The Secret really works!
In an odd sort of way.1
In a way that compels a friend to get caught up on my website, read about the BITWRATHPLOOB, read about my under-construction bookshelves, happen to turn on the radio to hear that he still has enough time to go to the DC Big Flea Market, and to find and purchase an item that brings all of these things together perfectly.
And yeah, I could photograph said item right away, but I want you to ponder it for a while. I especially want Tina, Marigoldie, sgazzetti, and Erik to ponder it.
In other news, The Simpsons Movie rocks and you should go see it RIGHT NOW.2
Spider Pig, Spider Pig./Does whatever a Spider Pig Does./Can he swing from a web?/No he can’t; he’s a pig….
1. If you thought for even a minute that I believe in The Secret, then you don’t know me very well at all.
2. Ideally with Trasherati and Cupcake.
Dedication and giant wooden spoons
Since DarkoV has gone and acquired a copy of the book, I thought I should put more effort into finding those sentences that I mentioned had made me laugh out loud.
No such luck, of course, but I did find this, which I greatly admire:
“In Fisher’s mind the country of Ireland was not so much a country with the usual accouterments (people, handbills, factories, cars, magazines, sheep, sauces) as it was a great unitary biomass, a brown and green tufted nodosity softy breathing in and out, a mole on the face of the globe, its process of photosynthesis and excrescence culminating solely in the production of Guinness Extra Stout. He dotted its contours with loamy fields sprouting proud rows of barley and with leafy glades where hop vines clung lovingly to delicate strings twined in inventive cats cradles by a happy peasantry. On the banks of twinkling blue rivers singing farmers sacked grain morning till night. On the brows of gentle hills in Fisher’s Eire gay windmills sailed powering cogged wooden machinery within which did something or other. Steam locomotives painted turquoise pink and gold called at Victorian country platforms, loads of barley and hops flung into open cars by the adoring serfs. The trains chuffed slowly through shimmering dales to a Dublin fashioned after the Emerald City of Oz. Singing midgets unloaded the sacks with glee and trundled them into the maltings and storerooms of the great brewery of St. James Gate. Plump pink men, each at one with the worn handles and whistling steam jets of the antique machinery he tended, worked in high rooms under arched windows of sunlight, stirring live things in mighty vats with dedication and giant wooden spoons. The slumbering brew foamed delicately in its tubs, passed in copper pipes from kyrie to sanctus to agnus dei and finally dropped sensually to the racking room where each open mouthed soldier in an army of kegs and brown bottles thirstily awaited his turn at the gushing pipe of ecstasy. And this hearty river of life which began as the pollen streaming though the Irish mornings to the hop flowers and became the barley cars flying along the little railways and the wort coursing through the arteries of St. James Gate and the bottle barges on the Liffey and the kegs in liners in the Gulf Stream found its way to the Boston docks and up Massachusetts Avenue through the tap and into the watering mouth of William Fisher.”
I accidentally watched a Miss Marple movie (updated)
I didn’t mean to watch it but once I was a few minutes into it, I couldn’t stop watching it. The clichés just came at me like artillery fire and I was mesmerized. In no particular order, I was treated to the following:
- The saucy maid who is a detective at heart and also a feminist chafing under early 20th century post-war attitudes and practices
- Another saucy maid who is murdered for her impudence
- The apparent Nazi who is really a Nazi hunter and a concentration camp survivor
- The bumbling parish priest who is, in fact, The Butcher of [insert concentration camp name here] and who, when busted in the hotel lobby, starts hissing and snarling in German
- The picky gayish milliner who is, in fact, another German Jew seeking his stolen family treasures including valuable paintings that happen to be in the hotel
- A shifty estate lawyer
- Twin brothers who double as (ha!) jewelry thieves
- Forbidden love between two young women, a love one of them would KILL For
- Forbidden love between a man of lowly station and a woman of the aristocracy
- Woman of a certain age and station who has no money but still lives like she is wealthy
- Bumbling cop who is no match for the genius that is Miss Marple
And this list isn’t even comprehensive.
The only thing I liked about the movie, and this almost made the entire 90 minutes worthwhile, was when Miss Marple ducked down behind a counter to eavesdrop and popped back up a minute later and grimly said to the two men she startled with her sudden inexplicable appearance, “Balls!” I could, of course, give you the rest of the context for this, but I won’t.
Edited to add: Did anyone else feel like Scooby Doo was going to wander through the hotel lobby at any moment?
As mysteries—particularly British ones—go, I’m more a P.D. James fan myself.
Violations: Public Obliviousness
While I am tolerant of a lot of things (no, really), I am completely intolerant of public obliviousness. I encountered a walloping dose of it this morning as, nearly in vain, I tried to order breakfast and some iced tea. For whatever reason, I ended up behind a man so mind-numbingly oblivious that I had to talk myself down from venting my exasperation in a manner most unbecoming. Here, in rough chronological order, is a list of his various transgressions (I wish I had little citation cards preprinted for things like this. I really do.):
- Ponderously ordering his breakfast sandwich in a painfully detailed manner that telegraphed the following things: deep suspicion of the vastly inferior beings preparing said food, control issues.
- Continuing to loiter at the ordering counter, ignoring hints (as in distinct sentences from restaurant staff explaining what to do) to come to the register while his sandwich was made even though he was not supposed to be standing there taking up space and holding up the line of people waiting to order their breakfast, people who are just as worthy and deserving of sustenance as him IF NOT MORE SO.
- Stomping off to register and almost knocking a woman over in the process; no acknowledgment of this other than an accusing look in her direction.
- Inability to properly or speedily recount order to cashier.
- Arguing with cashier over price, a debate in which mathematics and signage and SENSE were all clearly on the side of the cashier.
- Paying for sandwich with pennies or damn near that; said action took FOREVER and was baffling to all since said customer was clearly not homeless or destitute and had adequate paper money in his wallet.
- Short-changed cashier and argued about it although, once again, he was trumped by mathematics, signage, and SENSE.
- Belatedly ordered complex coffee drink which prompted another transaction, this time paid with a $100 bill.
- Stood, lumplike, at register after receiving change for ONE-HUNDRED DOLLAR BILL as well as after instructions to move to the other side of the counter where his drink would be served up.
- Sprawling over entire condiment counter while 4 people waited on him to finished adding sugar to his drink ONE GRAIN AT A TIME.
- Almost knocking over woman with small child while exiting restaurant.
- Not managing to get himself run over by a bus.
Today’s horoscope
Via The Onion print edition:
“CANCER (June 22 – July 22)
A rampaging mob of torch-wielding villagers will gather at your door this week after learning what a monster you are on the inside.”
Yes. I’ve been expecting this.
Mossball status report
Remember these? They’re still there, both large and small ones.
Well, most of them are.
Certitude and concern
While walking Pekoe this afternoon, we came across some lovely children who were terribly interested in him, particularly when he started wheezing (he has allergies). As they crouched down to take a closer look at him, three of them spoke with great certitude and concern:
“He needs to go to the dog doctor.”
“That dog doctor is called a vet.”
“You should take him to the veterans.”
Day trip to Staunton
As sort of a last minute thing, I drove this morning from Arlington to Staunton to spend the day with my Dad who was there with a day to kill while my Mom attended a seminar. As I had never been to Staunton before, and as I am rather fond of my Dad, this was a delightful and interesting trip. I’m really glad I could take the day off.
Staunton is lovely.
Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.
My only current official bookshelf
…looks like this:
I’m sharing this in solidarity with Doppelganger. One day, I’ll be able to share a photo of my custom-built bookshelf unit. Copious notes are available on the image at Flickr.
Lest you think this is the extent of my book collection, let me disabuse you of that. The rest of my books are in great, slightly wobbly, heaping piles about the apartment.
