Jyoti called this evening, so that took an hour of my time. I need to plan for going to New York. While there there is so much to do and things to see. Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, Coney Island, Central Park, Times Square, Soho and so on and so forth. Several museums, Columbia’s campus and perhaps NYU’s, coffee shops and bookstores, neighborhoods to see, and musical and concerts and ballets. Plus the Bollywood Disco up in Tribeca when I arrive.
I emailed Yolanda; yes, I am sort of interested in the Stockwerk Deutsch position if it would give me free room and board and the room/housing situation were good enough (kitchen or kitchenette available, refrigerator, enough room for books, alcohol allowed). Then I would just live there, take care of Stockies, and finish my diss. As long as I got in-state tuition (or the out-of-state dissertator stuff weren’t too high), I could afford to pay that and live without a job (income source). I’m not saying it would be “ideal” but it might be the best solution for me getting done.
I sat at Fair Trade today and wrote a while. Two glasses of iced coffee. Less busy than recent days. Not deserted, per se, just more mellow. When I did leave, about 4:30, it was rather empty but for a couple regulars and a couple not-so-regulars. The peak was past.
I stopped by 4-Star and got Descent, Hotel (a recent short German feature that played well recently at Cannes), Mirrormask (the Dave McKean thing with Neil Gaiman input), and Black Cat White Cat, which I’ve seen before, not not recently and not on DVD. I chatted briefly with the employee behind the counter to make sure I could play Hotel (Asian release of a German feature — was it all-regions?) and Black Cat White Cat (marked as Pal, but also marked as all regions) — and I mentioned Handbrake to her; she already knew MacTheRipper, and when I left she thanked me for the advice.
I caught the 3 home up near the Overture Center but it took forever because near the Walgreens on the Square we had to let a wheelchair onboard, and between shuffling people to the back and getting the wheelchair on and secured minutes and minutes were wasted.
In the “new” — “links” … First a few things from CNN:
Paris Hilton drops appeal: “Paris Hilton won’t appeal the 45-day jail term she was sentenced to earlier this month for violating probation, according to court documents filed Thursday.” And: “Hilton will stay in a unit that contains 12 two-person cells reserved for police officers, public officials, celebrities and other high-profile inmates, he said. She could have a cellmate.”
Woman survives ‘internal decapitation’: “Shannon Malloy was critically injured January 25 when a car crash slammed her into the dashboard. Her skull separated from her spine, although her skin, spinal cord and other internal organs remained intact.” And: “‘My skull slipped off my neck about five times,’ Malloy said. ‘Every time they tried to screw this to my head, I would slip.'”
Diaries reveal Anna Nicole Smith’s sex life, sadness: “The public now can discover that she was delighted by rough sex, ecstatic over the prospect of plastic surgery for her breasts and fearful of a jealous boyfriend. She was careless with spelling, punctuation, and, too often, with her own well-being.”
No damages for student who said ‘That’s so gay’: “Sonoma County Superior Court Judge Elaine Rushing said she sympathized with 18-year-old Rebekah Rice for the ridicule she experienced at Maria Carrillo High School. But, the judge said, Rice’s lawyers failed to prove that school administrators had violated any state laws or singled the girl out for punishment.” And: “Rushing rejected each claim, going so far as to suggest that the Rices had created a miserable situation for Rebekah by advertising their dissatisfaction with the school’s handling of the incident during her freshman year.”
A semi-scientific report now:
The face, not the body, attracts a mate: “They found that faces account for more of the variation among ratings than do bodies; in other words, faces are more important. For women rating men, 52 per cent of the attractiveness score was made up by the face rating, while for bodies it was 24 per cent. The trend was similar when men rated women, with 47 per cent of a woman’s overall attractiveness accounted for by her face, and 32 per cent by her body.” Wait wait … and here I thought men were into looks and women didn’t care about looks at all … that’s what all my female friends (hey, Justina!) say when giving me “dating advice.” Oh, wait, now I’m just being bitter and cynical. And obnoxious.
Another sequel to Gone with the Wind is coming out: Rhett, Scarlett and Friends Prepare for Yet Another Encore. Says the NY Times: “It’s taken 12 years, three authors and one rejected manuscript, but tomorrow will be another day when ‘Rhett Butler’s People,’ the second sequel to Margaret Mitchell’s ‘Gone With the Wind,’ is published this fall.” And: “The book, at a little over 400 pages, will be a slip of a novel compared with the original, which ran more than a thousand pages. ‘Rhett Butler’s People’ covers the period from 1843 to 1874, nearly two decades more than are chronicled in ‘Gone With the Wind.’ Readers will learn more about Rhett Butler’s childhood on a rice plantation; his relationship with Belle Watling, the brothel madam; and his experiences as a blockade runner in Charleston, S.C.” I wish I could really be interested, but I still haven’t seen that movie … let alone read the original novel, the first sequel, or the parody (“The Wind Done Gone” I believe it was). For some reason I’ve never become fascinated by Civil War (or WWII for that matter) history the way some folks do.
To conclude — almost — I give you The Coffee Critic.
And to conclude for real (after which point I’ll make some pudding and/or watch a movie and/or read): I’m now on Soundgarden after an album by Sneaker Pimps. From the latter I had their first album, which featured a female vocalist; they replaced her for their later recordings. I found it approachable and entertaining, sort of a pop + bass + hipness thing. Quite mid-90s English. But forgettable as well.
Not so with Soundgarden — distinctive in sound and mood, particularly due to the vocalist’s vocal peculiarities. A trademark of sorts. Chris Cornell.
