Modesty Prevails

Modesty Blaise: The Gabriel Set-Up (#7) Peter O'Donnell

Modesty Blaise is amazing - she is like a girl James Bond, but cooler. A former criminal mastermind who now uses her powers for good, Modesty cuts a smart and stylish figure in London. Her loyal side-kick is Willie Garvin, Thai-style fighter and cockney man about town. Modesty is the spiritual mother to Buffy, Xena, Emma Peel, and ass-kicking women around the globe. The Gabriel Set-Up is a collection of comic strips featuring Modesty. Peter O'Donnell wrote several novels in addition to the comic, but the comic was first. For lots more info, go here, or here.

Got Your Number (#8) Stephanie Bond

This one was pretty disposable. It is a mystery/romance that was supposed to be funny, but didn't tickle my funny bone particularly. There were some great moments, but overall it was eh. I give it an eh, plus, grade. I would rather read Crusie. Got Your Number had a pretty interesting premise, and a promising beginning, and then got embroiled in lots and lots of exposition that just laid on top of everything else, waiting for the moment far too late in the book when it would become relevant. I think what jarred in my mind was the herky-jerky back and forth between jokey humor and pretty dark stuff. Plus, she telegraphed the killer with a really obvious stereotype. Jokey/darkness be a brilliant combo when it works (Buffy), but tedious when it doesn't. I read it at the beach, and it did keep me turning the pages, but I've definitely read better in the same category. I would give her another shot, though.

fire & ice

fire & ice
Originally uploaded by The baboon.

I love the glowy orangeness and blueness of this picture! And the roundness and reflectiveness.
Since it is round, it provides a really feeble segue into my next question -
Can you help me think of songs featuring the sun or the moon? Not ones you hate, but ones that make you go "!!!!", or at least make you happy to hear when walking down the street or riding in your car.

Some that I have already thought of:
- Have a Day; It's The Sun; Light & Day by The Polyphonic Spree
- Mr. Blue Sky - ELO
- Good Day Sunshine - The Beatles
- Here Comes The Sun - The Beatles

... I know there are more but I am blanking on them right now. I'll edit them in as I think of them. Obviously, that's only on the Sun side. Any night/day songs would also be appreciated.
edit: Here are some more -
I Wish I Were the Moon - Neko Case
Blue Moon - Elivs Presley
I'll Follow The Sun - Beatles
Mambo de la Luna - Kirsty MacColl
Una Notte Napoli - Pink Martini (thanks to Martina)
Walking on Sunshine - Katrina and the Waves
Sunshine Superman - Donovan
Steal My Sunshine - Len
Island in the Sun - Weezer
Pink Moon - Nick Drake
Moonshadow - Cat Stevens
So Lovely Is The Night - Chris Isaak

back to normal

The Aunt is on her way back to Florida after a very nice visit. The deadline for the projcect has been extended over the weekend. The sun is shining! Hooray!! I feel very fortunate right now, but also a little superstitious - like maybe I am too fortunate. -narrows eyes and looks shiftily about- It would be silly to not appreciate the good while it is here, though. So I will knock on wood and continue on.

Unrelated to anything - the woman that I am doing this freelance project for keeps emailing me to call her. Just to chat or whatever. It is so weird!! I didn't the first time because my aunt was here and we were on our way out the door to the beach - but then she sent her numbers again and there is really no way and no reason not too. I just am more of an emailer than a phone caller. But it's not like she's asking me to perform brain surgery or anything else I could reasonably decline, so I'll do it. It is so crazy that I feel weird about it, but there you have it.

Abolutely Fabulous

Abolutely Fabulous
Originally uploaded by Foutugraphe.

Fabulous! I even like the typo in the title.

Good Stuff

To remind myself that it is often the little things that make the difference between a really great day and a really crappy day, I would like to offer up the following list of small things that are making me happy right this very minute. Or at least contributing to overall feelings of non-misery. (Yay, non-misery!)

1. Hot Oil treatments for my hair - not even Alberto VO5 - the el cheapo Suave ones. They make my hair happy, which as anyone who has ever had a bad hair day knows, is a good thing.

2. The Old 97's. They just do. My name is Stewart Ransom Miller, and I'm a serial lady killer - ha!

3. diet coke. hello, my bubbly, caffeinated friend.

4. SPRING.

What are some of the small things that make you smile, or contribute to your overall feelings of non-misery?

Munich stadium seats

Munich stadium seats
Originally uploaded by Daveybot.

Have a seat! Don't these look like numbered pistachios or something? It must be one of those weird quirks of individual brain chemistry that makes certain images interesting and others boring, but I really like pictures of these empty molded chairs. One of my favorite pictures that I took in Canada was of the orange chairs bolted to the upper deck of the ferry.

psychic frequency

This has been the strangest month for out of the blue contacts:
1) Old friend I've known since 4th grade who lives on the opposite side of country emails me
2) run into former co-worker at the opera. She just happened to be the very usher in my very row.
3) different former co-worker calls out of blue and says "why don't you come over for lunch?"
4) friend from Texas calls up and says "am in your state tomorrow - let's have dinner" (this is actually code for "can I hang out at your house until I have to catch my flight home," but whatever.)
5) whole freelance thing
6) This one is convoluted - Blondie attended PIFF - she ran into a former customer from the place we both used to work at. Former customer is in knitting circle with a former co-worker of mine. Former customer passed this on to former co-worker, who then requested my email. Very convoluted, very strange.

So, if for some reason I am broadcasting at a louder than normal psychic frequency, I would like to point some psychic rays at a giant pile of money. We need to meet, and soon. I swear, there were more crazy coincidences, but I can't remember what they are right now.

henge shadow

We went to Stonehenge yesterday. No, really. No, not that one, the one in Washington!

It was a great day for a drive and was mucho fun. One day I would like to visit The Other Stonehenge, but in the meantime I will drive to Washington state intoning the Stonehenge song from This Is Spinal Tap.

(edited in 2015 to fix busted formatting.)

The Devil In Love

The Devil In Love by Jacques Cazotte

(#6) - I've had this book for a long time and never read it, until now! I dug around in my bookshelves to find it because my sister had just gotten The Master and Marguerite from the library which I vaguely recalled was something to do with the Devil and his love life, so I searched around until I found this title. I couldn't remember the name and it was driving me crazy. Once I found it, I thought maybe now is the time to read it. I originally bought it because it was mentioned repeatedly in The Ninth Gate by Arturo Perez-Reverte. (the book is really REALLY much better than the movie, even though the movie has Johnny Depp).

The Devil In Love reinforces some basic rules of the universe. The first is that any time you think you are going to play a trick on the Devil and win, think twice. The second rule is read the first again, and let it really sink in. I am sure this book reads a little more smoothly in the original French (if I could read French easily), but the translation might not have been my issue with some of the speech patterns and cadences (although if it had been a little longer I probably would have sunk right into it) - it may have more to do with the fact that it was first published in 1772. I am sure there are all sorts of political allegories that I missed going on within this novel since it came about in such a tumultuous time in French history. Anyway, this book is considered one of the first published works of "fantastic fiction," which is pretty cool.

cast of characters:
The Devil - as himself
Alvaro - the hapless, lovesick yet arrogant hero
Biondetta - The Devil in disguise! It's a prelude to an Elvis song!!

The book ends rather abruptly with someone advising Alvaro that he had better get married to someone who is not the Devil, and SOON. I understand from the forward that Cazotte had plannd for this to be just the first half of the story, which explains the anti-climactic ending.

red skirt

red skirt
Originally uploaded by lomokev.

I love how the color really pops in this photo. I found it in a great flickr group called A Pair or Two. It is one of the things I love about flickr - so many different ways to look at things!

better now

I am no longer crazy like I was the other day - sleep has been had! Vitamin D from the sun (the very best kind as long as you have appropriate sunscreen) has been had!

Perhaps best of all (although it is hard to top sleep) is good news on the project front. I guess the work I did was acceptable to the ultimate client. Hooray! Will find out more details tomorrow.

Ooh - almost forgot - downloaded the latest iPod updater, and now I have the shuffle songs feature available from the main menu!! Yay! It was never a huge hassle to make it shuffle songs, but now it is even easier. Right now Prince is singing Kiss and things are right in my corner of the world once more.

In Television news, VH1 has been running a great series on hip hop. I hope they replay the whole thing - what I caught tonight was very interesting. The thing that stuck out in my head was all of these guys saying that Rap made it acceptable to talk about what was going on in your neighborhood - to document life as you live it. It just reminded me of something I read Jennifer Crusie say about writing - about how only you can write the book of your heart. I know! Hip Hop and J. Crusie are not two topics that seem to naturally belong together, but it is all about creativity and being true to your own creative voice. The Crusie quote came about because someone was sad that she would never write as well as her literary heroes. Crusie said she was glad she didn't write just like her heroes -because she wanted to be true to her own voice. I am not doing either the quote or the tv show justice - it just struck a chord with me. You have to be true to your own ideas. They interviewed Outkast, who are HUGE right now but were considered crazy outsiders from the sticks when they first came along. Everything was all about NY and LA, but here they came from Atlanta and they just made a space that was their own and continued to do their own thing. They had conviction of the validity of their own experience. There will always be copy cats - but they are not the ones pushing the boundries of what people think is possible. God bless the weirdos and people doing their own thing because they can, or because they must. The world is a better place because of them.

treeline [i need spring]

treeline [i need spring]
Originally uploaded by ronky.

I really like the title of this pic, and the forced perspective.

full moon late night weirdness

Was it the claritin in too close conjunction to the excederin, too close to bedtime? Maybe it was the full (or almost full) moon. Maybe it was trying to do something using my brain (adding my own links in the side bar. check it out -->) after my brain was trying to get some rest. Whatever the reason, I had the worst night of sleep I've had in months. I can't really complain because generally sleep is something I'm good at - but man. After I finally dozed off around 2 - 2:30 am, I was awakened by horrific screeching and falling noises by the cats. I should point out that when I finally drug my sorry behind to bed, Louie (the cat) was perched on the end of my bed staring at NOTHING like it was going to attack when he wasn't looking. That's a little off putting right there. It wasn't just the paranoid stares of the cat that got me tense -they were building on an already established paranoid foundation.

Earlier in the night there was a call - I couldn't get to the phone because I was programming the VCR and other people had stuff in their laps so we let the machine get it - no message. We don't have caller ID. (I know! How 20th centrury of us.) Normally I would think "no big deal - if it was important, they would have left a message." But someone on our street had their house broken into a couple of weeks ago and there was a front page news story about the rise of break-ins in our part of town. AND, one of the women in the story said that she thought the burglers (who had broken in before) were calling to see if they were home or not. So when the cats got into a full-on WWE smackdown on the stairs, I of course thought they were reacting to some sort of home invasion. Blergh. If I wasn't in fight or flight mode (I believe I did some yelling and flipped on all of the lights - I'm glad I didn't wake anybody else up) I would have realized that if the cats were scared they would be hiding under something rather than dashing headlong to danger. They are sensible like that.

I did finally get to sleep, but the cat kept walking over my head all night. And this morning I was awakened by many police sirens and helicopters. (to the best that my sister and I can figure out, it was either due to an enromous drug bust or someone getting hit by a car. I'm voting drug bust because it fits my paranoid theories the best.)

In short - I want a nap, and an immediate cessation to all crime so I can start worrying about something else.

perfect park perfect bench

perfect park perfect bench
Originally uploaded by byrdiegyrl.

Isn't this lovely? It looks like a park bench in OZ or somewhere other than right here on prosaic old planet earth.

project movies

So, today I was working working working on my project. I thought I would surely get it all done today and not have to worry at all tomorrow with the 4pm deadline. ha ha ha. One day you would think I'd learn. So, while I was painting and gluing and cutting things out, I decided to watch movies. Movies during projects have to be a particular kind for me - something I've seen many times before is a good type, because then I can just sort of listen along and I don't lose a lot of time watching and not working. I don't know why I like doing projects to movies more than music, but I do. I like writing to music, though. Anyway:
1. Ever After - I finally got this on DVD for Christmas - we had it in VHS, but DVD is just so much better. I hadn't seen this Cinderlla retelling for a while, PLUS there was a certain design on the jacket that I am supposed to incorporate into my project, so I chose it. In addition, I like Drew Barrymore (even with her crazy accent in this), and Dougray Scott is just too cute and charming (as he should be, as the prince). And Angelica Houston is PERFECT.

2. The Wedding Singer - This is when my overall theme started to develop - Drew Barrymore movies? Just wait and see. I love this movie - it is Adam Sandler at his sweetest, but with a little of his trademark rage in appropriate places. My sister and I still say things you could have told me YESTERDAY, as Sandler's character says to the girl who jilted him at the alter by saying "I don't ever want to marry you." PLUS, lots of great 80's tunes and a reminder that not every garment constructed in that decade was completely horrible. It really is one of the better "set in the 80's" movies that I've seen. Although now that I think of it, I'm not sure there are others. Are there? Billy Idol cracks me up in this movie every time.

3. Cinderella - The Disney Animated version - this ties together with the others because it is Cinderella, which Ever After also was, which had Drew Barrymore. It all makes sense in my head, anyway. There are parts of this movie that are really stupid and dated, and there are parts that are just lovely and charming. I have a memory that may be false (although I don't think it is) of being sick at school (at a young age) and my Dad coming to pick me up and taking me to see this movie instead of going home. Good things about this movie: The Fairy Godmother scene - classic, really; the little animals making a dress for Cinderella (and the whole Cinderelly song. I know I should probably hate it, but I can't! They sound like the chipmunks!); the ball. Things that are bad: why WHY why does she feel the need to make clothes for mice? That's just crazy. Cats are typecast as being represented by the evil Lucifer. I mean, with a name like that does he stand a chance? Things I noticed this watching: The two stupid step-sisters (it is really a stretch to call them wicked - they are venal and mean and stupid, but that does't make wicked in my book. Their mother, on the other hand - totally wicked.) remind me of Miss Bingly and the other one from the A & E adapatation of Pride and Prejudice. Prince Charming - totally a himbo. He gets about 5 lines of dialogue (that's being generous), and manages to look completely vacuous for a CARTOON. That's some himbosity! And the final thing I'll note here is that Lucifer the cat totally has opposing thumbs! This is disturbing - moreso than shirts but no pants on all the mice! Lucifer uses his thumb and gripping abilities to keep poor Gus trapped under the bowl. Oh! I lied - one more thing I noticed - the beginning says it is from the Perrault version, which apparently differs from the Grimm version by having the pumpkin and fairy godmother (or so the opening of Ever After would have me believe - I guess I could do a little research on my own). ANYWAY, this reminds me of the Cinderella Pumpkins (also known as french pumpkins) that I see at the farmer's market in the fall. They are beautiful bright orange, and look just the trick for making a carriage (opposed to making a jack-o-lantern). If you scroll down on this page you'll see a picture.

4. The Big Lebowski - this ties in because of Steve Buscemi! He was also in the Wedding Singer (and brilliant, of course). I love this movie. It is so freaking weird and just rambles all over Los Angeles, sort of like the shaggy dog of the shaggy dog story, but with slightly more purpose. It gets better every time I watch it. Everyone in it is perfect for the part they play.