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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 ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
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.)
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.)
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Also, I am so glad to have a friend who can distinguish Cyrus's gang by their robes. I'm carrying around the vicarious shine.
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Take the T to Porter Square. Say hello to the kinetic sculpture, which I can just remember seeing for the first time when the Red Line was built out from Harvard to Alewife in the early 1980's. (The internet tells me it's called Gift of the Wind, but I always referred to it as the horseshoe crabs.) Visit Porter Square Books, because they are an honest-to-God independent bookstore and need all the patronage they can get. And then you can walk a grand total of ten minutes to 382 Highland! Davis is not the distant outlier I used to think when all I did was take the 77 from Arlington to Cambridge. (Union Square, though, is still a hike.)
Also, I am so glad to have a friend who can distinguish Cyrus's gang by their robes. I'm carrying around the vicarious shine.
Alone of all the gangs at the summit, the Gramercy Riffs wear richly colored, intricately patterned silk robes. Later they will be seen in basic barefoot black, dojo-style, so I suspect strictly speaking they're a fancy-dress form of gi, but it's an unmistakable visual allusion. Robes are non-Greek. (The Warriors are shirtless, leather-vested. They display their colors, but also their bodies.) Just the way Cyrus' broad sleeves fall as he reaches out his arms and invites his ten thousand, "Can you dig it?" I saw his honor guard standing in their gold medallions and darkly brilliant colors and began to laugh, because I knew exactly who they were. A moment later Cyrus began to speak.
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That movie sounds amazing. Persian robes?
Nine
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Nah, ask
That movie sounds amazing. Persian robes?
See above to
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I have an especially soft spot for the warriors because, when I was sixteen, a group that does movies outside in the location they were shot did Warriors, on Coney Island, and proceeded it with a scavenger hunt throughout the city where each team got to dress up as one of the gangs. Running through NYC wearing all black when the weather's well over 100 degreesF? Not fun. Still one of the best things I have ever done.
~Sor
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Hot, yet amazing.
I wore my Wonder Wheel shirt on Friday, my Parachute Drop shirt yesterday...oh, Coney Island.
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You have some great T-shirts!
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I was talking to my husband today about the ride on the F train, the delight when the train curves into the last stop and you descend, take the path towards the rides and the beach. Freak show signs and arcades, beer and hot dogs. Then, the ocean smelling of salt and sweetness and your toes clean in the sand.
Once, i was a mermaid with other mermaids, decked out and parading down the boardwalk. Coney Island is one of my favorite places on earth.
Enjoy when you get back. :)
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a) I didn't know there was a Coney Island Mermaid Day Parade until this June, when I couldn't believe I hadn't heard of it sooner. The sea is important to me. Lucky.
(b) Poem, please, thank you.
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I had the pleasure of the parade only once. It is a sight to behold, and a delight to march in. Very surreal and carnivalesque. Very lovely, though more than a bit crowded.
Go when you can.
I have acquiesced. I will send it to you.
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It's very good.
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That is fantastic.
(Also, your icon.)
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That was a legitimately, insanely quotable movie.
Because you mentioned New York, of which I dreamt last night
The pennycandystore beyond the El
is where I first
fell in love
with unreality
Jellybeans glowed in the semi-gloom
of that september afternoon
A cat upon the counter moved among
the licorice sticks
and tootsie rolls
and Oh Boy Gum
Outside the leaves were falling as they died
A wind had blown away the sun
A girl ran in
Her hair was rainy
Her breasts were breathless in the little room
Outside the leaves were falling
and they cried
Too soon! too soon!
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What did you dream?
The pennycandystore beyond the El
is where I first
fell in love
Thank you.
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...
You're welcome.
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Is that literal or aesthetic atonality? I have two recommendations for the film already and I like the Second Viennese School.
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So it might work with that in mind; and if not, have you ever seen Luc Besson's Subway?
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Areography, surely? ;P
May I quote you?
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I'd be honored.
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Good on the ghost of Apicius for his grace bestowed upon you!
I'm sorry for the shared losses of such significant figures.
(Nothing had better happen to Dave Goelz any time soon, is all I'm saying.)
Agreed.
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It's a small detail, but it made me happy.
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Wonder Wheel?
Sorry, mind if I ask you about this?
Okay, I need to get hold of liquorice mint tea.
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I don't see how—I'd never seen it before Saturday night. It would be worth your time. You're even in the right country (lucky) to see the original cut on DVD.
Wonder Wheel?
Wonder Wheel.
Okay, I need to get hold of liquorice mint tea.
Rob and I have been drinking Yogi Tea, which is delicious to the degree that we run through at least a box a month. Just be warned that all their teas are possessed of the slightly embarrassing property of small inspirational tags being attached to all the teabags; I don't think they're really intended to read like a cross between new-age bumper stickers and mistranslated cookie fortunes, but they do. We treat them as a kind of roulette game—we read them out to one another and see which one of us lost.
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Or Frank Oz.
Sorry to have missed you this weekend. Did my texts ever come in?
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Him, too. But my two favorite Muppet characters as a child were almost certainly Gonzo and Boober (reminding me: Fraggle BPAL! When did this happen?) and I don't want to lose them.
Sorry to have missed you this weekend. Did my texts ever come in?
No! How was the party?
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I think a few months ago, judging by when it entered my consciousness. I'm on their mailing list. They have a remarkable number of my cultural touchestones in perfume form now.
My scents map best to Gobo and Uncle Travelling Matt, to no one's particular surprise.
No! How was the party?
Sadly, I grossly miscalculated and missed it, because it was on Sunday, and so was my bus. Next time I will telephone you instead of texting. My weekend, such as it was is chronicled at my blog.
Also, I have pretty much completed the mix of songs I've been meaning to send you (though I am still assembling Tentacular Spectacular, as my Austin Klezmer is as yet unconverted to readable MP3s).
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Hah. I have no idea which ones would work for me; I own and wear very little perfume, because for years I had unpleasant allergic reactions to every commercial kind. I have got a couple of BPAL I am very fond of, though, and I'll happily try samples if I'm ever around anyone who has them. They've never hurt me.
Sadly, I grossly miscalculated and missed it, because it was on Sunday, and so was my bus.
Bah! I'm really sorry. You'll have to come back for the next one.
My weekend, such as it was is chronicled at my blog.
. . . That didn't show up on my friendlist. I shall read now.
Also, I have pretty much completed the mix of songs I've been meaning to send you (though I am still assembling Tentacular Spectacular, as my Austin Klezmer is as yet unconverted to readable MP3s).
Thank you so much. I owe just about everybody music.
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I have deliberately tried lots and lots of BPAL so I know what does and doesn't work on me. Still, sometimes things that sound like they should work on paper fizzle out on my skin or turn into the dreaded 'lemon Pledge' scent.
I have many, many imps and am happy to help you determine what works for you at some point. I am also generally allergic to commercial perfume. The only BPAL I've ever had trouble with are ones that smell a bit like cigarette smoke.
Bah! I'm really sorry. You'll have to come back for the next one.
That is the current plan. :)
Thank you so much. I owe just about everybody music.
Do you Dropbox?
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I have an account; I never use it except for picking up things from other people.