Θάλαττα! Θάλαττα!

I have now seen the definitive screen version of Xenophon's Anabasis: the original theatrical cut of The Warriors (1979) was screening at the Harvard Film Archive tonight. I know it's only loosely based, but about thirty seconds into the midnight summit when I realized I could distinguish Cyrus' gang by their Persian robes, I started grinning and didn't stop until the sun came up over the sea at Coney Island. I am very glad that Orson Welles was not cast as the narrator, because Lynne Thigpen's DJ is all the epic tradition the film needs. I am also glad we saw a 35mm print, because derspatchel has explained to me how the director reshot the opening of the film to match his original vision of a live-action graphic novel and I cannot imagine it's more atmospheric than the Wonder Wheel drawing itself in neon against the dark, the lit-up windows of the Q train rattling by in the night. It's an amazing evocation of a fantasy world in an entirely recognizable city. I am told we need to see Streets of Fire (1984) next and then I can wander around trying to figure out what just happened to my brain.

This weekend was also marked by eating two meals in a row at M3—newly opened, just outside of Davis Square—but that is because they are the kind of restaurant about which you grab strangers by the lapels and proselytize, which is pretty much what I'm doing now. We tried them for dinner last night, when Rob essayed the beer can hen and I fulfilled some kind of primal need for shrimp and grits and we realized we were equally unable to keep from quoting The Muppet Movie (1979) when our frog legs with harissa arrived. I would have said that their signature dessert of deep-fried fluffernutter resembles a sandwich much less than it does some over-the-top version of French toast, but then Rob ordered the cinnamon bran French toast at brunch this afternoon and it was very clearly its own variety of over-the-top, so I'll just add that I had the pulled pork shoulder hash and the duck apple sausage and some of Rob's chicken and biscuits with buttermilk gravy and I feel it is only by the grace of the ghost of Apicius that I did not blow some kind of umami fuse. It may be worth noting that I haven't actually eaten again today. We split a ginger beer during the movie. There was licorice mint tea when we got home. When I can think about food again, though, I want to go back.

It did not make me happy to hear about Jerry Nelson or Neil Armstrong. Count von Count was one of the formative figures of my childhood and I do not like that a generation that went into space is dying out without a new one to take its place. I am glad that Armstrong saw Curiosity land on Mars, though. And I love Bradbury Landing. It is the sort of reference that a few weeks ago would have been thrown into a science fiction story as a small act of homage. Now, it's geography.

(Nothing had better happen to Dave Goelz any time soon, is all I'm saying.)