I think the last time I went to Edwards Canyon Country 10 to see a movie was in late July of 2008 for The X-Files: I Want to Believe. I'd seen many episodes (but not the entire series), and knew enough about the alien mythology and other stories featured on the show to hope for another feature film that could be as interesting and complex as what I had seen.
I didn't get that. I got a half-baked story that maybe was created just to put something on the screen, to keep people aware of the franchise, to say, "Hey, X-Philes! You say you'll do anything for the show you love so much? Pay to see this! That'll test your loyalty!" Since its theatrical release, which flopped, there have been occasional rumblings that in 2012, we'd get the alien X-Files movie we hoped for, to match the whole 2012-being-the-end-of-the-world thing. If Chris Carter is indeed working on that screenplay, I hope he's taken more time to figure it out than he did for this one, which could have been just another episode of the series. That's not why I sometimes go to the movies.
Mom, Dad and Meridith got the much better deal that day. They were seeing Mamma Mia!, and so was I when I walked into their auditorium after feeling down and disappointed from what I had just seen, a waste of Mulder and Scully. That didn't last for even two minutes. I was so thoroughly charmed by sheer playfulness that at times wasn't afraid to be silly (I don't remember which part was playing when I walked in, but Mamma Mia! is just that kind of movie where you can come in anywhere and you're immediately sucked in), that after it was over and we were outside the theater, I suggested that we buy tickets for the next showing and get right back in line. We didn't, but we did go back the next day and I bought the tickets for all of us.
We've never needed to go to Edwards Canyon Country 10 since then because any movies we'd seen were always playing at Edwards Valencia 12. It was always convenience because we were closer to that one from Saugus.
But I didn't need to pay $18.50 to see Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol in IMAX at the Valencia location. And Mom wanted to see We Bought a Zoo. Valencia had these showtimes: 11 a.m. for We Bought a Zoo and 1:05 p.m. for Mission: Impossible. Canyon Country had them five minutes apart, with We Bought a Zoo starting at 12:55 p.m.
So to Canyon Country we would go, and while Mom and I were at the movies, Dad and Meridith would do whatever they wanted to do.
Once at the ticket window at the Canyon Country theater, I bought both tickets. $9.50 is far less painful than $18.50 and I had a $20 in my wallet. Both tickets came out to $19. Why have Mom pay separately?
We got our tickets, went inside, and looked at the prices for popcorn and soda and candy. Ridiculous. Theaters strive to turn a profit on the concession stand since the movie studios take most of the ticket price, but if the managers of these theaters wonder why people aren't buying popcorn and soda, this is why. $6 and $7 for different sizes of soda is not worth it, not even for the Icee-like kind they had.
I went into Mom's auditorium to make sure she was settled and had the seat she wanted, and then I went into my auditorium, full of expectations. I had been so dazzled by the trailer I saw many times online, and thought that the James Bond producers had better up their game.
My expectations were met. The gadgets used in Ghost Protocol were shown as part of the missions, never shown off. The virtual reality screen that simulated a hallway inside the Kremlin was just there, just part of the work. The black computerized adhesive gloves that Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise, of course) uses to scale the world's tallest building in Dubai work for a time and then one of them craps out. Skyfall, the next Bond movie, will have a new, young Q played by Ben Whishaw, and I hope the Bond producers keep to what they did in Casino Royale in any gadgets simply being part of the job.
The biggest asset to Ghost Protocol is director Brad Bird, who started his career with the animated The Iron Giant, and then wrote and directed The Incredibles and Ratatouille at Pixar. He knows how to tell a story. He knows how to move around characters, how to give just enough to an audience to let them work it out on their own and remain engaged with what's going on. He believes an audience is intelligent enough to piece together what's happening, and I wish the rest of Hollywood would have more faith in us moviegoers like that. We're given just enough about the entire, disavowed IMF team (including Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg and Paula Patton) to get a sense of who they are, but not to be overwhelmed by their presence. They're not bigger than the screen. Tom Cruise, in fact, is far more serious than charismatic in this installment, and when he's bantering briefly with his team, it's as part of the team, not him above the team. He's done well here.
Bird and the screenwriters also know that a villain is more threatening when they aren't seen that often, yet their motives are known and worrisome. In this case, a man named Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist), who believes nuclear war to have a pleasant, cleansing effect on the world in order for it to start fresh. He has Russian nuclear codes, and access to a device. The IMF team, after the Kremlin has blown up (though not by their hand, obviously), have to work alone with no backup, no further gadgets or weaponry, to stop Hendricks. Hendricks is seen a few times before the obvious climax between him and Ethan, but is mostly shadowy. That won't work for Skyfall, since Javier Bardem, one of the greatest actors in the world, is playing the villain, but I hope the Bond producers allow him to be shadowy at times, but with his motives eventually looming large.
The commercials for Ghost Protocol have been hyping the stunts on the Dubai building, and the hype is justified. There's been nothing like this in years, perhaps in a decade. It's genuinely suspenseful, starting when Ethan has to lose one of the adhesive gloves while climbing up one side of the Dubai building. It's not unusual to call out "Oh shit!" or "Holy crap!" when Ethan tries to get into the computer server room in another tower, and then has to get back out, back to where his team is.
I hope this is the movie that gives Paula Patton more roles. I liked her a lot in Swing Vote as the reporter who tries to get Bud's (Kevin Costner) full story, trying to get it through his daughter (Madeline Carroll) at one point. Her range is rapidly growing, since there's no trace of her character from that movie, and I know she's been in other movies as well besides these two, most that I haven't seen, and one (Just Wright) that I couldn't sit through because it was awful at the start. And for a career that's had 12 roles so far, co-starring with Kevin Costner and Tom Cruise is quite a major batting average.
Pixar is a potential incubator for great live-action filmmaking talent. Brad Bird has proven himself (and I hope he makes more live-action movies), but the real test will be when Andrew Stanton's John Carter is released next year, based on Edgar Rice Burroughs' tale. Hollywood's still not understanding that it needs to treat audiences more intelligently, because we are. Give us entertainment that makes us glad to spend two hours at the movies, to feel that we've spent our time well. Ghost Protocol is a good start for a return of sorts to that. And something else I got out of it was seeing how Jeremy Renner was, being that he's the lead in The Bourne Legacy, which I'm excited about, even with Matt Damon not there. It'll be fascinating to see this particular universe expand through another agent that was also part of the Treadstone program. Renner's got the skills in this one, not just in action, but also in his acting. He may very well make the impact that Damon did in The Bourne Identity.
Adding to my fourth day of this four-week pleasure cruise, Mom and I met Dad and Meridith at Wienerschnitzel nearby, where I had my usual pastrami sandwich and ultimate chili cheese fries, and a cookie dough Freezee, which tastes more real than a McDonald's McFlurry. And you get more candy, or cookie dough, from it.
By the time we finished at Wienerschnitzel, it was nearing 5 p.m., so there was nothing else to do but head home, finding out that Dad had bought a turkey for us for Christmas Day (we're Jewish, but it'll be a nice change from the Chinese food cliche), which he showed us in the trunk, and finding at home that the mailman had delivered Red Dwarf: The Complete Collection and the 2005 Bleak House miniseries starring Gillian Anderson. Both went into my second DVD binder.
Tomorrow is the fifth and final day of my four-week pleasure cruise, with the first game of the NBA season at 9 a.m. here, New York Knicks (my favorite team) versus Boston Celtics (Doc Rivers, my favorite coach). I hope I'll get up early enough, preferably before the start of the game.
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Poseidon: The One Movie That's Bothered Me for Five Years
Poseidon cost approximately $160 million, was filmed on adjacent soundstages at Warner Bros. (One as the ship right-side up, the other upside down) and at Staples Center (as the ship's dance club), and was considered a flop with only $60.6 million earned domestically.
Every few months, I watch clips on YouTube, disappointed that Poseidon missed a major storytelling opportunity that could have possibly saved Warner Bros. some money and produced a much better movie. Obviously, as a remake of The Poseidon Adventure (of which I'm a fan and which was my reason for seeing this), Poseidon has to feature a cruise ship being capsized by a rogue tidal wave. With special effects far more advanced in 2005 than they were in 1972, it could be a ship with more capacity than the Titanic, more to show than The Poseidon Adventure. Once the new Poseidon capsized, bodies could be shown floating in the water along with deck chairs and other vast detritus of a cruise ship. In the ballroom, where the central action takes place, dead bodies could look more eerily real, and they were in this remake.
The screenwriter, Mark Protosevich, is better at writing special effects than characters. His career began with The Cell, starring Jennifer Lopez, which was outstanding because the artistic special effects were handled by an incredibly talented director in Tarsem Singh. The journey through the serial killer's mind was much more fascinating than anything that could be revealed about Lopez's character, properly presented as a tour guide through this twisted mind.
Protosevich also wrote I Am Legend and contributed the story for Thor. Future projects, according to his IMDB page, apparently include an American remake of Oldboy, directed by Spike Lee, Jurassic Park IV (though that project is always in so much flux that it's never certain who wrote it until the movie is made and the credits are concrete), and Freakshow, based on a comic, for which he wrote the screenplay and will direct. The failure of Poseidon obviously didn't hurt him since what he wrote on the page had to be brought to life by others, including director Wolfgang Petersen, who made a much better movie in the depths of the sea with Das Boot.
Protosevich's characters in Poseidon are only mildly interesting on the surface, since they're at the mercy of the special effects, with explosions throughout the capsized ship, the gas tank falling through the floor of the lobby, which is now the ceiling, and killing one of the members of the group trying to get out of the ship, and lots of rising water. To start, there's Kurt Russell as Robert Ramsey, an ex-firefighter and ex-mayor of New York City whose administration sounds like it was under a cloud, from the very little we learn. Emmy Rossum plays his daughter, Mike Vogel plays her fiance, Mia Maestro plays a stowaway helped along by a steward (Freddy Rodriguez), Josh Lucas plays a gambler, Jacinda Barrett plays a single mother (with Jimmy Bennett playing her son), Richard Dreyfuss plays an architect devastated by his boyfriend's breakup with him, and Kevin Dillon plays Lucky Larry, who isn't so much lucky as obnoxious, and is exactly the kind of role Dillon's Johnny Drama would have been seen playing on Entourage.
Think about this. This Poseidon holds over 2,000 passengers. The ship capsizes. The ballroom eventually floods, killing Captain Bradford (Andre Braugher) and hundreds of others, including Fergie (credited as Stacy Ferguson), playing a singer named Gloria. At the end of the movie, the survivors get into a raft as the ship begins to right itself, and then sinks. All that remains are these survivors. More people died on this ship than Titanic.
It was enough to make me think about writing a sequel just for myself, just to come to terms with what this production missed. I understand them wanting to make it bigger than The Poseidon Adventure. The majority of the budget was for special effects, as the exterior of the ship, especially during the capsizing, was entirely CGI, and it's in Guinness World Records as the most detailed computer-generated designs.
If they had done it the way I've been thinking about it for five years, the ballroom flooding could not have been shown, and they probably would not have wanted to miss that opportunity, since the flooding in the original movie was never seen, only heard. But maybe there would have been a better movie.
The survivors float on the raft after Poseidon has sunk, and at the fadeout before the end credits, we see a helicopter approaching the raft with a search beam shining, and ships in the distance racing to the raft. These survivors would be famous around the world. The media would descend on them, wanting to know everything about their ordeal.
If the movie had started that way, with those few survivors being rescued and the entire world shocked about the magnitude of this disaster, it would have been more promising. Start it with news bulletins throughout the world about the sinking, with uncertainty about who survived. Cut to the survivors, on board the rescue ship, in shock, blankets wrapped around them, what happened to them not fully registering yet because these are the first moments that they could rest after spending all those hours going from the mid-section of the ship to the bottom to get out.
A cruise line has lost an expensive ship, and so those executives are scrambling to figure out what to do. There will be questions, such as if they should try to raise the ship in order to piece together what happened. Thousands lost their lives. There will be lawsuits.
The survivors begin thinking about their ordeal, and there are flashbacks to their time on the ship before it capsized. The problem with this is that these are the only perspectives. Captain Bradford is dead, and so are the officers who were on the bridge trying desperately to turn the ship. Those sequences would be gone, so the suspense wouldn't be there as much, save for the survivors trying to get off the ship, which could be exciting enough on its own if handled right with the flashbacks.
Once that rescue ship gets to a port, those on board will see that the dock has been flooded with media. The entire world wants to know the survivors' stories. How do the survivors cope with this sudden fame? Is Robert Ramsey still remembered in New York City as a shoddy mayor or is he celebrated for giving his life to help the other survivors?
And intercut with that plot is the cruise line trying to figure out what to do, with some unscrupulousness thrown in. Blame Bradford and his officers, even in death, for what they were unable to stop? These rogue waves cannot be predicted or pinpointed. They just happen.
The original Poseidon Adventure was founded not just on the special effects, but also the relationships between the survivors, such as Jack Albertson and Shelley Winters playing husband and wife, and Red Buttons as a bachelor. Poseidon would have gotten much more mileage if it had gone that way too. The media presence alone in light of the worst ship disaster in history would have been a fascinating perspective. And I would have liked this movie a lot more.
Every few months, I watch clips on YouTube, disappointed that Poseidon missed a major storytelling opportunity that could have possibly saved Warner Bros. some money and produced a much better movie. Obviously, as a remake of The Poseidon Adventure (of which I'm a fan and which was my reason for seeing this), Poseidon has to feature a cruise ship being capsized by a rogue tidal wave. With special effects far more advanced in 2005 than they were in 1972, it could be a ship with more capacity than the Titanic, more to show than The Poseidon Adventure. Once the new Poseidon capsized, bodies could be shown floating in the water along with deck chairs and other vast detritus of a cruise ship. In the ballroom, where the central action takes place, dead bodies could look more eerily real, and they were in this remake.
The screenwriter, Mark Protosevich, is better at writing special effects than characters. His career began with The Cell, starring Jennifer Lopez, which was outstanding because the artistic special effects were handled by an incredibly talented director in Tarsem Singh. The journey through the serial killer's mind was much more fascinating than anything that could be revealed about Lopez's character, properly presented as a tour guide through this twisted mind.
Protosevich also wrote I Am Legend and contributed the story for Thor. Future projects, according to his IMDB page, apparently include an American remake of Oldboy, directed by Spike Lee, Jurassic Park IV (though that project is always in so much flux that it's never certain who wrote it until the movie is made and the credits are concrete), and Freakshow, based on a comic, for which he wrote the screenplay and will direct. The failure of Poseidon obviously didn't hurt him since what he wrote on the page had to be brought to life by others, including director Wolfgang Petersen, who made a much better movie in the depths of the sea with Das Boot.
Protosevich's characters in Poseidon are only mildly interesting on the surface, since they're at the mercy of the special effects, with explosions throughout the capsized ship, the gas tank falling through the floor of the lobby, which is now the ceiling, and killing one of the members of the group trying to get out of the ship, and lots of rising water. To start, there's Kurt Russell as Robert Ramsey, an ex-firefighter and ex-mayor of New York City whose administration sounds like it was under a cloud, from the very little we learn. Emmy Rossum plays his daughter, Mike Vogel plays her fiance, Mia Maestro plays a stowaway helped along by a steward (Freddy Rodriguez), Josh Lucas plays a gambler, Jacinda Barrett plays a single mother (with Jimmy Bennett playing her son), Richard Dreyfuss plays an architect devastated by his boyfriend's breakup with him, and Kevin Dillon plays Lucky Larry, who isn't so much lucky as obnoxious, and is exactly the kind of role Dillon's Johnny Drama would have been seen playing on Entourage.
Think about this. This Poseidon holds over 2,000 passengers. The ship capsizes. The ballroom eventually floods, killing Captain Bradford (Andre Braugher) and hundreds of others, including Fergie (credited as Stacy Ferguson), playing a singer named Gloria. At the end of the movie, the survivors get into a raft as the ship begins to right itself, and then sinks. All that remains are these survivors. More people died on this ship than Titanic.
It was enough to make me think about writing a sequel just for myself, just to come to terms with what this production missed. I understand them wanting to make it bigger than The Poseidon Adventure. The majority of the budget was for special effects, as the exterior of the ship, especially during the capsizing, was entirely CGI, and it's in Guinness World Records as the most detailed computer-generated designs.
If they had done it the way I've been thinking about it for five years, the ballroom flooding could not have been shown, and they probably would not have wanted to miss that opportunity, since the flooding in the original movie was never seen, only heard. But maybe there would have been a better movie.
The survivors float on the raft after Poseidon has sunk, and at the fadeout before the end credits, we see a helicopter approaching the raft with a search beam shining, and ships in the distance racing to the raft. These survivors would be famous around the world. The media would descend on them, wanting to know everything about their ordeal.
If the movie had started that way, with those few survivors being rescued and the entire world shocked about the magnitude of this disaster, it would have been more promising. Start it with news bulletins throughout the world about the sinking, with uncertainty about who survived. Cut to the survivors, on board the rescue ship, in shock, blankets wrapped around them, what happened to them not fully registering yet because these are the first moments that they could rest after spending all those hours going from the mid-section of the ship to the bottom to get out.
A cruise line has lost an expensive ship, and so those executives are scrambling to figure out what to do. There will be questions, such as if they should try to raise the ship in order to piece together what happened. Thousands lost their lives. There will be lawsuits.
The survivors begin thinking about their ordeal, and there are flashbacks to their time on the ship before it capsized. The problem with this is that these are the only perspectives. Captain Bradford is dead, and so are the officers who were on the bridge trying desperately to turn the ship. Those sequences would be gone, so the suspense wouldn't be there as much, save for the survivors trying to get off the ship, which could be exciting enough on its own if handled right with the flashbacks.
Once that rescue ship gets to a port, those on board will see that the dock has been flooded with media. The entire world wants to know the survivors' stories. How do the survivors cope with this sudden fame? Is Robert Ramsey still remembered in New York City as a shoddy mayor or is he celebrated for giving his life to help the other survivors?
And intercut with that plot is the cruise line trying to figure out what to do, with some unscrupulousness thrown in. Blame Bradford and his officers, even in death, for what they were unable to stop? These rogue waves cannot be predicted or pinpointed. They just happen.
The original Poseidon Adventure was founded not just on the special effects, but also the relationships between the survivors, such as Jack Albertson and Shelley Winters playing husband and wife, and Red Buttons as a bachelor. Poseidon would have gotten much more mileage if it had gone that way too. The media presence alone in light of the worst ship disaster in history would have been a fascinating perspective. And I would have liked this movie a lot more.
Three Dreams about Women
I went to bed at 2:17 this morning and woke up at 10:39. In between, I marveled yet again at what goes on in my head during sleep. I have entire theme parks in there, Walt Disney World in a far different incarnation, rollercoasters, pinball machines, huge school campuses with ornate marble staircases, math classes that I prefer to skip, movie theaters to haunt, and, of course, women. Not often anymore, but when those dreams happen, I always lay in bed after I wake up, thinking, "How in the heck did THAT happen?"
The first dream involved a relationship-ending argument with Kirsten Dunst. I don't know why it was Kirsten Dunst, but I'm relieved it wasn't Drew Barrymore or Renee Zellweger. It was most apparent that I wasn't interested in saving the relationship, and perhaps I had lost interest a long time ago. In trying to argue my side, I mistakenly called her "Lisa" at one point, which I don't read anything into because I could never date anyone who reads books only for information. I told Kirsten that I had liked her since Bring It On, and had wanted her even then, so why would she think things had changed? Again, just arguing without feeling, without meaning, which isn't my style. Arguing isn't either, but when I'm passionate about something or someone, I show it.
The second dream took place at a variation of Walt Disney World, not the incarnation that I know so well, even though I live on the other side of the country. There was a holiday version of the Jungle Cruise being tested, and this one was indoors. A woman came up to me, asking if I'd like to take part in it, and she had a twinkle in her eyes when she asked me this, which made me play it low-key, since it was clear that she wanted to lead and impress herself upon me. I didn't mind at all. I went on the ride, but nothing else happened with the woman, because the dream ended while I was on the ride.
In the third dream, this particular woman appeared only in an e-mail. I had been to a restaurant months ago and had scribbled my name and e-mail address on a scrap of a postcard in order to be informed about some event that was happening at the restaurant. I received this e-mail and it was the woman who worked there to whom I had given that scrap of postcard for the future information, who just wanted to say hi, wondering why I hadn't been back lately, heavily hinting her interest.
Those latter two dreams were nice, but it doesn't make me move faster in pursuing a relationship. I've got a nonfiction book list that's growing longer by the day (Last night, I added to the list a late actor I've always admired, who I believe never got the biography he deserves), a future home city that I want to know intimately from one end to the other, a glittering city beyond that whose entire history I want to know, a small library branch inside a mall that I really want to see, the Pinball Hall of Fame that I would be happy spending a lot of time in (I think there was a Galaga arcade game there), and so much else to do and experience in my new home state, when that finally happens, as well as my desires to visit New Mexico and all the presidential libraries in the nation. My interests alone keep me pretty well occupied and very happy. Now if only Matchbox would sell its cars individually instead of just five-packs, I could get the tow truck I really want for my working vehicles collection.
The first dream involved a relationship-ending argument with Kirsten Dunst. I don't know why it was Kirsten Dunst, but I'm relieved it wasn't Drew Barrymore or Renee Zellweger. It was most apparent that I wasn't interested in saving the relationship, and perhaps I had lost interest a long time ago. In trying to argue my side, I mistakenly called her "Lisa" at one point, which I don't read anything into because I could never date anyone who reads books only for information. I told Kirsten that I had liked her since Bring It On, and had wanted her even then, so why would she think things had changed? Again, just arguing without feeling, without meaning, which isn't my style. Arguing isn't either, but when I'm passionate about something or someone, I show it.
The second dream took place at a variation of Walt Disney World, not the incarnation that I know so well, even though I live on the other side of the country. There was a holiday version of the Jungle Cruise being tested, and this one was indoors. A woman came up to me, asking if I'd like to take part in it, and she had a twinkle in her eyes when she asked me this, which made me play it low-key, since it was clear that she wanted to lead and impress herself upon me. I didn't mind at all. I went on the ride, but nothing else happened with the woman, because the dream ended while I was on the ride.
In the third dream, this particular woman appeared only in an e-mail. I had been to a restaurant months ago and had scribbled my name and e-mail address on a scrap of a postcard in order to be informed about some event that was happening at the restaurant. I received this e-mail and it was the woman who worked there to whom I had given that scrap of postcard for the future information, who just wanted to say hi, wondering why I hadn't been back lately, heavily hinting her interest.
Those latter two dreams were nice, but it doesn't make me move faster in pursuing a relationship. I've got a nonfiction book list that's growing longer by the day (Last night, I added to the list a late actor I've always admired, who I believe never got the biography he deserves), a future home city that I want to know intimately from one end to the other, a glittering city beyond that whose entire history I want to know, a small library branch inside a mall that I really want to see, the Pinball Hall of Fame that I would be happy spending a lot of time in (I think there was a Galaga arcade game there), and so much else to do and experience in my new home state, when that finally happens, as well as my desires to visit New Mexico and all the presidential libraries in the nation. My interests alone keep me pretty well occupied and very happy. Now if only Matchbox would sell its cars individually instead of just five-packs, I could get the tow truck I really want for my working vehicles collection.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
The Randomness of a Tuesday Night
I don't have enough for a full-course, meaty entry tonight, so there'll be some randomness, which is suitable for a Tuesday night that feels like it's simply whirling through outer space. Not a great deal going on; I read some of one of the books I'm using for research for my own book, still have to read the rest, and this is still as specific as I'll get for a while, at least until I have two chapters written and can pitch it to publishers and search for an agent, in order to try for the big publishers.
I'm thinking of seeing Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, day 4 of my four-week pleasure cruise, on Friday. I love the high praise I've read from critics who demand that you see it in IMAX because of the action sequences. I won't. I'm not paying $18.50 for IMAX. If those critics want to pay for my ticket, I'm all for it, but I'm happy with seeing it on a regular screen. That's all I need.
Every other day or so, I check the movie schedule on the Lakeview Cinemas website, the two-screen theater that's inside the Hacienda Hotel and Casino outside of Boulder City, on the way to Hoover Dam. This casino overlooks a vast ocean of desert, so imagine Jack and Jill playing there, as it is right now. It's a shame, but if makes the Lakeview Cinemas owner some money and keeps the theater running, that's fine, because it just reopened after a months-long closure. I really wish I could be there on Christmas Day because It's a Wonderful Life is playing at 3 p.m., just once that day. Seeing it in that setting would be most memorable, but I'll have to settle for DVD for my first time, probably tomorrow night or the day after.
Speaking of Christmas movies to watch, I've also got the original Miracle on 34th Street, as well as National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, my favorite Christmas movie. Any Christmas movie that has a SWAT team at the end is my kind of Christmas movie, along with a dog yakking up a bone under the Christmas dinner table, which is the one scene that makes me lose it, laughing until I can't breathe.
During Dad's time off from work, which lasts until January 17, since it's a combination of winter break and required furlough days, I have to go to Beverly Hills for a few hours, to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Margaret Herrick Library. This will be for research for my book, so I'll be allowed in and I've memorized their procedures and rules. They have shooting scripts for all four of the movies I'm writing about, as well as a transcript from a 2006 Academy screening of the first movie, featuring actors from it. I need it all. I've memorized the movies, but I know there was an extra hour shot for the three sequels for television broadcast, and I'm hoping the scripts for the three sequels have that, because I can't find most of the footage on YouTube, and those extra hours were never released on DVD. I'm excited about this experience because I'll have history in my hands that means a lot to me, scripts from when those movies were in production. Mom read the procedures on the website today and looked at the hours of operation and suggested a Tuesday would be the best day to go because they're open until 8 p.m., whereas on Monday, Thursday and Friday, they're open until 6, and closed on Wednesdays and Saturdays and Sundays. Tuesday would be best because while I can skim past the scenes I know so well, I want to make sure I get everything out of the scenes that are rarely seen now, and the most out of the screening transcript for details about the making of that first movie.
After What If They Lived? was published, I was in awe about signing up for an author's profile on Goodreads, which became my main account. I didn't realize until early this evening that I could do the same on Amazon. I signed up for an account through their Author Central, and my awe is triple what it was for Goodreads. Click right here for it!
I started reading No Place Like Home by Barbara Samuel on Sunday, intending to read as much of her work as I can while impatiently waiting for The Garden of Happy Endings, which she wrote as Barbara O'Neal, which will be out in April. I love what I've read so far, another novel that takes place in Samuel's beloved Colorado, but I'm still only on page 19. My research comes first, but I want to find a balance that lets me read other things too, if only for 20 pages at a time. However, considering that I spent much more time reading other books rather than the ones for my now-aborted previous project, it's understandable right now that I've not yet gotten back to No Place Like Home. Today, I received Samuel's A Piece of Heaven, which takes place entirely in New Mexico, so I want to get to that one soon. I'm hoping it strengthens my desire to visit New Mexico (Created by reading O'Neal's The Secret of Everything), not that it needs any help, as I've been reading a lot about New Mexico, learning about its culture, and interested in Georgia O'Keeffe's experiences there.
The part of my brain reserved for blog entries is dry, so I think I've covered everything.
I'm thinking of seeing Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, day 4 of my four-week pleasure cruise, on Friday. I love the high praise I've read from critics who demand that you see it in IMAX because of the action sequences. I won't. I'm not paying $18.50 for IMAX. If those critics want to pay for my ticket, I'm all for it, but I'm happy with seeing it on a regular screen. That's all I need.
Every other day or so, I check the movie schedule on the Lakeview Cinemas website, the two-screen theater that's inside the Hacienda Hotel and Casino outside of Boulder City, on the way to Hoover Dam. This casino overlooks a vast ocean of desert, so imagine Jack and Jill playing there, as it is right now. It's a shame, but if makes the Lakeview Cinemas owner some money and keeps the theater running, that's fine, because it just reopened after a months-long closure. I really wish I could be there on Christmas Day because It's a Wonderful Life is playing at 3 p.m., just once that day. Seeing it in that setting would be most memorable, but I'll have to settle for DVD for my first time, probably tomorrow night or the day after.
Speaking of Christmas movies to watch, I've also got the original Miracle on 34th Street, as well as National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, my favorite Christmas movie. Any Christmas movie that has a SWAT team at the end is my kind of Christmas movie, along with a dog yakking up a bone under the Christmas dinner table, which is the one scene that makes me lose it, laughing until I can't breathe.
During Dad's time off from work, which lasts until January 17, since it's a combination of winter break and required furlough days, I have to go to Beverly Hills for a few hours, to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Margaret Herrick Library. This will be for research for my book, so I'll be allowed in and I've memorized their procedures and rules. They have shooting scripts for all four of the movies I'm writing about, as well as a transcript from a 2006 Academy screening of the first movie, featuring actors from it. I need it all. I've memorized the movies, but I know there was an extra hour shot for the three sequels for television broadcast, and I'm hoping the scripts for the three sequels have that, because I can't find most of the footage on YouTube, and those extra hours were never released on DVD. I'm excited about this experience because I'll have history in my hands that means a lot to me, scripts from when those movies were in production. Mom read the procedures on the website today and looked at the hours of operation and suggested a Tuesday would be the best day to go because they're open until 8 p.m., whereas on Monday, Thursday and Friday, they're open until 6, and closed on Wednesdays and Saturdays and Sundays. Tuesday would be best because while I can skim past the scenes I know so well, I want to make sure I get everything out of the scenes that are rarely seen now, and the most out of the screening transcript for details about the making of that first movie.
After What If They Lived? was published, I was in awe about signing up for an author's profile on Goodreads, which became my main account. I didn't realize until early this evening that I could do the same on Amazon. I signed up for an account through their Author Central, and my awe is triple what it was for Goodreads. Click right here for it!
I started reading No Place Like Home by Barbara Samuel on Sunday, intending to read as much of her work as I can while impatiently waiting for The Garden of Happy Endings, which she wrote as Barbara O'Neal, which will be out in April. I love what I've read so far, another novel that takes place in Samuel's beloved Colorado, but I'm still only on page 19. My research comes first, but I want to find a balance that lets me read other things too, if only for 20 pages at a time. However, considering that I spent much more time reading other books rather than the ones for my now-aborted previous project, it's understandable right now that I've not yet gotten back to No Place Like Home. Today, I received Samuel's A Piece of Heaven, which takes place entirely in New Mexico, so I want to get to that one soon. I'm hoping it strengthens my desire to visit New Mexico (Created by reading O'Neal's The Secret of Everything), not that it needs any help, as I've been reading a lot about New Mexico, learning about its culture, and interested in Georgia O'Keeffe's experiences there.
The part of my brain reserved for blog entries is dry, so I think I've covered everything.
Monday, December 19, 2011
Weight Lifting DVDs
Just like last Monday, I spent most of today putting my DVDs into a 400-slot binder. This was my second 400-slot binder after filling up my first one completely, rendering it suitable weight lifting equipment. Same one like the first one, I bought it from Fry's and now knew what I was doing. There was less frustration with the DVDs not always going into the fabric-backed plastic slots at first, and I didn't miss an entire page of slots like I did before, making me move DVDs back many spaces, one after the other. The instances in which I had to move DVDs back or forward was when I missed a DVD in my chronological organization.
In this binder, all seven seasons of Gilmore Girls came first (My first DVD binder has a bevy of TV shows in the first 200 slots and about 50 more in the second 200, including seasons 1-4 and 7 of The West Wing, all four seasons of The Big Bang Theory, all eleven seasons of Married with Children, and the first and second seasons of Perfect Strangers), followed by all Bond movies up to Quantum of Solace (I'm such a fan that I even keep the awful ones, such as A View to a Kill), and then the rest of my movies in chronological order, with some exceptions. Sequels to Clerks, The Bourne Identity, and Back to the Future go next to the first movies, and I put Charlie and the Chocolate Factory next to Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory for easier reference. The 70th Anniversary Edition Citizen Kane set had not only the American Experience documentary that was part of the previous two-disc set, but also the HBO movie RKO 281, about the making of Citizen Kane, starring Liev Schreiber as Orson Welles and John Malkovich as screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz. Those discs are together too.
I got immense satisfaction from putting all these DVDs in one place and getting rid of all the cases. They weigh a lot when you hold one stack of them. Unfortunately, as I chucked more and more DVD cases into the recycling bin, the book stacks in my room began to look a lot larger, and I don't think I can take all these with me. My permanent collection goes, of course, but as to the others, I know I'll have to give up many and I have no problem with that, but I only will as we get closer to moving because I'm not going to be stuck without anything to read, and I'm not getting a new library card with the Valencia library because there's no point. The only library card I want to see is one with "Henderson" on it.
Also creating more satisfaction for me was that I apply this kind of focused work ethic to my book research. I took these DVDs out of so many cases and put them in individual slots. For the book, I'm plucking facts from many different sources and organizing it in one place. Just like flipping through these binders and feeling inspired by seeing all my favorite movies and TV shows in one place, I think about what I have to find out, by watching the movies, by reading various books, by seeking interviews, and I feel the same inspiration. I can do this. I want to do this.
And now I can also practice weight-lifting with my DVDs while deciding what to watch next. For the next few months, that'll be the movies I'm looking to write about for this book, continuously to pick out all the details I need, as well as whatever else strikes my interest. Probably Swing Vote again. I need another New Mexico fix.
In this binder, all seven seasons of Gilmore Girls came first (My first DVD binder has a bevy of TV shows in the first 200 slots and about 50 more in the second 200, including seasons 1-4 and 7 of The West Wing, all four seasons of The Big Bang Theory, all eleven seasons of Married with Children, and the first and second seasons of Perfect Strangers), followed by all Bond movies up to Quantum of Solace (I'm such a fan that I even keep the awful ones, such as A View to a Kill), and then the rest of my movies in chronological order, with some exceptions. Sequels to Clerks, The Bourne Identity, and Back to the Future go next to the first movies, and I put Charlie and the Chocolate Factory next to Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory for easier reference. The 70th Anniversary Edition Citizen Kane set had not only the American Experience documentary that was part of the previous two-disc set, but also the HBO movie RKO 281, about the making of Citizen Kane, starring Liev Schreiber as Orson Welles and John Malkovich as screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz. Those discs are together too.
I got immense satisfaction from putting all these DVDs in one place and getting rid of all the cases. They weigh a lot when you hold one stack of them. Unfortunately, as I chucked more and more DVD cases into the recycling bin, the book stacks in my room began to look a lot larger, and I don't think I can take all these with me. My permanent collection goes, of course, but as to the others, I know I'll have to give up many and I have no problem with that, but I only will as we get closer to moving because I'm not going to be stuck without anything to read, and I'm not getting a new library card with the Valencia library because there's no point. The only library card I want to see is one with "Henderson" on it.
Also creating more satisfaction for me was that I apply this kind of focused work ethic to my book research. I took these DVDs out of so many cases and put them in individual slots. For the book, I'm plucking facts from many different sources and organizing it in one place. Just like flipping through these binders and feeling inspired by seeing all my favorite movies and TV shows in one place, I think about what I have to find out, by watching the movies, by reading various books, by seeking interviews, and I feel the same inspiration. I can do this. I want to do this.
And now I can also practice weight-lifting with my DVDs while deciding what to watch next. For the next few months, that'll be the movies I'm looking to write about for this book, continuously to pick out all the details I need, as well as whatever else strikes my interest. Probably Swing Vote again. I need another New Mexico fix.
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Day 3, Part 2 of a Four-Week Pleasure Cruise
Before we walked into All Amusement, before I knew what was in there, Mom decided to go back to IKEA with Dad because he hadn't eaten. It turned out that instead of the trio going to Universal CityWalk, they had been talking in the car for 45 minutes, and moved their conversation to a nearby Starbucks. Convenient and cheaper, and in attempting to make us residents of Henderson, the conversation was much more important than the setting. Nothing moving on that front yet, but I hope it was the conversation that does it for us.
Mom told us that she and Dad would meet us at Barnes & Noble and off they went, and off Meridith and I went into All Amusement. Tokens were required for the games, two each for Galaga and pinball, four for air hockey. I played Galaga first and reveled in the discovery that if you press the "fire" button firmly, hold it for a second, then lift your finger off it, your ship keeps firing and you don't have to keep pounding the button. Cheating, yes, but the only chance I got to play it that way. Other times, I'm always pounding that button as if I'm suddenly a butcher behind the counter, and ducking and weaving as if the aliens are firing at me. Funnily enough, during the bonus round when the aliens fly down in a row or in another lockstep pattern and you try to eliminate all of them, I eliminated all but two. My aim sucks when I can fire without making an effort. It's more honed when I have to do the work.
I saw Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring when it was in theaters, and I liked parts of it, but it's not my kind of genre. Therefore, the Lord of the Rings pinball machine I saw was not for me. Now, The Simpsons Pinball Party machine, well, I still have a picture that I drew of them when I was in 1st grade. Therefore, my machine. I remembered also playing this at the arcade at Ventura Harbor Village, but this one was better-calibrated. I was a million points away from a free game, and could have easily gotten it, but it went down the left side and into the drain without a chance to hit it back up into the board.
Meridith and I never play air hockey competitively. We're always just grateful to find an air hockey table since we don't go to arcades often. The last time I remember going to one was back in June (), also for Galaga and air hockey. Unlike that table, there was no chance of keeping accurate score with the table we played at, since it was so slow to keep score and therefore we got a few more turns out of it than what you can usually get for four tokens. Up to 7 points and then the table shuts off. We got three extra turns.
The last time we were at Ventura Harbor Village, I remember really playing that air hockey table like a madman, whacking at that puck mercilessly. Now I reserve that energy and insanity for Galaga.
This time, I played it calmly. Didn't matter if I won or lost. Doesn't change the curvature of the earth, or the state of affairs anywhere. Meridith loves air hockey like I love Galaga, so I'm always happy to indulge her. While I played, I was thinking about what I could use as an outlet while I write my second book. I've got months to go before I start writing even a chapter, with an outline to slowly form while I get more and more information, but when it finally happens, what do I use? I've got books unrelated to my research, lots of them; I've got my DVDs, I've got whatever will be on the Tivo in our new apartment, with Jeopardy! always an evening staple. Then I've also got the Pinball Hall of Fame off the Strip, where I've been three times and have worshipped accordingly. It doesn't feel like the writing will be that hard, but I can't write all the time, and I'd love to just stand at a pinball machine, idly thinking about my book, while hoping to get a free game out of whatever machine I'm playing. It's ironic because there I am playing one game already and I should be enjoying that, but it's that sense of achievement of doing more on a pinball machine. Plus, it's safe to say that I love pinball out of anything else I could play at an arcade. That dollar you're likely to use at a slot machine on the Strip as your way of gambling cautiously is what I put into the change machine at the Pinball Hall of Fame and dash to my favorite machine. I'm perfectly satisfied with not getting a financial return on the money I spend there because I'm doing one of the many things I love about living.
So when Meridith made a few goals, I simply reached down, got the puck, and continued. I like the rhythm of the game, the clacking of the puck against the sides of the table, that determined look Meridith gets after a few times when I successfully block her. It's not vicious, all in fun, but I know that look because it's my look whenever I'm playing pinball or Galaga.
The game over, we left All Amusement and I spotted Maui Wowi Hawaiian Coffee & Smoothies, which showed off bottled drinks in a window, including water, which I desperately needed after that game and which I was sure Meridith wanted. I bought two regular-sized Arrowhead bottles, got 50 cents back, and decided to go back into the arcade and play Galaga once more. Still awful at it when the fire button is stuck.
The Barnes & Noble across the street from IKEA is very much about books, though very quietly. There's no outspoken staff recommendations on cards under certain books in the new releases, and this doesn't seem like the kind of location to have storytimes or book club discussions. It's just here to sell books. Come in, motivated by some book you want to read, find it, perhaps discover something else you want as well, and eventually leave. That was the exact order for me.
In the mall, I was thinking about those editions that Barnes & Noble hawks of, say, five Jane Austen novels together, or a few Dickens, or Gray's Anatomy, or any other book that looks like it has a leatherbound cover with a long, thin fabric bookmark inside and gilded pages. Specifically, I was thinking of The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I have the 2005 movie tie-in edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but wanted the other books without having to pay for them separately. 815 pages of Douglas Adams for $25 seemed like a good deal. As soon as we reached Barnes & Noble, I went straight for the table stacked with those editions and found it. You have to want a book that has the eyeless round green being sticking its tongue out at you. That's my kind of book.
Whenever we go to this Barnes & Noble, I always look at the magazines since we rarely go to this one and they've got a much better selection than the one in Valencia. Nothing like The Normal School this time, and since this had been the third day that I was walking great distances, or what seemed like great distances, I had to sit down, and I did so on the floor in front of the writing and history magazines, which included science fiction anthologies which I picked up and held on to as I walked through the rest of Barnes & Noble, but decided that if I wanted to read more science fiction, I had to decide first which aspects interested me because it's vast.
While sitting there, I found Writer's Digest Yearbook Presents The Writer's Guide to Creativity. I didn't have the idea for my second book laid out like I do now, but I felt like I needed this since there's an interview by Anne Lamott in it. And headlines on the cover such as "Make the Most of Your Writing Time!" and "How to Write Your Way Out of a Rut" made me consider that there will be times when I need those articles. Ruts do happen. They don't last very long with me, but I know what they feel like.
I went into the fiction aisles to see if they had all of Barbara O'Neal's books and there was How to Bake a Perfect Life, The Lost Recipe for Happiness, and my favorite: The Secret of Everything. I went to the science fiction aisles and walked right back out after 10 seconds. So many authors, so many worlds. I'm a little intimidated by it, but I keep in mind that there are humans in these novels and they have emotions and problems and joys and sorrows and problems solved just like I do. On days when the writing's not coming, I'll remember to see what kind of science fiction would interest me.
Back in the fiction aisles, I remembered how much I had enjoyed The Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle because he observes aspects of real life slantwise that brings new meaning to them. The typical things of each day are made different, more interesting. And then, there was 691 pages that made up T.C. Boyle Stories, and one of the rare times I don't mind paying full price for a book, because $20 seems justified for that many pages, especially with the promise of most likely getting the same satisfaction I had before.
That was it. That was all I needed. The magazine, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and T.C. Boyle Stories were enough. One thing I plan to do once in Henderson is haunt the library book sales as well as the used bookstores. I find a lot more at those because there's a bigger chance of discovery of what you've never heard of before that instantly appeals to you and you wonder why you hadn't found it before because clearly it was made for you. And then you think, "Enough of that. It's enough that I've found it and I'll start reading and that'll be that."
I don't lament that there's not a community feeling to the Burbank Town Center properties because it knows what it is. It's not trying to be something it isn't like many areas in the Santa Clarita Valley. I was there for those purposes, I got what I wanted, and there was nothing more than I wanted. That seems to be how it goes for all other shoppers there.
Now, this was last Sunday. Today, we went back to Fry's so I could get another 400-slot DVD binder, and back to IKEA to eat. Last Sunday, Dad brought home some of the ribs he'd had there, I tried a piece on Tuesday, and wanted more. The cornbread that had come with his ribs was just sitting in the fridge, so I had that too, and I wanted all of IKEA's cornbread. If there's some kind of chemical agent in this food that's meant to enslave Americans and turn us into zombiefied consumers, moreso than usual, I'll take my chances.
This time, I had the ribs and the cornbread and found out that the ribs came with fries, so I had mustard with the fries, as well as spinach and cheese crepes and an almond cake with buttercream and butterscotch, the latter the main attraction of the cake since I love butterscotch. Every single time we go to IKEA, the food is excellent. It didn't change. There is a rigid consistency there that I wish many institutions in our country would learn, with the hope that things would get better by implementing it. IKEA can do it with Swedish meatballs alone. Ok, they've got a lot to answer for with the instructions included in those hopeless build-it-your-damn-self kits, but that consistency is awe-inspiring.
On the way home, we stopped at the Walmart that overlooks Six Flags Magic Mountain, and in the electronics department, there were holiday movie DVD displays. Last week, I got in the mail from Amazon A Charlie Brown Christmas, which is my favorite Christmas special. At Walmart, I found National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, my favorite Christmas movie. Any Christmas movie that has a SWAT team busting through a house is my kind of Christmas movie. Every time Cousin Eddie's dog yaks up that bone under the table and the whole thing shakes, I lose it, needing time to get off the floor and resume breathing normally.
I don't count today's errands as part of the four-week pleasure cruise, just an observation that some of what we did last Sunday carried over into this Sunday, sans the mall and Barnes & Noble. When we parked at IKEA, I was thinking about Galaga again, but it's not worth the stuck "fire" button. It's the one video game for which I like to make an effort. I don't play anything else.
Weekends like this one that include rollercoasters, pinball, Galaga, Swedish meatballs, macaroni and cheese, pumpkin pie, new books bought in a bookstore, DVDs, air hockey, crepes, do not happen often here. When it does, it's total pleasure without question. So it shall be where I know I can find this kind of happiness all the time. This is good training.
Mom told us that she and Dad would meet us at Barnes & Noble and off they went, and off Meridith and I went into All Amusement. Tokens were required for the games, two each for Galaga and pinball, four for air hockey. I played Galaga first and reveled in the discovery that if you press the "fire" button firmly, hold it for a second, then lift your finger off it, your ship keeps firing and you don't have to keep pounding the button. Cheating, yes, but the only chance I got to play it that way. Other times, I'm always pounding that button as if I'm suddenly a butcher behind the counter, and ducking and weaving as if the aliens are firing at me. Funnily enough, during the bonus round when the aliens fly down in a row or in another lockstep pattern and you try to eliminate all of them, I eliminated all but two. My aim sucks when I can fire without making an effort. It's more honed when I have to do the work.
I saw Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring when it was in theaters, and I liked parts of it, but it's not my kind of genre. Therefore, the Lord of the Rings pinball machine I saw was not for me. Now, The Simpsons Pinball Party machine, well, I still have a picture that I drew of them when I was in 1st grade. Therefore, my machine. I remembered also playing this at the arcade at Ventura Harbor Village, but this one was better-calibrated. I was a million points away from a free game, and could have easily gotten it, but it went down the left side and into the drain without a chance to hit it back up into the board.
Meridith and I never play air hockey competitively. We're always just grateful to find an air hockey table since we don't go to arcades often. The last time I remember going to one was back in June (), also for Galaga and air hockey. Unlike that table, there was no chance of keeping accurate score with the table we played at, since it was so slow to keep score and therefore we got a few more turns out of it than what you can usually get for four tokens. Up to 7 points and then the table shuts off. We got three extra turns.
The last time we were at Ventura Harbor Village, I remember really playing that air hockey table like a madman, whacking at that puck mercilessly. Now I reserve that energy and insanity for Galaga.
This time, I played it calmly. Didn't matter if I won or lost. Doesn't change the curvature of the earth, or the state of affairs anywhere. Meridith loves air hockey like I love Galaga, so I'm always happy to indulge her. While I played, I was thinking about what I could use as an outlet while I write my second book. I've got months to go before I start writing even a chapter, with an outline to slowly form while I get more and more information, but when it finally happens, what do I use? I've got books unrelated to my research, lots of them; I've got my DVDs, I've got whatever will be on the Tivo in our new apartment, with Jeopardy! always an evening staple. Then I've also got the Pinball Hall of Fame off the Strip, where I've been three times and have worshipped accordingly. It doesn't feel like the writing will be that hard, but I can't write all the time, and I'd love to just stand at a pinball machine, idly thinking about my book, while hoping to get a free game out of whatever machine I'm playing. It's ironic because there I am playing one game already and I should be enjoying that, but it's that sense of achievement of doing more on a pinball machine. Plus, it's safe to say that I love pinball out of anything else I could play at an arcade. That dollar you're likely to use at a slot machine on the Strip as your way of gambling cautiously is what I put into the change machine at the Pinball Hall of Fame and dash to my favorite machine. I'm perfectly satisfied with not getting a financial return on the money I spend there because I'm doing one of the many things I love about living.
So when Meridith made a few goals, I simply reached down, got the puck, and continued. I like the rhythm of the game, the clacking of the puck against the sides of the table, that determined look Meridith gets after a few times when I successfully block her. It's not vicious, all in fun, but I know that look because it's my look whenever I'm playing pinball or Galaga.
The game over, we left All Amusement and I spotted Maui Wowi Hawaiian Coffee & Smoothies, which showed off bottled drinks in a window, including water, which I desperately needed after that game and which I was sure Meridith wanted. I bought two regular-sized Arrowhead bottles, got 50 cents back, and decided to go back into the arcade and play Galaga once more. Still awful at it when the fire button is stuck.
The Barnes & Noble across the street from IKEA is very much about books, though very quietly. There's no outspoken staff recommendations on cards under certain books in the new releases, and this doesn't seem like the kind of location to have storytimes or book club discussions. It's just here to sell books. Come in, motivated by some book you want to read, find it, perhaps discover something else you want as well, and eventually leave. That was the exact order for me.
In the mall, I was thinking about those editions that Barnes & Noble hawks of, say, five Jane Austen novels together, or a few Dickens, or Gray's Anatomy, or any other book that looks like it has a leatherbound cover with a long, thin fabric bookmark inside and gilded pages. Specifically, I was thinking of The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I have the 2005 movie tie-in edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but wanted the other books without having to pay for them separately. 815 pages of Douglas Adams for $25 seemed like a good deal. As soon as we reached Barnes & Noble, I went straight for the table stacked with those editions and found it. You have to want a book that has the eyeless round green being sticking its tongue out at you. That's my kind of book.
Whenever we go to this Barnes & Noble, I always look at the magazines since we rarely go to this one and they've got a much better selection than the one in Valencia. Nothing like The Normal School this time, and since this had been the third day that I was walking great distances, or what seemed like great distances, I had to sit down, and I did so on the floor in front of the writing and history magazines, which included science fiction anthologies which I picked up and held on to as I walked through the rest of Barnes & Noble, but decided that if I wanted to read more science fiction, I had to decide first which aspects interested me because it's vast.
While sitting there, I found Writer's Digest Yearbook Presents The Writer's Guide to Creativity. I didn't have the idea for my second book laid out like I do now, but I felt like I needed this since there's an interview by Anne Lamott in it. And headlines on the cover such as "Make the Most of Your Writing Time!" and "How to Write Your Way Out of a Rut" made me consider that there will be times when I need those articles. Ruts do happen. They don't last very long with me, but I know what they feel like.
I went into the fiction aisles to see if they had all of Barbara O'Neal's books and there was How to Bake a Perfect Life, The Lost Recipe for Happiness, and my favorite: The Secret of Everything. I went to the science fiction aisles and walked right back out after 10 seconds. So many authors, so many worlds. I'm a little intimidated by it, but I keep in mind that there are humans in these novels and they have emotions and problems and joys and sorrows and problems solved just like I do. On days when the writing's not coming, I'll remember to see what kind of science fiction would interest me.
Back in the fiction aisles, I remembered how much I had enjoyed The Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle because he observes aspects of real life slantwise that brings new meaning to them. The typical things of each day are made different, more interesting. And then, there was 691 pages that made up T.C. Boyle Stories, and one of the rare times I don't mind paying full price for a book, because $20 seems justified for that many pages, especially with the promise of most likely getting the same satisfaction I had before.
That was it. That was all I needed. The magazine, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and T.C. Boyle Stories were enough. One thing I plan to do once in Henderson is haunt the library book sales as well as the used bookstores. I find a lot more at those because there's a bigger chance of discovery of what you've never heard of before that instantly appeals to you and you wonder why you hadn't found it before because clearly it was made for you. And then you think, "Enough of that. It's enough that I've found it and I'll start reading and that'll be that."
I don't lament that there's not a community feeling to the Burbank Town Center properties because it knows what it is. It's not trying to be something it isn't like many areas in the Santa Clarita Valley. I was there for those purposes, I got what I wanted, and there was nothing more than I wanted. That seems to be how it goes for all other shoppers there.
Now, this was last Sunday. Today, we went back to Fry's so I could get another 400-slot DVD binder, and back to IKEA to eat. Last Sunday, Dad brought home some of the ribs he'd had there, I tried a piece on Tuesday, and wanted more. The cornbread that had come with his ribs was just sitting in the fridge, so I had that too, and I wanted all of IKEA's cornbread. If there's some kind of chemical agent in this food that's meant to enslave Americans and turn us into zombiefied consumers, moreso than usual, I'll take my chances.
This time, I had the ribs and the cornbread and found out that the ribs came with fries, so I had mustard with the fries, as well as spinach and cheese crepes and an almond cake with buttercream and butterscotch, the latter the main attraction of the cake since I love butterscotch. Every single time we go to IKEA, the food is excellent. It didn't change. There is a rigid consistency there that I wish many institutions in our country would learn, with the hope that things would get better by implementing it. IKEA can do it with Swedish meatballs alone. Ok, they've got a lot to answer for with the instructions included in those hopeless build-it-your-damn-self kits, but that consistency is awe-inspiring.
On the way home, we stopped at the Walmart that overlooks Six Flags Magic Mountain, and in the electronics department, there were holiday movie DVD displays. Last week, I got in the mail from Amazon A Charlie Brown Christmas, which is my favorite Christmas special. At Walmart, I found National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, my favorite Christmas movie. Any Christmas movie that has a SWAT team busting through a house is my kind of Christmas movie. Every time Cousin Eddie's dog yaks up that bone under the table and the whole thing shakes, I lose it, needing time to get off the floor and resume breathing normally.
I don't count today's errands as part of the four-week pleasure cruise, just an observation that some of what we did last Sunday carried over into this Sunday, sans the mall and Barnes & Noble. When we parked at IKEA, I was thinking about Galaga again, but it's not worth the stuck "fire" button. It's the one video game for which I like to make an effort. I don't play anything else.
Weekends like this one that include rollercoasters, pinball, Galaga, Swedish meatballs, macaroni and cheese, pumpkin pie, new books bought in a bookstore, DVDs, air hockey, crepes, do not happen often here. When it does, it's total pleasure without question. So it shall be where I know I can find this kind of happiness all the time. This is good training.
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Day 3, Part 1 of a Four-Week Pleasure Cruise
The Burbank Town Center Mall and its outlying areas, including IKEA and Barnes & Noble, are built for a maximum shopping experience and nothing more than that. There is no sense of community to be found there because people from all over visit, including Mom, Meridith and I last Sunday while Dad talked with the CEO and one of the other influential bigwigs from K12, which is all about online education. He arranged to pick them up from Burbank Airport after they dropped off their rental car, hours before their flight out, and take them to see Universal CityWalk, then drive them back to the airport for their flight. Dad had to meet them at 3, so we had plenty of time beforehand and therefore left the house at 11, on our way to Fry's in Burbank, where I constantly hope to meet Bill Prady, the co-creator of The Big Bang Theory, after learning months ago from his Twitter account that he shops at this Fry's.
Mom and Meridith wanted to look at waffle makers, and it was finally time for me to get a DVD binder. I'd researched a few online, and seen what Target offered in Case Logic binders, which I didn't buy because I don't like the stitching. It looks like it could come loose within a few months of heavy use. (I later learned from an acquaintance on Facebook who knows his DVD binders that he has a Case Logic binder. Still doesn't convince me.)
A visit to Fry's means a look at DVDs I can't find in Best Buy, what they won't sell because residents in my area aren't that willing to explore. I love that I can find The Big Kahuna, starring Kevin Spacey, Danny DeVito, and Peter Facinelli (which I own), as well as The Pajama Game (which I also own). Before Sunrise and Before Sunset are also there (I've got them too). I also spotted The X-Files: I Want to Believe, but not DVD sets of the TV series, which makes me wonder where Fry's priorities are, because that movie was garbage, and we finally deserve an epic alien conspiracy chapter in movie form. I also say this because I was hoping to find maybe one season set cheap enough, preferably the first season, and that's when I found that urgh-inducing sequel.
Whenever I'm at Fry's, and it's been a long time since the last time I was at Fry's, I always end up buying DVDs, but always ones that hew to one of my many interests. I nearly bought the Ethan Hawke Hamlet because I received in the mail the Kenneth Branagh epic version and it sparked my interest in other versions of Hamlet. But even for just $6, I didn't want to get it because if I didn't like it, I'm out 6 bucks. That doesn't square with my ordering books from abebooks.com that I've never read before, yet I spend money on those, but most don't go above $4. $3.95 with free shipping, though it's generally $1 for the book and the $2.95 for shipping is folded in, so the shipping technically isn't free. I'm still paying for it, but I don't mind. A movie demands time. A book lets you have as much time as you want. Something like that.
Then I found the new Patrick Stewart version from the Royal Shakespeare Company which was produced by the BBC, and even though it was $14 for a 3-hour DVD, I still wasn't sure. This is why I can't wait to have a local library again, when there's the chance of finding not only these versions of Hamlet, but adaptations of Shakespeare's other plays. I've never seen any version of King Lear, and I've heard intense things about that one. Shakespeare is not my favorite playwright, nor will I join in on that argument about whether he's the greatest playwright who ever lived thereby ruining it for future playwrights, but he does know how to wring the most drama out of any situation.
Walking through the aisles of DVDs, I checked the concert DVDs for Phil Collins and Sade, and found nothing of Sade, and of Phil Collins, his Finally! The First Farewell Tour and Serious Hits...Live!. Both over $20 and neither really worth it to me, since I love the energy of his Live and Loose in Paris concert that I proudly own on DVD. I checked out Serious Hits...Live! from the Valencia library many years ago, and didn't think much of it. Good for the songs, but not to watch again.
I also kept in mind Dragnet, anything about Las Vegas, and any movies I like and want on DVD. That was the case when I found the double-disc set of Sister Act and Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit. I like the first one, Dad likes the second one, always watches it whenever it's on one of the cable channels. So he can have what he likes whenever he wants, and I can have what I like, though I'm keeping both in my DVD collection.
In the TV DVDs, I found Dragnet for $3.99, four episodes from the 1950s series, these episodes from 1953. I was hoping for more Dragnet than that, but I'll take what I can get because I like Jack Webb. His writing is no-nonsense, but there's a kind of clear-eyed urban poetry to it, and his business-like narration gives it an interesting air of authority. He can be understanding, but you wouldn't want to mess with him if you were any kind of criminal on that show. He knows Los Angeles intimately, and the research he did for the series served him very well. I keep meaning to listen to the Dragnet radio show from the late '40s, and now that I'm spending more time on the computer doing research for my second book, I should and I will.
In the drama section, I found The Time of Your Life starring James Cagney for $3.99, from Alpha Video, the same company that put out the Dragnet DVD I found (That also reminds me that I still have the 1954 Dragnet feature film on the living room Tivo). I'd bought it once at the 99-Cents Only store, but didn't watch it and eventually got rid of it because I had too many DVDs, this being years before I only just recently figured out that a DVD binder is the best solution.
I like that The Time of Your Life takes place in a bar, yet another self-contained world that, in this case, can't reach out to anyone or anywhere else. And there's a pinball machine in the movie. It doesn't take much to get me interested in a movie. For example, I will follow director Joseph Kosinski anywhere because of the creatively inspiring dystopian visuals in Tron: Legacy. When his next movie comes out, I'm there.
This time, I will watch The Time of Your Life, considering that it was a passion project for Cagney and his brother William. Plus, the little I saw of it a few years ago I really liked because Cagney is the center of that world.
I nearly passed by the small documentary section, stopped and went right there. I found a DVD containing footage of flying over Florida, past Walt Disney World, and thought I might like it, but the DVD rattled inside the case, which meant it was loose, and I didn't want to spend $10 on a DVD that could be scratched up. Plus it was a sign that even though I could still fondly remember what I loved about Florida, I needed to fully concentrate on my future home. Not that I haven't, but there's nothing in Florida anymore for me. Too many years have passed. It was right then that I found Vegas: The City the Mob Made, a 10-episode documentary acreoss two discs. No DVD was loose inside the case, and what better way to learn much more about the history of Las Vegas? After we finally move to Henderson, I'm ransacking the Nevada history sections of the Clark County and Henderson library systems, but for now, this will do along with the Las Vegas books I've already bought.
After spending over 45 minutes in these DVD sections, I went to where Mom, Dad and Meridith were, among the binders I needed. There was a TekNMotion binder that looked sturdy enough, held 400 DVDs, and was $35. I needed a binder already and this was it. I bought it, of course, along with the DVDs, and spent the next day putting nearly all my DVDs into that binder. I have to buy another binder to fit the 100 or so DVDs that are left.
It always seems to me that IKEA exists for those massive changes you want to make in your lifestyle. You don't like how your house is decorated, so you decide to spend hours at IKEA to see what might fit you. And if you do go to IKEA for little things, you don't spend as much time because you know exactly what you need. The little things for me are Swedish meatballs, and after Dad dropped us off at the sidewalk in front of IKEA, we went right to them. Three trays on a cart piled with three dishes of Swedish meatballs with gravy and lingonberry sauce, with one side of mashed potatoes and two sides of macaroni and cheese, one side of spinach-and-cheese crepes (for me), one side of french fries (mostly for me), a slice of Swedish apple cake (for me), one separate side of macaroni and cheese (for Meridith), and little paper cups filled with ranch dressing and mustard. Whenever Meridith and I see those dispensers, we always get overenthusiastic. She filled 6 cups with ranch dressing for her, and 6 cups with mustard for me. And there was also three slices of garlic bread, one for me, one for Mom, and one for Meridith. It's great garlic bread, with the garlic an even flavor.
We found that the best table was one that Mom originally wanted to avoid because it was right next to where people stand in line, if the line gets that long. But sitting there, you don't have to weave past other tables to get to yours, you don't have to wait when others get up before you can get to your table, you can just do whatever you need to when you want to, including going back to the drink dispensers to refill glasses with "lingonberry drink," as IKEA calls it.
Those Swedish meatballs are pure heaven. IKEA isn't working to try anything fancy with what it serves. It knows what works and it sticks with it. I like it for that reason, that I can go there and know that the spinach and cheese crepes are going to be exactly how I like them. They changed cakes since last time, introducing this Swedish apple cake which was not as good as the chocolate cake they had last time. I'm hoping for a new one when we go next.
After dinner, Mom looked at a few things, I got a bag of individually wrapped milk chocolates with butterscotch pieces inside (I love butterscotch and always seek out anything that has it), we got ice cream from the counter near the exit, and then went to Burbank Town Center Mall. It's a nicely-designed mall with three floors, and it has to be because it can't muck about. You dither with your business and you're gone, just like Steve & Barry's, which used to be on the top floor of the parking garage, next to those parking spaces, above Barnes & Noble, but that t-shirt emporium is gone and that space is still empty. Partly the economy, but mostly byzantine business practices that I'm sure are still trying to be figured out by those involved in it, even with the business long gone.
If you want clothes, there's plenty of clothing stores. Need lotion, there's Bath & Body Works. Just want to walk around, there's a lot to look at. This is one mall that actually meets needs. It's not trying things internally that ultimately make no sense to customers. What you want, they've got it. For me, that was All Amusement, which sounded like video games, which don't rapidly interest me unless it's Galaga, and pinball, which always does. I had to wait for Mom, Dad and Meridith to come out of Bath & Body Works, and it was an adventure all its own in trying to find a bench since all of them were taken, and when I sensed someone was getting up, I rushed to that bench, but the person I thought was getting up wasn't getting up so quickly. I still waited, and then as soon as they got up and cleared it, I grabbed it. Turns out I didn't need it since not 30 seconds later, there they were outside of Bath & Body Works. No matter, since we went down the escalator to the second floor, spotted Macy's, walked toward that, and there was All Amusement. Glorious, joyous All Amusement. Everything I could want in one arcade. There was a Pac-Man/Galaga arcade machine, Lord of the Rings and The Simpsons pinball (That would be so cool if it was one machine, but it was two), and air hockey for me and Meridith.
(I didn't think I'd need a part 2 for this entry, but I do. More book research calls. The rest of this tomorrow.)
Mom and Meridith wanted to look at waffle makers, and it was finally time for me to get a DVD binder. I'd researched a few online, and seen what Target offered in Case Logic binders, which I didn't buy because I don't like the stitching. It looks like it could come loose within a few months of heavy use. (I later learned from an acquaintance on Facebook who knows his DVD binders that he has a Case Logic binder. Still doesn't convince me.)
A visit to Fry's means a look at DVDs I can't find in Best Buy, what they won't sell because residents in my area aren't that willing to explore. I love that I can find The Big Kahuna, starring Kevin Spacey, Danny DeVito, and Peter Facinelli (which I own), as well as The Pajama Game (which I also own). Before Sunrise and Before Sunset are also there (I've got them too). I also spotted The X-Files: I Want to Believe, but not DVD sets of the TV series, which makes me wonder where Fry's priorities are, because that movie was garbage, and we finally deserve an epic alien conspiracy chapter in movie form. I also say this because I was hoping to find maybe one season set cheap enough, preferably the first season, and that's when I found that urgh-inducing sequel.
Whenever I'm at Fry's, and it's been a long time since the last time I was at Fry's, I always end up buying DVDs, but always ones that hew to one of my many interests. I nearly bought the Ethan Hawke Hamlet because I received in the mail the Kenneth Branagh epic version and it sparked my interest in other versions of Hamlet. But even for just $6, I didn't want to get it because if I didn't like it, I'm out 6 bucks. That doesn't square with my ordering books from abebooks.com that I've never read before, yet I spend money on those, but most don't go above $4. $3.95 with free shipping, though it's generally $1 for the book and the $2.95 for shipping is folded in, so the shipping technically isn't free. I'm still paying for it, but I don't mind. A movie demands time. A book lets you have as much time as you want. Something like that.
Then I found the new Patrick Stewart version from the Royal Shakespeare Company which was produced by the BBC, and even though it was $14 for a 3-hour DVD, I still wasn't sure. This is why I can't wait to have a local library again, when there's the chance of finding not only these versions of Hamlet, but adaptations of Shakespeare's other plays. I've never seen any version of King Lear, and I've heard intense things about that one. Shakespeare is not my favorite playwright, nor will I join in on that argument about whether he's the greatest playwright who ever lived thereby ruining it for future playwrights, but he does know how to wring the most drama out of any situation.
Walking through the aisles of DVDs, I checked the concert DVDs for Phil Collins and Sade, and found nothing of Sade, and of Phil Collins, his Finally! The First Farewell Tour and Serious Hits...Live!. Both over $20 and neither really worth it to me, since I love the energy of his Live and Loose in Paris concert that I proudly own on DVD. I checked out Serious Hits...Live! from the Valencia library many years ago, and didn't think much of it. Good for the songs, but not to watch again.
I also kept in mind Dragnet, anything about Las Vegas, and any movies I like and want on DVD. That was the case when I found the double-disc set of Sister Act and Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit. I like the first one, Dad likes the second one, always watches it whenever it's on one of the cable channels. So he can have what he likes whenever he wants, and I can have what I like, though I'm keeping both in my DVD collection.
In the TV DVDs, I found Dragnet for $3.99, four episodes from the 1950s series, these episodes from 1953. I was hoping for more Dragnet than that, but I'll take what I can get because I like Jack Webb. His writing is no-nonsense, but there's a kind of clear-eyed urban poetry to it, and his business-like narration gives it an interesting air of authority. He can be understanding, but you wouldn't want to mess with him if you were any kind of criminal on that show. He knows Los Angeles intimately, and the research he did for the series served him very well. I keep meaning to listen to the Dragnet radio show from the late '40s, and now that I'm spending more time on the computer doing research for my second book, I should and I will.
In the drama section, I found The Time of Your Life starring James Cagney for $3.99, from Alpha Video, the same company that put out the Dragnet DVD I found (That also reminds me that I still have the 1954 Dragnet feature film on the living room Tivo). I'd bought it once at the 99-Cents Only store, but didn't watch it and eventually got rid of it because I had too many DVDs, this being years before I only just recently figured out that a DVD binder is the best solution.
I like that The Time of Your Life takes place in a bar, yet another self-contained world that, in this case, can't reach out to anyone or anywhere else. And there's a pinball machine in the movie. It doesn't take much to get me interested in a movie. For example, I will follow director Joseph Kosinski anywhere because of the creatively inspiring dystopian visuals in Tron: Legacy. When his next movie comes out, I'm there.
This time, I will watch The Time of Your Life, considering that it was a passion project for Cagney and his brother William. Plus, the little I saw of it a few years ago I really liked because Cagney is the center of that world.
I nearly passed by the small documentary section, stopped and went right there. I found a DVD containing footage of flying over Florida, past Walt Disney World, and thought I might like it, but the DVD rattled inside the case, which meant it was loose, and I didn't want to spend $10 on a DVD that could be scratched up. Plus it was a sign that even though I could still fondly remember what I loved about Florida, I needed to fully concentrate on my future home. Not that I haven't, but there's nothing in Florida anymore for me. Too many years have passed. It was right then that I found Vegas: The City the Mob Made, a 10-episode documentary acreoss two discs. No DVD was loose inside the case, and what better way to learn much more about the history of Las Vegas? After we finally move to Henderson, I'm ransacking the Nevada history sections of the Clark County and Henderson library systems, but for now, this will do along with the Las Vegas books I've already bought.
After spending over 45 minutes in these DVD sections, I went to where Mom, Dad and Meridith were, among the binders I needed. There was a TekNMotion binder that looked sturdy enough, held 400 DVDs, and was $35. I needed a binder already and this was it. I bought it, of course, along with the DVDs, and spent the next day putting nearly all my DVDs into that binder. I have to buy another binder to fit the 100 or so DVDs that are left.
It always seems to me that IKEA exists for those massive changes you want to make in your lifestyle. You don't like how your house is decorated, so you decide to spend hours at IKEA to see what might fit you. And if you do go to IKEA for little things, you don't spend as much time because you know exactly what you need. The little things for me are Swedish meatballs, and after Dad dropped us off at the sidewalk in front of IKEA, we went right to them. Three trays on a cart piled with three dishes of Swedish meatballs with gravy and lingonberry sauce, with one side of mashed potatoes and two sides of macaroni and cheese, one side of spinach-and-cheese crepes (for me), one side of french fries (mostly for me), a slice of Swedish apple cake (for me), one separate side of macaroni and cheese (for Meridith), and little paper cups filled with ranch dressing and mustard. Whenever Meridith and I see those dispensers, we always get overenthusiastic. She filled 6 cups with ranch dressing for her, and 6 cups with mustard for me. And there was also three slices of garlic bread, one for me, one for Mom, and one for Meridith. It's great garlic bread, with the garlic an even flavor.
We found that the best table was one that Mom originally wanted to avoid because it was right next to where people stand in line, if the line gets that long. But sitting there, you don't have to weave past other tables to get to yours, you don't have to wait when others get up before you can get to your table, you can just do whatever you need to when you want to, including going back to the drink dispensers to refill glasses with "lingonberry drink," as IKEA calls it.
Those Swedish meatballs are pure heaven. IKEA isn't working to try anything fancy with what it serves. It knows what works and it sticks with it. I like it for that reason, that I can go there and know that the spinach and cheese crepes are going to be exactly how I like them. They changed cakes since last time, introducing this Swedish apple cake which was not as good as the chocolate cake they had last time. I'm hoping for a new one when we go next.
After dinner, Mom looked at a few things, I got a bag of individually wrapped milk chocolates with butterscotch pieces inside (I love butterscotch and always seek out anything that has it), we got ice cream from the counter near the exit, and then went to Burbank Town Center Mall. It's a nicely-designed mall with three floors, and it has to be because it can't muck about. You dither with your business and you're gone, just like Steve & Barry's, which used to be on the top floor of the parking garage, next to those parking spaces, above Barnes & Noble, but that t-shirt emporium is gone and that space is still empty. Partly the economy, but mostly byzantine business practices that I'm sure are still trying to be figured out by those involved in it, even with the business long gone.
If you want clothes, there's plenty of clothing stores. Need lotion, there's Bath & Body Works. Just want to walk around, there's a lot to look at. This is one mall that actually meets needs. It's not trying things internally that ultimately make no sense to customers. What you want, they've got it. For me, that was All Amusement, which sounded like video games, which don't rapidly interest me unless it's Galaga, and pinball, which always does. I had to wait for Mom, Dad and Meridith to come out of Bath & Body Works, and it was an adventure all its own in trying to find a bench since all of them were taken, and when I sensed someone was getting up, I rushed to that bench, but the person I thought was getting up wasn't getting up so quickly. I still waited, and then as soon as they got up and cleared it, I grabbed it. Turns out I didn't need it since not 30 seconds later, there they were outside of Bath & Body Works. No matter, since we went down the escalator to the second floor, spotted Macy's, walked toward that, and there was All Amusement. Glorious, joyous All Amusement. Everything I could want in one arcade. There was a Pac-Man/Galaga arcade machine, Lord of the Rings and The Simpsons pinball (That would be so cool if it was one machine, but it was two), and air hockey for me and Meridith.
(I didn't think I'd need a part 2 for this entry, but I do. More book research calls. The rest of this tomorrow.)
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