Red Elephant

Brain Dump

Stream of Consciousness links post today, folks:

First of all, I am super excited that Jonathan Lethem won a MacArthur Fellowship. Actually, check out his site, the front pages cycles through a number of different images each time you load it.

He's one of my favorite genre fiction writers, or perhaps cross-genre writer would be a better description. He's written a bizarre romance between a man, woman & a scientific anomaly. He's written the story of a teenage girl that is a frontier-environmental psychological novel that takes place on another planet -- that has deer the size of mice.

I really loved Motherless Brooklyn, which is the story of a detective with Tourette's, which is being made into a movie by Edward Norton, who will also be starring as Lionel. I don't know how many of you saw The Score, but I think he'll do a faithful, yet tasteful job of playing someone with Tourette's. It should be interesting since in the book Lionel is perfectly able to narrate to us in normal tones about what's going on & how he responds to his Tourette's. But the tics themselves are considerably harder to handle.

While I'm on the subject of movie adaptations, I'm quite interested in Steve Martin's Shopgirl. I liked the novella quite a bit. It reads a bit like Milan Kundera, but in an American style, that is to say, it's a bit lighter. Instead of being set against, say, the Prague Spring, this May to December romance/love triangle is set in New York at the end of the 90s. Plus it's got Jason Schwartzman & Claire Danes. [hawt]

I've also been fascinated by the combination of plotting information on to Google Maps. There's the obvious usefulness of posting real estate listings. There's the pure entertainment of mapping HotOrNot. And there's the strange mixture of the two when you start mapping sex offenders.

Maybe even better than Nixon Bowling, is the ability to check out Celebrities Playing Table Tennis. Man, I wish I had a table. I also wish I had the Achiever's Edition of the Big Lebowski, which is coming out the same time as LebowskiFest-NYC this year. Yes, I'm a big nerd for wanting to go, but I have a feeling that Jim and I will hit the road one of these days for some serious bowling/movie action.

The British Library has an online exhibit of really old books, like the Diamond Sutra and Alice's Adventures Underground. I found the pages kind of hard to turn, but you can also have the audio read to you while you check it out.

Ever wonder to yourself, "What should I read next?" Well, here's a collection of answers for you. Just enter the last book you read, or a favorite book, and it'll do the rest.

If you are a fan, you might want to listen to cover versions of songs by The Magnetic Fields. Even if you are not a fan.

According to Jeff Roland, Sam Jackson is going to star in a movie about Snakes on a Plane. Damn.

For you hipsters out there, check out the annotated lyrics to LCD Soundsystem's "Losing My Edge." Follow along at home. Tell your friends. You were there.

Finally, Will bananas become extinct?

Write More

I've been a list-maker again lately, and near the top is getting back to writing. For myself, for public consumption, anything to get the old muscles working again.

I'm really interested in short fiction lately. New on my radar is 365 Tomorrows. I love it first & foremost because it's short sci-fi stories, different visions of the future. But it's also a collaborative writing project. Five writers got together [along with a web-savvy compatriot] and decided to publish one new short piece of fiction for a year. Ambitious, but not all that difficult. It just comes down to dedicating the time.

Of course, I'm a fan of McSweeneys, both internet & print editions. But for some reason, I've been neglecting The Believer online. And while I've been a fan for a while, I actually have some bizarre little story ideas that I need to work up & submit. While it would be neat to get a short on the website -- or on something like Fray -- the process is the important thing. Like Max, who decided that he was going to do a graphic novel & then a webcomic, the main thing came down to sitting down & drawing regularly until it was done.

And, oh yes, he also did a novel last November. Again, it's about putting in the time.

...

Speaking of putting in the time, Max and I have been talking about getting fat. About making excuses to write, draw, housekeep, drink, or anything but exercise. Granted, there is still yoga Monday nights, but my personal practice has suffered. Thankfully, Kat & Nick have been good at taking me up on bike-rides. Nick and I did nine or ten miles tonight, so that was really good.

But back to getting fat. I've weighed myself a couple of times in the last week, and it's come out to about 200 lbs. each time. Let me write that out, two hundred pounds. Now, this isn't a huge deal. [Pun not intended, but kept.] I eat fairly healthily, and I do keep active, but it is a big paradigm shift. I've hovered at about 165-170 since high school, when I topped out at 185 while taking weight training.

Granted, I've probably put on some muscle with yoga, but I think there's more to it than that. Seems to me it's a combination of increased muscle mass & then some poor choices in the past couple of months with regards to diet and my yoga practice.

But more than anything else, it's changing the idea of my body image. It's not just my pants that are shrinking, I'm coming in at two bills. And while that may be just what I weigh at this age, I can certainly be in better shape. So, time to replace the biscuits and gravy for breakfast [for only $1.50 at the shop across the street] with some fruit smoothies. Get rid of the candy & get some more dried fruit.

And oh yes, get on the bike & back on the mat.

When I'm not writing, that is.

Treasure Trove

Just got back from my grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary party at my parents' house. Man, what a day. It went a lot longer than I had anticipated, but it was their day, so I have no complaints. The food was good, the company was better, and the memories were amazing.

For starters, I found my grandparents' old 8mm projector and a whole bunch of old family home movies. And yes, they are movies and not videos. So, we sat back with the clickety-clack of an old projector, some golden oldies on the stereo, and watched some old films.

We started with some old vacation shots, trips to Minnesota, back before my parents were dating, to some places I've never been, much less heard of. Films of my mom, my uncle, their parents, and their dogs -- half Chihuauas. Pretty much a trip.

The real gems were the films of 'XMAS 1962,' my dad & uncle's state championship for baseball, and my mom's senior prom. The Christmas film was pretty amazing, as there were all sorts of great aunts & uncles, some of whom are dead. There was also footage of my great-grandpa Frank, who I've heard about but never really seen before.

Then there was seeing my mom as a teenager, and a prom queen no less, on a date with some guy who was not my father. My dad was on the same reel, as he was the same age as my uncle Joe, Mom's bro. There's mom in a prom dress with long white gloves. There's my dad at about fifteen or sixteen in a black suit with a skinny black tie. And there's my grandma with 60s glasses and a killer lavender dress.

It was really amazing. I've never been much for home movies, but then I never knew these existed. It's one thing to see pictures of your parents as kids, but another thing altogether to see them getting ready for dates, fishing, or playing ball. It was amazing to watch them as they saw people they hadn't seen in years, sometimes struggling for names, sometimes instantly transported as the faces reminded them of other stories.

I'd really like to restore these old films, maybe transfer them to DVD for the rest of the family. As for me, I'd rather keep the old school projector and make that part of the experience. There's something about the medium that has it's own charm.

Furthermore, my Aunt Karan -- dad's sister -- was reminded of some old films from her mom & dad, both of whom have passed on. She doesn't even know what was on them, and had no way to know until now. So, that's another exciting development.

And, for what it's worth, I hope to find the old camera and maybe shoot some footage myself. I never put much stock into home movies before. However, there is something about it, about knowing that your parents were once your age, that they were young & beautiful, that they partied hard in their own way.

And there's the simplicity of how it can bring back memories. I don't have any home videos from my childhood, not that I regret not having them. But I think there is something to be said for preserving. Not spending all your time trying to capture every memory, but for saving a choice few & letting time dictate what memories it will bring back.