Chief of Staff Mia Sopaipilla prepares the Turkenbunker for The Commander.
Sigh. Arm warmers and knee warmers yesterday, everything warmers today. And I haven’t even been outside yet.
Herself and I had planned to catch this evening’s opening of the Coen brothers’ latest, “Inside Llewyn Davis,” but you know what they say about the best-laid plans.
The brothers chatted with Terry Gross on “Fresh Air” the other day, and Field Marshal Turkish von Turkenstein (commander, 1st Feline Home Defense Force) was appalled to hear them libeling cats so freely.
The Commander inspects his (purely defensive) chemical-weapons stockpile.
Discussing the honor and privilege of persuading a cat to participate in their latest film, Ethan spake thusly:
“In ‘True Grit’ we had a vulture, a trained vulture … that was a pain and that was even — by vulture standards — probably a stupid vulture, and that was frustrating. But I would take a vulture over a cat. The cat was just horrible.”
As a consequence, the Turk’ has declared war on the Coen brothers, and we are forbidden to see the film.
It’s censorship, true, but what are we to do? This is war.
Pabst Blue Ribbon, the choice of international filmmakers everywhere.
Herself and I were briefly patrons of the arts this week.
We had rented the House Back East™ to a gent name of Colm Ó Ciosóig, who was coming to town for an international film festival. Herself wondered how his name was pronounced — and so did I, being fluent only in American, Filth and Drunkard — so I looked it up.
Colm is also a film aficionado who shoots many of the backgrounds for the band’s shows, and he wangled a freebie to attend the TIE-Alternative Measures festival by agreeing to DJ at the closing soirée.
But it seems the festival endured a few hiccups and finally ended badly — some class of a dispute pitted the artists against the organizer — and come Sunday evening Colm popped round to inquire whether he might host a gathering of filmmakers next door. We were invited to join them.
We said sure, and before long there were a couple dozen artists, musicians and filmmakers from around the globe crowding the tiny house, merrily chattering away over barley pops. They were all quite delightful, and included us in their conversations, asking about the States and Bibleburg and complimenting the House Back East®. Marv’, the old saloon musician, would have had a wonderful time.
It was amusing to note that a thirst for Pabst Blue Ribbon is apparently not just a proletarian pose adopted by Yankee hipsters, because nearly everyone in attendance brought a suitcase of the stuff (we contributed a bottle of Bushmills). But perhaps the altitude affected consumption, because there was more than quite a bit left over after the party ended — about three and a half suitcases worth. A gaggle of journalists would have gargled the lot and eaten the cans.
So Monday afternoon, after Colm and the others had departed, I decided to support another class of artist — I hauled two suitcases down to Old Town Bike Shop as a gift to its long-suffering mechanics, who are always giving me freebies on annoying bits of work when by rights they should be charging me double.
Ten days after the flu sank its meathooks into my respiratory system I’m finally starting to feel like a primate instead of a paramecium.
And there’s no danger of being tempted to imperil my fragile recovery by throwing myself headlong into a futile attempt to recover all those miles unridden because it’s 8 degrees and snowing.
It would be just like me to rocket out the door in search of a nasty case of bronchitis and perhaps a broken bone or two, so I think I’ll surprise the universe and stay indoors, maybe ride the trainer gently for a half hour or so.
Speaking of disease, beyond my little cocoon the speculation as regards impending revelations by the One Ball To Rule Them All has reached a fever pitch, and don’t I wish I could give a shit. Watching him summon the Reverend Mutha Gaius Helen Winfrey and her rubber gom jabbar to Pelotaville for a televised confessional in hopes of getting his personal gravy train back on the rails looks very little like a penitente journeying to the Sanctuario de Chimayó on his knees.
I can’t decide which cultural reference to deploy here. Is it an unrepentant Alex insisting that the Int Inf Min spoon-feed him in his hospital bed? Or is it Lucy at the chocolate factory, only with the chocolate being money and Lucy a great white shark and the assembly line running not too fast, but rather not fast enough?
“What’s it going to be then, eh?” I’m going to go with Alex here, because no matter what we may hear on Thursday, I suspect that a “cure” forced is no cure at all, and we will have our malevolent little droogie on our hands for quite a while yet.
There goes the (Hyborian) neighborhood: It seems the 65-year-old Arnold Schwarzenegger plans to reprise his role as Conan the Barbarian in “The Legend of Conan,” another sword-and-sorcery epic scheduled for release in 2014.
There is probably no truth to the rumor that the Governator is simultaneously working on a monster movie set in the gritty world of professional cycling. Said to have the working title “Frankenhein,” it stars Woody Harrelson as Lance Armstrong, Schwarzenegger as Hein Verbruggen and a gray-flannel bag of bullshit as Pat McQuaid.
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