Dodgy At Best

If I Stumble, They’re Going to Eat Me Alive

// March 5th, 2010 // No Comments » // Daily Jots

I have recently discovered that mangoes are a glorious snack food.  They are not, however, good date food.  Like chicken wings, it is impossible to eat an entire mango in one sitting like a lady unless you spend half an hour cutting it into tiny manageable slices.  Impossible.  I was going to tell a story about how I took a mango to bed with me to snack on while reading To The Lighthouse (an attempt at pure levity in the face of entangling English), but how my mango and I succeeded only in making a mess of the bed, left with sticky, gooey remains after a few brief moments of foodie pleasure. But then I realized that to go into any detail would just make that sound way worse than it already does, so I’ll stop.  My pure heart and soul can’t handle the thought of it being misconstrued as mango porn.  Alas poor mango, they just don’t understand.

Also of an orange colour, I was reading up on Jersey Shores, because I just don’t understand why they’ve become such a thing.  They’re as orange as Oompa Loompas and only half as interesting.  I guess it’s like watching a trainwreck maybe, or an opportunity to simultaneously live vicarously and mock incessantly.  Sn00ki pretty much comes up to my waist, Jwoww has trademarked her boobs (good on her, I’m thinking of trying that myself) and all of the guys look like my personal nightmare of masculinity.  And they’re all orange.  How are fake tans cool?  How are super dark real tans cool for that matter?  You could never marry someone like that because you know that they’re bound to develop skin cancer at a young aged and you’ll be widowed in your prime.

Alyssa Milano is super jealous of those JS kids, so much so that she wanted to turn herself into one of them:

The God Of Small Things

// March 4th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // Daily Jots

In a further effort to regain my lost intelligence, not only have I started getting up to speed on all the movies I have missed the past couple years, but I’ve also been tearing through books as quickly as I can get my hands on them. When I was down in Dallas we made a trip to Half Price Books, or something like that, where I found delightful things for under $5. I picked up a couple of Booker Prize winners, a glorious Woolf, and Love in the Time of Cholera. I have to ask…is being from India a requirement for Booker Prize victory? Because although I grabbed the two books because I recognized the titles and they had the big BP endorsement, they also shared a common thread in that the authors are, and the books are set in, India.

That was pretty much where the similarities ended mind you. White Tiger by Aravind Adiga (2008 winner) was crude, vulgar and a somewhat obscene look into the development of an industrialized nation from the tech heaven of Bangalore to the vast “Darkness” of back woods India. Although I could appreciate its merit and read it start to finish in a very short time, I felt that stylistically sometimes it was trying too hard to maintain a casual, blasé matter-of-factness in the face of illegal/abhorrent acts. It certainly didn’t have the sort of captivating grip of The God Of Small Things by Arundhati Roy (1997 winner), which I read directly before it. I’ve wanted to read this book for years, and finding it in a bargain bin at a random Texan bookstore was one of the more satisfying buys ever. Not because it was cheap, but because it was a steal! What a fantastic, fantastic story. Violence, love, segregation, understanding, jealousy, opportunism, religious persecution, family ties, etc etc; it was told in a beautifully descriptive, almost lyrical style that for once (halleluiah) did not edge into overkill but served to illustrate the story with a skill and precise flow that suited the content.

Easily one of my favourite books that I’ve read in the past few years. Easily.

Blissful Saturdays

// February 27th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // Daily Jots

I have a note here on my desk — where I have millions of notes written on scrap pieces of paper containing bizarre and arcane errant thoughts — that simply says snow. I’m not sure what to make of this seeing that it’s been snowing solid here for two days. Is it a reminder to shovel the snow? To watch the pretty snowflakes fall? Is it a statement of loathing? I’m honestly not sure.

I also have a scrap of paper that says flavourless tomatoes. At least I know why this one is here. I hate flavourless tomatoes. There’s nothing worse than expecting this beautiful ripe tomato taste and ending up with pulpy acid water. At first I thought it was because local tomatoes don’t so much grow in the snow, so I must’ve bought some nasty hothouse monstrosities..but then I thought back and I never ever remember having flavourless tomatoes in any of the toasted tomato sandwiches that my mom used to make for me. Never ever. And this was in the 80’s in a northern town that wasn’t, and likely still isn’t, the centre for the locavore movement, so I’m pretty sure her tomatoes came from Mars as well. The only conclusion then, is that I am a deficient hot house tomato selector. This saddens me.

I’ve spent the day doing useless pointless things that most people would likely think is insane, like spending 3.5 hours arranging my wine cellar to make it look like I have less wine. It actually worked, so now I can buy more without the guilt of a packed room. I have well over 300 bottles down there, which sounds like a lot but considering that I gave away about 6 cases worth before I moved, I’ve done rather well keeping myself under control. It also gave me the opportunity to do a full inventory and to update my CellarTracker.com notes. If you have a decent sized (or hell, a small) wine collection and you are not on CellarTracker, or worse, do not get on CellarTracker after reading this, I will disown you as a wine buddy. I swear it. As of today CT has expanded to include GrapeStories.com, which is basically a much prettier interface with some social crap layered on. I have tested almost every cellar management website and nothing even comes close to the power of CT. Over a million and a half reviews, hundreds of thousands of wines, and now with an attractive interface. Please sir, can I have some more?

The rest of the evening was spent watching Kate Winslet…I mean Johnny Depp…I mean Finding Neverland. Yeah that Peter Pan movie. With Kate and Johnny. All joking aside it was very good. I cried. I’m only 5 years late in seeing it, which isn’t bad given my usual track record. I decided last month that I needed to do something about my hideous lack of cinematic breadth and have signed up for a Zip.ca account. Basically I pay per month, pick movies out of a list numbering in the tens of thousands, and they mail them to me. I watch them, mail them back, and they send me more. It’s a forced regimen of movie watching, seeing that the more I can watch in the shorter period of time, the more movies I’m getting for my money. It’s been a completely enjoyable experience. Send me movie suggestions! Yesterday I watched Babel, again eons behind the times, and thought it was phenomenal. I had fear, great fear, of a movie with so many story lines. It usually means that they will be so tenuously tied that the entire premise is idiotic, or that they’ll bludgeon you with entagled, complex connections until you scream “uncle! UNCCLLLLEEE!” Babel was neither of these, it was beautiful. Excruciating, but beautiful. I also cried.

Third movie of the past week was Sarkar Raj, or as it appeared to me, the Bachchan family affair. You’ve got Amitabh, the head of the household, showing massive acting chops and doing an altogether impressive job; Abhishek showing that it runs in the family and making me scratch my head just a little bit less about how the hell he managed to snag Aishwarya Rai (now Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, see the theme?) as his wife. She is also in the movie and for once isn’t playing a delightfully playful, giggly yet intelligent schoolgirl. Thank god. Because I like her and all (mild understatement), but it was nice to see her cast as an actual person as opposed to a caricature of one with a pretty face. Sarkar Raj, for those who think Indian cinema and quickly barricade themselves in the basement, doesn’t have a single moment of choreographed dance or singing, it was just good drama, relevant material, and excellent tension. And again I cried.

I think it would be more instructive to point out movies that I haven’t cried at. The list will be narrower and more meaningful.

Tomorrow: books, Evanescence, a visitor, and orange skin; not necessarily in that order or importance.

Me? Meet Meryl.

// February 10th, 2010 // No Comments » // Daily Jots

Is there a movie in which Meryl Streep doesn’t look like the epitome of refined hotness? I’m not sure such a thing exists. I was never a huge Meryl fan but it seems that as she gets older — aging more gracefully than us mere mortals could ever dream — and I edge up in years right alongside her, she becomes gorgeous-er and gorgeous-er and I just find new wrinkles that never used to be there.  I suppose you could argue that she didn’t look all that smashing in Doubt, but given the potency of her performance there’s still a sort of talented magnetism that would make her amazing even after a 48 hour binge on potato chips and episodes of Anne of Green Gables (really, enough to make anyone go a little off).

I watched The Devil Wears Prada the other week, which is what brought all of this on, plus I have a major awards show coming up in which I expect/hope to have to stomp up to the stage at least once, so while dress shopping and shoe shopping and doing all those fun girl things that all girls should love, it’s all I can do to try desperately to channel Meryl, so that I’ll look disgustingly fab in a potato sack, which is all they offer women who have more than one of the following features: height, big feet, big boobs, anti-waifish build, a vague grasp on reality.  There are few times during the year that I hate the fashion industry more than February.  If anyone knows where I can get an attractive pair of size 12-13 flats in the next week and that won’t cost me my left kidney in barter value, let me know because I’m dying here.

Ce Ce Peniston

// January 31st, 2010 // No Comments » // Daily Jots

This weekend was a weekend of finally-s.

I finally got my iPhone, and am trying desperately not to turn into one of those wankers that feels the urge fiddle with it every two seconds. But man they sure are purdy. Given my extreme disregard for the well-being of personal electronics, I dished out some extra cash for an Otter Box, which, if I still manage to damage the phone through hard plastic and rubberized shells, means I’m completely hopeless. My poor phone looks like some sort of tactical command centre mind you, but I figure it will just play into my oft-held fantasy of being some kind of secret agent.

I finally went to see Avatar in 3D because I think I’m one of the few film junkies remaining on the planet that hadn’t seen it. After a 40 drive to the nearest IMAX theatre I was astonished to discover that the 3D IMAX experience was sold out for every single show today. Not only that, but I got one of the last tickets for the plain jane 3D show….the place was packed. I ended up five rows from the screen on the extreme left of the theatre, which means not only is my chin now resting permanently on my right shoulder, but I also have an immense headache from having pointy arrows shoved into my eye sockets for nearly three hours. Lest it be thought that I didn’t enjoy the movie, allow me to clarify: it was the best entertainment I have seen in a very long time. Say what you want about the plot being a rehashed Pocahontas wannabe for the environmental age, grimace in earnest about the predictability and sappy pappy love story…but really, I mean come on, let’s be honest, that bloody thing was immersive to the point of being invasive. It was beautiful. Every story, every legend, every myth brings with it bits and pieces from past stories, from other places, folded and molded into timepoint relevancy. As it was with the oral tradition, we continually tell the same stories, at different times, for different audiences, repeating the underlying maxims and internal struggles that makes these particular stories so potent and so resonant. Yadda yadda, really liked it, technologically stunning…mm hmmm.

I also finally tried a strawberry shake from Pho Dau Bo, Vietnamese soup shop extraordinaire. It was very very tasty. Why would a shake be so scary you ask? Because it has a couple of scoops of this (Dutch Baby Concentrated Sweetener & Whitener) delightful looking stuff in it. I could always see the can, and watch the Elmer’s Glue (other parallels exist but are much less polite) being scooped into unsuspecting patron’s drinks.  I tried to forget that my lovely strawberries had been bathed in a sloshing of thick, emulsive white gloop and focused instead on the fact that yes, the strawberry component did seem sweeter and whiter.  Huzzah.

Is anyone ever happy that the weekend is over?  Heck, I didn’t even get to cross “an afternoon of hedonistic luxury” off my list.