Live and In Person

Since it’s December (albeit early-mid December), it’s about time for me to put together some year end Best of lists that I’m sure everyone has been dying to read

My first such list will be the best shows I’ve seen this year, if my memory serves me well (some shows just blend right into the next year, like Jenny Lewis’s 03/2006 show in Carrboro…that feels like yesterday).

Anyway, here goes, in no particular order:

• The Mountain Goats, 5/5/2007, Local 506, Chapel Hill, NC
• Neko Case, 4/11/2007, The Orange Peel, Asheville, NC
• Chris Garneau, 6/12/2007, Local 506, Chapel Hill, NC
• Grizzly Bear, 3/3/2007, Local 506, Chapel Hill, NC
• Arcade Fire w/ The National, 5/2/2007, Thomas Wolfe Auditorium, Asheville, NC
• Of Montreal, 3/5/2007, Cats Cradle, Carrboro, NC
• Feist w/ Grizzly Bear, 6/14/2007, Carolina Theatre, Greensboro, NC
• Andrew Bird, 12/8/2007, Warfield Theatre, San Francisco, CA
• Lucinda Williams, 3/18/2007, Thomas Wolfe Auditorium, Asheville, NC

This is also a very accurate list of the most-played music in my itunes library. Go figure.

Eh

Just got home from seeing Margot at the Wedding…I’m underwhelmed, which is disappointing because The Squid and the Whale was my second favorite movie of 2005 and I love Jennifer Jason Leigh.  Now, I’m just waiting for The Savages and Atonement to open here in SF…  

Prestige

It’s getting to be that time of year again…the prestige films vying for Oscars and the holiday box office prizes have approximately 7 weeks to roll out and stake their claims.  Because I’m a total dork, I obsessively read about these films and their handicapped chances for award-season nominations and wins – it’s never too early to prognosticate.  I’ve been known to do well in Oscar pools in the past, do in part, at least, to paying attention to the hype and murmurs and getting myself to the theaters to see for myself.Now, I’ll join in on the fun and make a few lists of potential Oscar nominees.  Since it is so early in the game, and I have seen less than 1/4 of the films listed below, I’m going to have 7 choices in each list; I’ll narrow them down in a month or two when I have more to work with.

Best Picture:

• No Country for Old Men
• There Will be Blood
• Sweeney Todd
• Atonement
• The Kite Runner
• Once
• Away from Her

 Best Director:

• Coen Brothers, No Country for Old Men
• Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will be Blood
• Joe Wright, Atonement
• Sarah Polley, Away from Her
• Sidney Lumet, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
• Sean Penn, Into the Wild
• Marc Forster, The Kite Runner

Best Actor:

• George Clooney, Michael Clayton
• Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will be Blood
• James McAvoy, Atonement
• Denzel Washington, American Gangster
• Josh Brolin, No Country for Old Men
• Viggo Mortensen, Eastern Promises
• Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd

Best Actress:

• Keira Knightley, Atonement
• Julie Christie, Away from Her
• Cate Blanchett, Elizabeth: The Golden Age
• Nicole Kidman, Margot at the Wedding
• Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose
• Jodie Foster, The Brave One
• Keri Russell, Waitress

Best Supporting Actor:

• Casey Affleck, The Assassination of Jesse James
• Tom Wilkinson, Michael Clayton
• Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men
• Tommy Lee Jones, No Country for Old Men
• Paul Dano, There Will be Blood
• Hal Holbrook, Into the Wild
• Ben Foster, 3:10 to Yuma

Best Supporting Actress:

• Helena Bonham Carter, Sweeney Todd
• Vanessa Redgrave, Atonement
• Cate Blanchett, I’m Not There
• Tilda Swinton, Michael Clayton
• Saiorse Ronan, Atonement
• Amy Adams, Gone Baby Gone
• Jennifer Jason Leigh, Margot at the Wedding

MSCL Addiction

I’m addicted to My So-Called Life. It’s not unsual for me to get really into TV shows every once in a while; so into them, in fact, that I kind of stop functioning outside of their realm. For instance, two summers ago I Netflixed four seasons of Gilmore Girls, in order to get caught up for the final season, which I ended up not watching. For that summer, I could do nothing but think about those overly verbose and caffeinated Gilmores, tackling life in the tiny burg of Sleepy Hollow. I digress…

MSCL first stumbled into my life my junior year in high school (way back in ‘94), when it was a ridiculously popular program amongst my peers at school. I didn’t think much of it (I was firmly ensconced in Seinfeld and Friends at the time), and when there was mass hysteria when the show was cancelled (Kobain-like), I thought that my peers needed to get so-called lives of their own.

Fast forward a year or so, when MTV (geniously?) starts airing the all-too-brief 19 episodes of MSCL in marathons, pretty much every weekend. I am a total sucker for TV marathons (I will watch pretty much anything in marathon format if it will completely eat up my day and I can lay on the couch/bed in my pajamas, snacking). So, I started watching the show to see what the fuss was all about. While I didn’t fully relate to the show (many of the typical “teen” problems on the show were outside of my realm of experience…I was pretty dorky and introverted), I envied Angela, Jordan, Rayanne, and Ricky like I envied high school peers of mine; I watched their lives happen around me from the comfort of my own little sphere, largely unaffected but more than entertained. I watched…and watched…and watched. I fell in love with MSCL like so many others.

MSCL re-entered my life a few weeks ago, when I purchased the complete DVD series. Made by the same company that created the Freaks & Geeks DVDs (another brilliant, too-short-lived show), these DVDs include commentary, a book, and just about everything a complete nerd would want. As I watch the episodes again (I’m trying to go through them slowly, maybe an episode or two every couple of days), I can now look back through a haze of nostalgia at my high school years using MSCL as a model; the show really does brilliantly capture an era, where the tail end of Generation X was dealing with their folk hero’s suicide met the typical trials of adolescence all dolled up in (admittedly, come on) terrible mid-90s fashion.

I can now truly identify with a character on MSCL – Mr. Brian Krakow. While I was nowhere near the academic superstar that Brian is, I can definitely relate to his inability to go after what he wants for fear of personal rejection. When I watched the show before, I pitied Brian for his pathetic, often petulant behavior as he tried to comprehend how life had happened all around him while he was stuck in the past, lashing out at his childhood friend/unrealistic crush for using him in times of convenience. Now, I see a shadow of my adolescence, as I recall some seriously socially awkward moments from my teen years, and my inexplicable (to me then, at least) anger at friends for going out and actually having lives.After all these years (12 since the show was cancelled!), it still holds up.  Netflix it and enjoy the pain of adolescence from a whole new perspective.

Literary Omissions*

I was an English major in college. I think if you had asked any friend or family member before I attended college, they would not have been the least bit surprised by my choice of major. I’d always enjoyed reading, opting to beg my parents for my own copies of books instead of borrowing from the library (bad pre-librarian), and would pilfer Beck’s collections when I had the chance.

In high school, I enjoyed my English classes significantly more than my other classes, probably combined. On a college preparation track, I enjoyed some great literary classics (whatever that means) such as Beowulf, The Scarlet Letter, Song of Solomon, and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Many books of this estimation are impossible to avoid in high school, and a much larger number of equal or greater estimation are must-reads as an English major (Middlemarch, The Sun Also Rises, Mrs. Dalloway, to name a few). Somehow, in all those literature classes, I missed out on reading a surprisingly large number of “classics,” or “great books.” It may have been the courses I chose or particular professors, but I was never assigned some great works of literature. And, I’ve realized, I need the sense of urgency an assignment compels to make it through some of these great tomes.

If I had to chose just one (and there are so many), I think my greatest literary omission is One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. This is a book that I have owned since I was 14 (I used to compulsively buy used books) and have attempted to read over 50 times, but I can never, ever get past page 20. I know this is a great work of literature, and many people whom I deeply respect have this book at the top of their favorites list; alas, I just can’t get into it. At all. And I’m not sure I want to in the near future (there I said it). I know it’s impossible for any “literate” person to read all/most/some of the works of literature that have been deemed great over the centuries, but I feel an overwhelming sense of guilt eschewing a book that has the potential to change my life if I’d only press on and read.

Other contenders: Moby-Dick, Jane Eyre, War and Peace

*here is where I confess my literary sins. I stole this idea from a slate.com article

Green Spaces

I made my first trip to Golden Gate Park this weekend.  Since my weekends have been for decompressing, I have slowed down a bit with the exploration of my new surroundings.  But, this weekend I vowed to see some of SF’s “Westside,” over past Haight Ashbury and beyond into the whiles of the park.   Before heading to the park on Saturday, I saw a production of Six Degrees of Separation Friday night, which was a last-minute decision.  It was a good one, as I got to see this great story and its zipping dialogue in its original, intended format; previously, I had only seen the film version with Stockard Channing, Donald Sutherland, and Will Smith.  Saturday, with some pitch-perfect weather, I headed over to the park walking through the gates, checking out the Botanical Garden, skipping the Japanese Tea Garden (fee), and looking at the great view afforded by the top floor of the De Young tower.  After, a pumpkin ale and a reuben here was a nice way to wind up my trip to the other side of the city.  I also got a chance to see Alamo Square and the famous “Painted Ladies,” with a gorgeous view of downtown in the background.  It’s nice getting to see more of the city than the BART line.

Cinemania

Every year I look forward to autumn like the anxious, nerdy child I once was; except now instead of being excited for school to start, I’m relieved and thrilled that the “serious” film season is here; the “prestige” films all vying for Oscar glory are more often than not released between Labor Day weekend and the end of the year. Additionally, the changing of the season makes me crave the indoors as a shelter from the cool breeze and rustling, colored leaves. It’s a little different here in SF now, as the leaves aren’t really changing much (palm trees); but I am slowly discovering that SF is a movie town that rivals NYC, and my desire to watch movies in a theatre or on my laptop is increasing as the days get shorter.

For instance, over the two months I’ve seen The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Michael Clayton, The Jane Austen Book Club, 3:10 to Yuma, The Darjeeling Limited, Lust, Caution, The Brave One, Becoming Jane, Death at a Funeral, and 2 Days in Paris, all in chain theatres. I’ve seen Love and Death and Interiors at the famed Castro Theatre in a double feature, and have rented almost too many DVDs to keep track of.

I’m looking forward to so many more, that I wonder when I’ll have time to see them all, what with work, my reading list, and a social life to participate in. I will say that seeing all of these films does two things: 1. it makes me pretty good at choosing Oscar winners for Oscar pools; and 2. it cuts down on the number of “new releases” DVDs I will rent in the spring. So far, I’m enjoying that SF is so supportive of my cinemania – I’m just hoping to not have to see too many bombs along the way.

What the…

OK, so last night I’m walking to pick up som food from here, and on my way I see a couple of women about a 1/2 block ahead of me. They were a bit Marina-ish for being on a random street in the Mission (shiny blouses, clicky heels, big purses) and were hard not to notice. Anyway, they proceed to flag down a Toyota Matrix, and ask the driver (whom they clearly do not know) if she would like to make $20 by driving them “about 3 blocks away.” I kind of stop because I can’t really believe my ears. The driver considers it for a moment, and then motions for them to get in. Now, unless this is some type of covert drug deal script I am not privy to, I have never seen this before in any setting, urban or rural. The women did mention that they walked in the wrong direction to the restaurant they were headed to, but I still can’t imagine any scenario (even one with uncomfortable shoes) where I flag down a random motorist and pay them for a ride. I remember those scare-tactic videos from elementary school, and they did their job.

Missing Dad

Warning: sappy post ahead.

My dad passed away just over six months ago. I’ve been so busy dealing with getting his estate settled in a timely manner that I sometimes forget to sit and think about how he’s not here anymore. I miss him terribly, and that has only become more apparent of late, when the little things he used to do for me (I never had to ask) now have to get done by me.

For instance, my dad always took care of my car. A great benefit of living less than 1.5 hours from him while I was in NC was that I could visit often on weekends. On these relaxing weekends, I would sleep in criminally late, and my dad would accomplish a whole day’s worth of tasks before I dragged myself out of bed. Like clockwork, my dad would take care of oil changes, car washings, tire rotations, windshield wiper changings, etc., so I never had to worry about it. Now, I have to worry about these things, and take care of them myself, and I am ill-prepared – a ramification of being lovingly spoiled by a parent.

Today was the perfect example. Yesterday I finally got my CA license and registration. Unlike NC, CA requires two license plates, for the front and back. My car, since it was purchased in NC, is one of a few that has no holes or bracket for a front license plate. Kind of like this one.

Task one today: figure out how to mount the license plate to my bumper, using my woefully pathetic tool skills (I own only a screwdriver and hammer, both purchased by…you guessed it, dad). I did some research online, and figured out that you can buy license plate mounting screws and brackets at auto parts stores. I walked over to Kragen and got a bracket and some screws. While I was there, I picked up some new windshield wiper blades, as my old ones had seen better days (it’s rained twice since I moved here, and both times I was on the 101 in a downpour and surrounded by fog…bad wipers did not help the situation).

Task two: mount the bracket and license plate. This was easier than I expected, as I was able to align the top of the bracket with the license plate and just screw it right into the bumper; I could’ve gone deeper (and more secure) into the bumper with a drill, but I made do with manly grunting and righty-tighty-ing the screws directly into the bumper metal.

Task three: change the wiper blades. This was mission impossible today. After struggling for over 45 minutes (pressing, squeezing, jiggling, shaking the attached, old blade), consulting the Subaru manual and its Ikea-like instructional drawings, 3 emergency phone calls to family and friends, and one rage-filled second where I was just going to snap off the whole wiper arm, I packed up, swallowed my man pride, and found a garage a couple of blocks away. There, I watched the dude remove the old blades and attach the new ones, in a combined 12 seconds.

These tasks, totaling 2 hours, made me miss my dad so profoundly, that I know that the tears of frustration that welled in my eyes after repeatedly failing to dislodge the wiper blades were really tears of longing and mourning. My dad loved me so much that he was willing to do these types of tasks without a second thought; I got to be spoiled and loved and car-illiterate in the meantime.

I recently turned 29. It didn’t really register – I pretty much stopped caring about my age after I turned 25; but today, red-eyed, red-faced, hands smudged with a year’s worth of grit from the wiper blades, I couldn’t have felt more like an adolescent, wishing my dad could just show up and take care of things for me. He didn’t, and won’t ever again. It’s time for me to man up and learn how to do these things from now on – because someone has to, and that person, a grown man, is me.

Busy

Things have been pretty busy the last couple of weeks. Projects at work have piled on, and finding time in my day to complete my normal daily duties along with these broader, far-ranging projects has been a challenge. But, things are getting done when they need to. Such is life.

I have had time to do some things outside of work lately. I made it up to the Marina area of SF, and it reminded me a lot of Hoboken, both with the ambiance (young, gel-haired people drinking and carousing) and the location (right along the water, natch). A friend and I ate here, shockingly only my second sushi dinner since I’ve been in SF. I also saw a two movies, one light-hearted, and the other serious – both both excellent.

Tomorrow I have the day off, thanks to a trek out to Walnut Creek last week; I’ll be spending time at the DMV in the morning, and then taking care of some estate issues in the afternoon. I am then looking forward to a nice, relaxing weekend, where some plentiful rest awaits.