parker, everything's starker.)

[sovay]

It's got Alan Cumming AND Parker Posey? Why did I not know of this?

It's a cult film, but even as such it was effectively off my radar in everything but title until spatch showed it to me. I was surprised it hadn't played the 'Thon; the sf of its conceit is no less than your average Bond villain. It seems to have missed much of its target audience on release; I suspect (and Rob concurs with my suspicion) that the candy-colored girliness too effectively camouflaged the savagely meta-layered corporate satire when the movie itself doesn't treat them separately. It's an extremely clever movie.

(Not Posie Parker, that's the transphobe. The mnemonic I learned for remembering which is which is: if your Parker is Posey, everything's rosey; if your Posie is Parker, everything's starker.)

It's like that rhyme about snake colors.