"Save me, would you?"

My Associate and I have a particular love for a scene* in this episode of "The West Wing". Mrs. Bartlett has just given a speech at a Democratic fundraiser and retires to the garden with Amy Gardner (who hilariously interrupts the speech with a bit of physical comedy involving a candle, fire and a water glass). In the garden, the First Lady exhorts Amy to save her when she sees smarmy columnist Alana Moiron on approach to gloat about an op-ed piece chastising her for not supporting Fair Pay legislation. The scene builds to a great verbal bitch slap delivered by Amy. Flash forward, MLP was also in the redux of "Red Dragon" as Molly Graham, wife of FBI agent Will Graham (Ed Norton) who (OMGSPOILER) gets to (well, has to, really) deliver a bitch slap of the decidedly more than verbal variety.

From those two items, this followed pretty much inevitably.





*search in the transcript page for 'Zatz' and you'll find the scene I'm talking about.

Stars of the Lid

Thanks to Rusty at SomaFM's DroneZone (You should listen. You should give them money. Do it now. I'll wait.) as I write I am listening to Stars of the Lid ("Articulate Silences Part 1" from "And Their Refinement of the Decline", Kranky 2007).

You can find out as much or as little about the band as you like for yourself; I won't attempt to summarize them except to say that they are a two guys who produce some really beautiful instrumental music. But I felt compelled to give a shout (As the kids say).

I was lucky enough to catch them when they performed in my city in 2007. It was a day after I'd received some pretty life-changing news, so that concert and therefore that album will probably always be associated in my mind with that time and what was - and I suppose still is - happening. But (As the kids insist on saying) "It's All Good". I did say it was beautiful music, after all, and on this occasion the usual pair were joined by a string trio so it was all the more sublime.

A clip from that tour, though not from that show:

Stars of the Lid from Timothy Boyd on Vimeo.

I first heard SotL on (surprise) SomaFM -- that occasion it was "The Atomium Part 3" from "Avec Laudenum" and it grabbed me enough that I had to hear everything else. SotL also seem have a thing for Twin Peaks (as shown by song titles and samples used). So that's funny too.

And that's all I called about.

Gods and Monsters

I dreamed I was in a large arena with various deities from the world's mythoi.
We were all thrown in together haphazardly through the roof of the Colosseum.
Indra, Poseidon and Gaia were in the middle and told everyone to form a circle
in the order of Sky-Sea-Earth. Then I told all the Earth gods to move one partner to the left and
all the Sea gods to move one to the right. This put me between a guy in Nazi regalia and another in Imperial Japanese circa 1945 uniform.

Wuthering, indeed!

The Castro Theater is showing Wuthering Heights (1939). The theater does employ an organist who plays before each show; I wonder if he could be convinced to accompany me if I were to provide an impromptu terpischorean prelude. My Associate and I can't decide if I should wear red or white. I'd better see about renting a fog machine / obtaining enough windowpane for the whole audience. ("Let me in to your window. . .")

This entry contains the word 'tits'

Once upon a time, My Associate and I were discussing the relative merits of various Sci-Fi television shows, specifically with regards to the rigorousness of their science fiction technobabble.
[We are a Stargate SG-1/Atlantis/Universe household.]
And I observed that SG-1 has much 'harder' science than, say, Star Trek.
But then I realized that 'hard' was too strong a statement and tried to amend it to 'firm.'
But then that kind of sounded like description of tofu (hard, firm, soft).
My Associate observed that it also could be taken to describe breasts.

Which led us to the (possibly infelicitous description of the) floppy science tits of Star Trek and the perky, sun-chasing science tits of Stargate SG-1.

When I posted about this on another forum, a few friends added:

- the Buffalo Bill tit-vest of Andromeda.
- leather cat suit tits of Farscape.

To which I'd now like to add:
- the jiggly hand-cam amateur porno tits of Battlestar Galactica

Tea, Hold the Sympathy

[...] About sympathy for example -- we can do without it. That illusion of a world so shaped that it echoes every groan, of human beings so tied together by common needs and fears that a twitch at one wrist jerks another, where however strange your experience other people have had it too, where however far you travel in your own mind someone has been there before you -- is all an illusion. We do not know our own souls, let alone the souls of others. Human beings do not go hand in hand the whole stretch of the way. There is a virgin forest in each; a snowfield where even the print of brids' feet is unknown.

Virginia Wolf, "On Being Ill", Selected Essays

These Dreams

2 nights ago:
Dreamed I was in a war zone somewhere in SE Asia; probably Vietnam and it had the feel of a LARP but with live weapons (and I swear I haven't watched the trailer for 'Gamer' more than once). I turned my compatriots over to the enemy in exchange for something.

last night:
had a long involved dream that started on a beach in Hawaii where my mother was getting married (to whom? no idea). The service was officiated by a co-worker but was repeatedly interrupted by a crazy homeless beach bum who I eventually confronted. Then I and My Associate were playing another video game that reminded me a lot of Fallout 3. We helped a derelict robot repair itself for which it was grateful, even though we were unable to get its incomplete companion working