Monthly Archives: August 2009

A Sunday at the Movies


Last weekend after dinner at BP’s, Rob and I engaged in that trailer park tradition of trolling the dvd bargain bins at our local crap peddling box store because we were too tired to make the drive to the suburbs and muster the inner reserves to deal with the Saturday nite hordes at the multiplex.

After rearranging two bins brimming with theatric cast-offs we settled on two of the $5 selections: Fever Pitch and In the Name of the King. We watched the former that night. It’s a remake of a British film starring Colin Firth that was adapted from a book of short stories by Nick Hornsby. I sorta wish we could have seen the original because this version, while cute and rom-comish, was predictable and even Drew Barrymore’s patent cuteness couldn’t spark any sort of believable chemistry with the Jimmy Fallon character. It did evoke memories of my late husband who was a professional sports team fanatic like Fallon’s character although Will lived and died for the Pittsburgh Steelers and the character in the film was a Red Sox fan. Here’s a peek at the Firth version:

One wouldn’t believe it but there is an upside to involvement with a lunatic pro-ball follower;  they are easy to buy presents for and a girl is always guaranteed time to do things her boyfriend/husband would have ruined with his petulance. In my case it was Sunday afternoons from September through December when I could wander bookstores or window shop or just curl up with a good book. Will always encouraged me to go out with girlfriends and couldn’t understand my preferring time off on my own, but he was almost incapable of being left to his own devices – something Dee has inherited, and Rob and I have worked hard to eradicate. My job plunked me in the thick of crowds of children and daily collaboration with other adults. I cherished any social decompression I could get and I learned to be alone in crowds or in public in order to facilitate recharging.

Last night we watched the second film, In the Name of the King, which turned out to be based on a video game. It was awful. How awful? Burt Reynolds was the King in question – ’nuff said.

I am not certain why video games need to be made less passive as entertainment by turning them into movies in the same way I am puzzled by the need to ruin perfectly good novels by filming them. There were a few interesting elements which a better writer (there were three listed in the credits – never a good sign), less cheesy CGI and better casting could have made more of, but the film was doomed from the opening.

I guessed most of the plot turns well before they happened and when Rob noted,

“This is just a bad knock-off of Lord of the Rings.”

I had to point out that “Everything is an inferior knock of Tolkien.” Which is why it was so easy to predict events well before they happened. It is curious though because there are certain elements that always show up and yet don’t make much sense:

1) The enemy army is always made up of subhumans.

2) The hero is fatherless but has male role models aplenty which makes one wonder – why not just give the kid a dad?

3) Women are mostly absent.

4) Power derived from ruling people/countries is less corrupting than the ability to work magic.

In the Name of the King might be a video game of worth (though I question the idea that video games are worthy of any amount of time), but it sucked as a movie. But as always, decide for yourself.

Eubie Blake: Beginnings #fridayflash a Day Late


Although he only existed in Eubie’s mind, Eubie liked to quote his old Canuck friend as though he was threaded through the fabric of a life Eubie blinked himself into like a bad sitcom episode.

“If you can’t be handsome, be handy,” was Robin’s shop-worn motto and since it was easier to fake handiness than handsomeness, Eubie went for the former. A roll of duct tape and the ability to tell a hawk from a handsaw had served him well in his salad days in The City, and even when maturity and responsibilities forced him to the chemically greener pastures on The Shore, a passing familiarity with a hammer, the ability to differentiate between a nail and a screw and the electric screw-driver with multiple heads meant Eubie more than held his own among the honey-do set.

Most of the time, the incongruity which was simply “then” and “now” to Eubie was like a well-crafted flight of stairs. Eubie glided up and down unaware because the effort required was negated by simplistically elegant design coupled with flawless implementation. There were moments though when the hasty craftsmanship of this new reality resulted in mis-step. A face would turn up wrong. Mud brown eyes tinged with jade that should have been the green of a shadowy forest, or a mis-matched couple with children who seemed uncomfortable in their skins. Children, Eubie noted early, jittered perceptibly with low-level awareness. The dissonance of existence coursing through them like the after effects of a taser jolt. They reminded him of Zoey’s Siamese, Mrs. Fletcher.

“She disapproves of me,” Eubie complained one hazy morning as they sat on Zoey’s enclosed patio that just skimmed the treeline of the massive green space of City Park.

Mrs. Fletcher narrowed her china sky eyes and sunk deeply into Zoey’s lap as she lounged on one of the rattan chairs Eubie had liberated from a posh address recently in lieu of payment for  a disposal service. Her snow white feet propped up on the matching table, she stroked the animal from head to rump with hypnotic rhythm.

“She has cause,” Zoey said, leaving Eubie to the mercy of his half-memories and imagination. It had occurred to him even before Mrs. Fletcher’s obvious disdain that the animals whose paths crossed with his own were aware in a way what was wrong.  Just as children sensed their altered states, pets possessed a caged attitude that manifested in knowing looks and inappropriate contact. Cats were especially seductive, Mrs. Fletcher excepted, when they weren’t sizing Eubie up for meal potential, and dogs ran the gamut of psychiatric disorders. It was like karma had conspired to incite a rampant deathbed belief in its own self.

Eubie missed Robin just like he missed Omar, the coffee cart guy. But the difference was that Omar still haunted the corner of 42nd and Passing Square which is where Eubie stopped for his double-double on his way to the public library on mornings after a subway run.

Running subway had been the bread and butter of his trade in the early days after he’d found Zoey again. These days his clientele was semi-exclusive and his reputation beyond his active control, but he found peace riding the sewers of The City. Far beneath the concrete, time couldn’t torture him.

Zoey called it “temporal sensitivity”. It didn’t bother the vampires. In fact, vampirism inoculated it’s members to a large extent from the déjà vu vertigo that roiled Eubie’s consciousness.  He remembered people who’d never lived, events which hadn’t happened and a world that suddenly wasn’t a cesspool at all by comparison.

Memory has become a perpetually chipped tooth that I can’t keep my tongue off of, Eubie thought.

He longed to be counted and ignorant, but he had stepped off the early evening transit eighteen months earlier to find himself displaced and horrifyingly aware of it.

“At least you’re not a cat,” Zoey said.

“And that would be the only upside,” Eubie replied as Mrs. Fletcher purred and smiled Cheshire-like, as though she knew something Eubie did not .

The Bed Overhead #fridayflash


They moved in a week before Peggy’s husband was due home from the camps up North. She awoke that night to banging floorboards directly over her.

For the rest of the week Peggy listened as her new neighbors beat the ceiling directly above her bedroom, beseeching all manner of Creators until the early morning sunlight silenced them. She excavated drawers until she found an old set of Phil’s earplugs and waited for him to return.

Peggy didn’t wear panties underneath her nightie the night Phil came home. When the pounding began, she simply rolled in close, waiting on his response.

Phil rolled over and sighed, “I can’t sleep through that. I’ll be on the sofa.” 

The next day, Peggy phoned the landlord.