Pepper of the Earth - The Home Office Record & Mostly Daily Gazette

I’m not entirely sure why the days have been so busy lately: they are not straight-line busy, either, but rather a weather’s-coming-in variety of agitation and scatter. If I were watching too many movies on DVD, or if the nights passed in drinking too much, or if it were a matter of too many shows all around town, that would be one thing. There isn’t even time to play computer games, hardly.

Or maybe it’s (e) All of the above.

The brightest light by my recent midnight-oil lamp, though, has been The Dark Tower, Stephen King’s long-in-the-coming final volume of the tale of Roland of Gilead, last of the Gunslingers. I’ve been reading the majestic Dark Tower saga since the 80’s and now, as the final chapters whip past and the Tower is just over the horizon at last, I am drawn - yes, drawn - to the end with a heart full of mixed feelings. In the final stretch, King is as vital as he has been all along; the ball isn’t being dropped as we get to the last pages. But after so long a journey along the Path of the Beam, I’ll miss this story.

Tonight, after the debate, I will finish. Long days and pleasant nights, then.

From the Proceedings of the Department of Moments:

Hulapalooza, our divine Miss Saturn’s mostly-monthly hula-hooping burlesque show at Galapagos. The side door to the back dressing room winks open briefly between acts. The space beyond is bare and drab and bright; the forward bar, where I sit in a freshet of light with a drink and a copy of The Dark Tower, is dark and boisterous. The barmaid wears a cheerful green T-shirt that reads “50% Single.”

As the door nips shut, it frames a naked hooper, arms out and forward, swooping at the hips. The instant is sliced so thin that I can’t tell the sex of the dancer — there is just the shock-color of flesh, the spin, the hoop at full extension. Then the door cuts off the dance midstep, and the corner is dark.

I wonder which half.

According to Le Figaro, French concert halls, theaters, and movie houses are now allowed to jam cell phones using a technology already in use in prisons. Way to go! Trains are next, I hope.

It is too beautiful outside to blog. I can’t stay in this room, must frolic. Back soon.

In other words: GONE FISHIN’ MISSIN’. Back tomorrer, about.

Speaking of missing, I thought The Forgotten was perfectly good fun. A coherent in-the-Matrix escapist story with a not-viciously-stupid script, a wonderful palette of unexpected blues, and one spectacular new special effect, seen several times. Also not a single on-screen apartment that would market for less than $10 mmmmm-million, and a chase scene through DUMBO that is as bizarrely nailed together as the car chase from The French Connection, but that’s par for the course in these I-want-one jump-cut times. Terrific crane work, amazing overhead city photography that actually has a thematic reason for being included, and was that a reverse balloon shot in the opening playground moment? I believe so, I do believe so.

So why did every critic in the world jump all over this poor movie? Then again, I enjoyed Resident Evil: Apocalypse, so what do I know. Flesh-eating zombies, monsters on the church walls, and cute armed girls in and out of leather accessories, what’s not to love?

Or at least, I can stop worrying, provisionally. The lump is probably not malignant, and after I get the sonogram in two weeks we’ll know one way or the other for sure. For now they think it’s a lipoma, which is a fatty tumor that more or less minds its own business and hangs out with its fatty friends. Which is kind of gross, but given the alternative: I’ll take my lipoma and like it, sir.

I didn’t tell you about this, or much of anyone else. It’s a funny thing. The nights get awfully black when the road ahead veers off and you suddenly don’t know how much more road there might be. It’s not fun to think about the strange shape of mortality when mortality actually bears thinking about. Wide-eyed excited nights in high school, O yes, you can wonder til dawn and peer ahead in a thrilled hush, dreaming of drawing a flaring line on the night sky like a shooting star.

Different when it might just might be real.

Why people never talk about this sort of thing:

You: Hey, how’s things?
Linus: Great, man, great. Yeah, I met this girl I’m kind of interested in, who knows but we’re having fun hanging out. She’s a little young, but not like Billy Joel young, you know. The next recording is moving forward, thinking about that is keeping us on our toes. I love October, it’s my favorite month, so I want to spend some walking time in the park on the weekend. And I’ve got this thing on my back and maybe I’ll die.
You: Uh … cool. Check please.

Now I need to start working on all those dark-of-night promises. I think I’m supposed to be nice to everyone for a few years, and there was something about smelling the roses.

Could we have a little less running around and a little more bored downtime at the office, please? Would that be all right? And if we have to pick a day when I fire up the old Liberal dancing shoes and go riding in to rescue Noam Chomsky from the windmills over at 2 Blowhards, how about sending in an assistant to handle all these first report drafts on my desk? (That’s me, rabble-rousing in the comments. You can call me “Red.”)

Harv, you might want to sit this one out. Either that, or fasten your seatbelt.

Linus knows. Muahahahaha.

• Adjacent to the envelope where receipts are supposed to go, there are receipts. Also under the envelope, which is some sort of skill shot I’m sure. In the envelope where the receipts are supposed to go? Not so much.
• Mangled currency from several European nations in denominations which have all been replaced by the Euro. In totals amounting to, oh, prolly five bucks.
• Fortune cookie fortunes, with lucky numbers:
  • We will not know the worth of water ’til the well is dry. 13, 21, 24, 26, 31, 33
  • From listening comes wisdom and from speaking repentance. 14, 17, 26, 34, 36, 44
  • A way out of a financial mess is discovered as if by magic! 10, 20, 25, 30, 40, 45
• I have a pony tail, for which I need to buy about 30 elastic hair ties each month. Since I live in a small studio and nearly always keep my hair tied back, I have often wondered where the elastics go after I use them. O Great Prophet, where do hair ties end up after they’ve been worn once? Ans. Look under your keyboard, Grasshopper.