OF A GOLDEN AGE

Think of it as being a great big rock
Won’t you think before you started to roll it down
Because once you start it, you can’t make it stop

As far as I can tell, there are two major schools of thought on romantic love. Of course, there are infinite smaller groups, but most people I’ve known fall into one of these groups . . . Once they fall in long-term love, they want it to be:

1. Easy, as if everything has fallen into place; or
2. Difficult, as if every day is a trial to keep love alive.

I understand both sides. After all, we are the A.D.D. generation. We love difficult breakups nearly as much as Generation Xers love divorce. At the same time, don’t confuse the “Difficults” with people who like to flit from date to date in order to stay entertained; it takes special commitment to pursue any long-term relationship.

These two groups form a sliding scale. I don’t know where I fall. Then again, a new coworker introduced me to the truncated 1-2 scale: instead of a scale of 1-10, it’s either 1 or 2. One is bad and two is good, end of story. I tried a one and a half and it did not go well.

It’s always good and cleverly written, but today’s XKCD is downright amazing.

Dustin at Pajiba reviewed the new comic-book adaptation Wanted under this title:

I Want to Fuck This Movie.

He’s right. This is a ridiculous, fantastic, eyeball-burning movie. I know nothing about the comic (except what I read on Wikipedia) so I definitely can’t speak to its loyalty, but. Wanted stands alone as a great example of an entire genre of action movies: Honest to god, they don’t make one lick of sense, but their plots remain cohesive and glue you to your seat. It’s mysterious. I like it.

The funny thing is, I almost always dislike or feel indifferent toward action movies, especially when they involve regular, bloody violence. (Wanted features plenty, and often in slow motion no less.) This is more an issue of style though; camerawork, clever effects, and clipped, well-delivered dialogue pull the plot up from a mere shoot-’em-up.

Also: James McAvoy, charming as the slightly dirty mystery suitor in Penelope and convincing as Wanted‘s cubicle jockey “growing a pair,” is one of the best casting jobs in recent memory.

When the credits rolled, my packed theater of Sunday-afternoon suburban people broke out into applause.

In case you were wondering,* there is only one active area code in each of the following states (population; square mileage):

> Idaho (1,499,402; 83,570)
> Maine (1,317,207; 35,385)
> New Hampshire (1,315,828; 9,350)
> Hawaii (1,283,388; 10,931)
> Rhode Island (1,057,832; 1,545)
> Montana (957,861; 147,042)
> Delaware (864,764; 2,489)
> South Dakota (796,214; 77,116)
> Alaska (683,478; 663,267)
> North Dakota (639,715; 70,762)
> Vermont (621,254; 9,614)
> Wyoming (522,830; 97,818)

* I was curious! Thank Wikipedia.

An old friend who works in the culinary world pointed me toward two interesting articles this week:

Blue Hill at Stone Barns is the Most Important Restaurant in America — this is the restaurant where my friend works, and its executive chef, Dan Barber, was a guest on the finale of Top Chef‘s most recent season. He is also soundbyted in a spread on “green living” in the latest issue of GQ.

Barber was nominated for the 2008 James Beard Foundation Chef of the Year Award but lost to Grant Achatz of Alinea, an extremely progressive and high-end Chicago restaurant. This New Yorker profile is fascinating and details Achatz’s process of recovering his palate from, of all the terrible ironies, tongue cancer. At one point Achatz lost all sense of taste:

He explained, “You make yourself a vanilla milkshake. Grab some Häagen-Dazs vanilla, add whole milk. You think you know what it’s going to taste like, and it tastes like nothing. All you get is thick texture. You get vanilla because you can smell it, but there’s no sweetness. It’s bizarre.”

• Late to this bandwagon, but whatever: Pandora finally ensnared me, and I love how it tells me exactly what sounds pleasing about an artist I choose:

Based on what you’ve told us so far, we’re playing this track because it features electric rock instrumentation, mild rhythmic syncopation, extensive vamping, major key tonality and a vocal-centric asthetic.

Who says music theory isn’t commercial? This is a lot less disquieting than the manufactured qualities of pop music, say.

• Pajiba’s “We Love the ’70s” review of Harold and Maude does a worthwhile job capturing the movie’s magic. Before seeing this sometime in college I thought the concept sounded really stupid, which is hilarious in hindsight, seeing as this is one of the most creative, thoughtful movies of all time.

• At Jewel this morning I saw a curiously-colored new Mountain Dew variety, apparently part of a new vote-off promo. Verdict to come, I suppose. Really, anything with caffeine floats my boat on my first day back to the 7 a.m. shift.

Flying saucers have invaded my life lately, through the silly Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Stephen King’s slightly less silly Tommyknockers. Both involve the smooth, radiant, streamlined image of alien invaders we’ve grown used to in the modern world.

King builds an interesting twist into his depiction of the Tommyknockers: the beautiful, massive ship is peopled* by brusque and brutal aliens who somehow found the ship already constructed. Usually we receive one of two bipolar depictions: cerebral, physically weak beings living in technological harmony (Vulcans?), or mediocre-minded, crude and brutal beings whose ships are practically held together with duct tape (Klingons; Reavers). King combines them, evoking the terror of each. It’s funny how rarely this happens, considering how much scarier it is when the invading culture is both strong AND brilliant. That’s terrifying!

* funny since they aren’t people. Oh well!

On my lunch break yesterday I applied my car’s new license-plate sticker and then walked to a sandwich shop. As I turned a corner, a familiar smell hit me: farm-animal manure. A beat later I remembered that for the first time in my life, this smell did not fit in my environs. Ha! After a life in small towns I’m ruined. Once, years ago, my brother and I drove through the country on our way to the Mississippi River. He wrinkled his nose and said, “It smells like pig shit here.” I said, “I’m used to it,” and he said, “Never, never get used to it.”

In a Marathon marina known for its aging live-aboard boats, a mentally ill former corporate heavy lived out in the widened canal. Once he was spotted wearing an old clown suit in the Florida heat, leading a small dog on a leash. The dog refused to walk, so the man in the clown suit pulled the dog, scooting it through the gravel on its reluctant hindquarters.

When we came back this year he had moved to Colorado, where I hope the dogs are less reluctant and the clown suits more weather-appropriate.

My oldest brother once owned a pair of used chinchillas, castoffs from an owner who moved away.

Since they roamed free in his apartment, could jump three feet in the air, and chewed on everything, they both developed an addiction to nicotine through cigarette butts. When my brother covered his ashtrays they arranged a team attack to knock the cover off and steal the butts.