Being Mr. and Mrs. Bobby Brown

Mr. Bobby Brown is on Bravo Television in a show called Being Bobby Brown tonight, (June 30th) at 10 p.m.  That's one of those educational tv's, isn't it?  According to articles I've been reading, Bobby was taped for six months, and the show includes scenes where Bobby almost goes to jail, picks the lock of a hotel mini-bar (don't try this one Landon, Laprincia, Bobbi Kristina and Bobby, Jr.), as well as posing with adoring fans.  That New York paper said those "...expecting a train wreck will have to settle for a major fender bender." 

I just wanna say that Mr. Bobby Brown is my drug of choice, and I am NOT on coke.  I am in rehab to get my chakrahs realigned.  Not Chakah Khan, fool...CHAKRAHS.  I'm gonna rock ya Chakkrah-khan! Make me feeeel for ya.

To quote from Mr. Smokey Robinson:

"I don't care what they think about me
I don't care what they say
I don't care what they think if you're leaving
I'm gonna beg you to stay
I don't care if they start to avoid me
I don't care what they do
I don't care about anything else
But being with you, being with you."

My Bobby called me just the other night and told me his life was like Mr. Charlie Brown's in that he was always having the football of his career kicked out from under him like Miss Lucy yanking at his ball and not even that little red-headed girl cares about him anymore.  I say "Curse you Red Baron of the fickle public."  I mean good grief!  Y'know what I'm sayin'?  I am that little red-headed girl, (see photo), and ayeeeee eeeee eyeeee will always love you, Mr. Bobby Brown.

I've got to go.  It's time for my aura therapy.  I want a purple IV this time.  Oh yeah...crack is whack.

            

Guest Blogger: Matt

A Guest Blog Visit From Cubic's Friend, Matt:  

 

A major research institution has just announced the discovery of the heaviest element yet known to science. The new element has been named "Governmentium". Governmentium has one neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 224 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 311. These 311 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert. However, it can be detected, as it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A minute amount of Governmentium causes one reaction to take over 4 days to complete, when it would normally take less than a second. Governmentium has a normal half-life of 4 years; it does not decay, but, instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places.

In fact, Governmentium's mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes. This characteristic of moron-promotion leads some scientists to believe that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as "Critical Morass". When catalyzed with money Governmentium becomes Administratium, an element which radiates just as much energy, since it has 1/2 as many peons but twice as many morons.

                                               

 

not written by Washington Cube

What's Up With Mary Worth?

Who Gives A Flying F#%$

I was looking back at all of the books I've read recently, and I realized I never wanted my blog to be one long review list of books-music-film, and yet...that's just what I did this weekend...read four books.

Several things caught my eye this past week:  Tom Cruise goes on Oprah and he's sofa jumping proclaiming his love to a woman young enough to be his daughter (which is mainly seen as a publicity ploy for his upcoming movie), spending the next week in the media eye "defending" himself, then Oprah goes to Hermes in Paris and is allegedly snubbed because they wouldn't admit her after closing hours (they were also hosting a private party at the time), Lindsey Lohan, attending a red carpet event at the new DeBeers Diamond store in Manhattan, standing amidst heckling protesters "gushed" that she would love to wear a DeBeers necklace "one day," and when asked about the issues involving "blood diamonds" and bushmen was quoted as saying "I don't get involved in any drama," (guess they should have asked her about her father, or Hillary Duff or her "there they are, oops, they're gone" breasts).

I was talking to a friend about the flood of  attention the media gives this crappola, and he said "all of these so called entertainers feel that they deserve godlike treatment because they guide us poor slobs through the morass that is our lives."  Well...it made me laugh.

                 

                      "I know I left them around here somewhere."

Book: The Lost German Slave Girl

Book:  The Lost German Slave Girl:  The Extraordinary True Story of Sally Miller and Her Fight for Freedom in Old New Orleans--John Bailey (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2003).  One day, while sitting in a law library in New Orleans researching a possible book on slave laws and how they affected the day to day relations of slaves and their rights, author John Bailey stumbled upon the case of Sally Miller.  Leaving Germany with her family in the early 1800's, Salome Muller's mother died at sea, her father died shortly after arriving in America, and the children were consigned as working slaves.  Later in life, the question was further complicated when a German family, the Schubers, who had known the Mullers swore that a slave they had found working in the French Quarter was, in fact, Salome.  Who was Sally Miller?  Was she Salome Muller, a long-lost German immigrant girl enslaved by a Southern planter? Or was she really a light-skinned black woman, shrewd enough to exploit her only opportunity for freedom?   Struck by her remarkable resemblance to their late cousin Dorothea Muller, and unusual birthmarks exactly like the daughter Salome's, the Schubers claimed Sally as kin and set about trying to prove her identity as Salome and obtain her freedom. Bailey brings to life the fierce legal proceedings with vivid strokes. The Miller case was controversial because her owner, the perfect Southern gentleman John Fitz Miller, faced disgrace if proved to have forced a white German girl into slavery. The case was heard several times in appeal, and Bailey delves into the bewildering array of possible identities turned up for Sally by numerous witnesses as well as the complexities of 19th-century Louisiana slave law and the status of black women. Sally herself remains an enigma at the center of this highly engrossing tale. 

Early on in the book Bailey explains that the Creole slavocracy created an extensive vocabulary for the grades of miscegenation:

Mulatto:  The pairing from a White and an African.

Quadroon:  The pairing from a White and a Mulatto.

Griffe:  The pairing from a Mulatto and an African.

Metif:  The pairing from a White and a Quadroon.

Marabon:  The pairing from a Mulatto and a Griffe.

Sacatra:  The pairing from a Griffe and an African.

Meamelouc:  The pairing from a White and a Metif.

Sang-Melee:  The pairing from a White and a Meamelouc.

The universal rule of the South was that if the mother was a slave, so was her child.  The law was contained by the term partus sequitur ventrem, literally "that which is brought forth from the womb."  Partus sequitur ventrem was a rule calculated to perpetuate slavery through generations.  Bondage was transmutted like a birth defect.  Even if a parent later reached their freedom, their children, born as slaves, remained slaves and were removed from the freed parent.  Bailey's book offered fascinating insight, for me, into the laws and customs of slavery, immigration and racial mixing.

                                        

 

 

Book: Anonymous: Enigmatic Images From Unknown Photographers

        

                                United Kingdom, 1880

Book:  Anonymous:  Enigmatic Images From Unknown Photographers--Robert Flynn Johnson (Thames & Hudson, 2004).

By presenting a collection of anonymous photographs the author, Robert Flynn Johnson, asks the reader to consider what it is about a photograph that makes it memorable:  what criteria do we, as viewers, bring to our evaluation of a photograph that makes it stand out beyond others.  What, in short, makes a photograph good?

Johnson breaks down his images into thirteen ways we view photographs:

1)  Aide-memoire--using the camera as an visual analogue of a potential memory.  The photograph functions simply as a way of recalling and summoning the past. 

2)  Reportage--The public face of the previous catagory.  Images of wars, historic moments, natural disasters, with the camera acting as testimony to the event.

3)  Work of art--The camera trying to replicate the classic tropes of painting or sculpture.

4)  Topography--This category relates to the former, but in essence tries to capture the effect of "painted landscape."

5)  Erotica and pornography--the gamut of sexual images is extensive from titillation to hard core.

6)  Advertisement--Photographs programmed for allurement or bait with the idea of temptation into purchase.

7)  Abstract Image--A sub-category of painting, but often done in close-up or with cropping so that the arrangement is considered as shape or mass.

8)  Literature--"Reading" a photograph as part of a narrative or short story.

9)  Text--Photographs of signs, of writing, of comic misspellings.

10)  Autobiography--Will all the photographs a person takes in his or her life be as much a record of that individual as anything written down?

11)  Composition--Sub-category of the art photograph, with composed arrangements.

12)  Means to an end tool--photographs used to illustrate textbooks, used in crime scenes, discarded Polaroids of the professional photographer.

13)  Snapshot--A split second in time of the world's history, a capturing of human enterprise and condition.

Ultimately, Johnson feels, there is an inherent melancholy in photographs.  Even lives recorded by the camera as vital and present will, over time, become ghosts.  Thus, the inevitability of death hovers gently over all photographs.

      

                        United States, 1940

Book: Tallulah!: The Life & Times Of A Leading Lady--Joel Lobenthal

I just finished reading a biography of the actress Tallulah Bankhead (1902-1968).  The author, Joel Lobenthal, began researching his book while still an undergraduate in college, not publishing until 25 years later.  Bankhead was born in Alabama, and she came from a heritage of Congressmen, lawyers and judges.  Barely 16, Bankhead fled to New York to become an actress, and before she was 20 she was a success on the Lonndon stage, already notorious for what would become her life-long history of profligate sex and alcohol-related escapades. Her lovers crossed every boundary from single men and women, to the married, to other races, to homosexual (male and female), Billie Holliday being one of the most infamous. 

Her major film role was in Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat, but she is remembered primarily for her stage roles, most notably as Regina Giddins in Lillian Hellmann's Little Foxes, a part Bette Davis later brought to film.  Falling further into her substance abuses, her career faltered in her fifties, and her later years were spent alone and craving an audience.  A woman of wit and a great raconteur, here are some of her notable quotes:

Here's a rule I recommend: Never practice  two  vices at once.

I'm as pure as the driven slush.

 

It's the good girls who keep diaries; the bad girls never have the time.

 

If I had to live my life again, I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner.

...and on a minor note:  Demi Moore named one of her daughters after her.

Cooking For Seniors & Eastern Shore Brothers & Geezer Humor

A few years ago, I decided to start cooking Thanksgiving dinner for a handful of seniors that live in my neighborhood.  They had family, but distant, and it seemed like a nice way to ensure they had a taste of Thanksgiving.  I had never cooked for older people before, but some basic rules seemed self-evident: Keep it simple.  No dressing with oysters, no gourmet vegetables, don't over spice things and leave it to the standard fare.  That cooking experience went over well, and I continued to do it, expanding it out to Christmas, and some meals during those cold, snowy days, but I rarely cook for them during the hotter summer months.   When I do cook for them in the summer it's usually cooler foods like chicken salad.

Here are a few of the things I've learned since starting this courtesy:

*   Nothing too spicy--this is more of a challenge than you would think.  As we age, our sense of taste diminishes, and often you need to be wary of salt (high blood pressure), or peppers (digestion).

*  Make sure they can chew it--this eliminates a lot of meats, but more on that in a minute.

*  Small portions--they pick away at rolls and sweets and a lot goes to waste.  I've learned over time to buy small rolls, bake mini muffins, or make small cookies.  You can buy small pre-packaged cookies (lunch box size) now, and this has been a real boon.

*  Small containers--coming out of the Depression of the 1920's, they all hate to see food go unused.  It's a real issue with them, some to the point that they don't want Meals on Wheels because "it will only go to waste."  Luckily we live in an age of the small, disposable containers that have a visual and psychological effect to establish nothing will be left.

*  Sweets--apparently, from what I've learned, we never lose our sweet tooth.  They love chocolate, and they love ice cream.  Luckily, there are no diabetics that I feed, so sugar isn't an issue.

* Containers--they have to be able to open it.  When you're young, you take so much for granted--like pop tops on soda cans.  Not easy at 94.

All of the people I feed (and the group is four people, ages 85-94) live in their own homes, most have daytime caregivers, and they remain amazingly self-sufficient.  Luckily, none in my little group have any special health needs or allergies, and while they eat sparingly, they do like home cooked food. 

Tonight I decided to cook them a brisket, after one of the older women I know told me "I am so sick of chicken."  (I had been buying her chicken nuggets, at her request, because she can microwave them easily.  Granted, I had to teach her how to use a microwave, but that's another story).  So dinner, which I'm about to go deliver, is brisket (some of the meat sliced thinly and some pulled so they can make sandwiches), small rolls, mini blueberry muffins for breakfast tomorrow, small pudding cup packages, mashed potatoes, applesauce (again those small containers), string beans, and cut up watermelon bites.  Brisket is a great meat for the elderly because it can be cooked quite tender which makes it easier for them to chew and digest.

Now...about the Eastern Shore brother.  While I was cooking a male friend called me from San Francisco.  "Oh...yeah...you're cooking for your old people."   He said,  "Did I ever tell you about my brother over on the Eastern Shore?  One time we were out riding on one of those back country roads....he will never take a main road...it always has to be those back roads, and we got stuck behind this car driving slow..and my brother started screaming "POLYESTER GEEZERS.  POLYESTER GEEZERS."  Why are you going on like that", I asked him, and he said "there's polyester geezers all over the road"...so they got past that car, then got stuck behind a truck bearing chickens, and the brother starting screaming CHICKEN FARMING BASTARDS.  CHICKEN FARMING BASTARDS....and so on down the road with an epithet for everyone.  Another time, this same brother left a message on my friend's answering machine at work that said "This is yer bruther.  I'm sitting here pouring beer down my neck and turning cheap beer into piss."  

My San Fran friend also told me a geezer joke.  A man runs into his buddy and says "I just bought the best kind of hearing aid, and his friend said "What kind is it," and he said "About  a quarter to four."

So that's about as hot as my Friday night is going to get.  This week.  In the kitchen.

P.S. My San Francisco friend just read this piece and said "It's just like we talked it," but he also added, jokingly, "It's like those care and feeding books for pets."

        

                              Chicken Farming Bastard Truck

Cocktail Of The Week: The Letter "J"

I met a new bartender tonight: Mr. Personality Plus, and isn't it a relief to find someone working in a people service industry with people skills?  We swapped names, shook hands, and I asked him what was popular to drink right now.  He rattled off the usual things you would think of to swill (and I was surprised Appletini's are still on the list), and he said "Yanno.  Bartenders have their own favorites, and it's never compares to what the people who are coming into bars are drinking."  He said he had been in Chicago for a while, and there it was chilled Sambuca, but here, with the bartending crowd, it was a shot of Grand Marnier followed by a beer.  I looked behind the bar and noted that the Grand Marnier bottle was just about polished off.

My new "J" cocktails for this week are:  Japanese Slick Sex, and Jamaican Bug a la Bill (the bartender..this is his variation on the drink).

Japanese Slick Sex

1 oz Malibu® coconut rum
1 oz Midori® melon liqueur
2 oz orange juice
2 oz pineapple juice

Pour the Malibu rum and Midori melon liqueur into a highball glass filled with ice cubes. Top with equal parts of orange and pineapple juice, and serve.  Serve in a highball glass.

  Jamaican Bug a la Bill  

1/2 ounce light rum

 1/2 ounce dark rum

 1/2 ounce apricot schnapps

 1/2 ounce mango liqueur

 1/2 ounce peach schnapps

 orange juice

 pineapple juice

Grenadine to float  

 Mixed in a chilled cocktail shaker and serve in a collins glass.  

   

                     Japanese Slick Sex 

                      

                                  Jamaican Bug a la Bill  

Bartender Bill had me try something new:  a Key Lime Martini (Stoli vanilla, lime juice, with a splash of pineapple juice.  The glass is rimmed with graham cracker crumbs).  An amazing summer drink.  Not to talk out of school, but he told me his female cousin comes to the bar and knocks them back all night.      

Can We Have A Schvitz On It?

I was reading in DCist this morning about Jack Abramoff's problems with the Senate Indian Affairs Committee and his alleged defrauding of Native American tribes, conjoined with his opening of two Kosher eateries in the power corridor:

 

One Committee's Three Hours of Inquiry, in Surreal Time

By Dana Milbank  , Thursday, June 23, 2005; Page A06

Yesterday's Senate hearing into superlobbyist Jack Abramoff's alleged defrauding of Indian tribes had something for everyone...

 

Lobbyist's New Restaurants Put the 'K' in K Street

By ORI NIR  FORWARD STAFF

Washington — Jack Abramoff needed a kosher restaurant in Washington to which to take his clients and congressional contacts. So he created one. Two, actually.  The high-powered lobbyist, one of the most influential in town, says he's that kind of guy. "If I see something I think is wrong, and I care about it, then I go and do something about it," even if it means spending many millions of his own dollars, he said, sipping cream soda at his new deli.

I started thinking about how Abramoff could get himself out of this thundercloud of mistrust and judgment, so I wrote DCist about it:

Since Mr. Abramoff is the kind of guy who says, “If I see something I think is wrong, and I care about it, then I go and do something about it,” I would like to draw his attention to the fact that there is not a single Native American Sweat Lodge available on K Street, or anywhere else in Washington.  A decent sweat lodge would make an ideal setting for business or government power sweats similar to the senators of ancient Rome gathering in the baths.  Think of the progress that could be made when these wheeler dealers and power brokers doff their energy-blocking togs in a cedar scented power schvitz.   When we shed our clothing, we shed our rank, our status and our prejudices.  Skyclad power mongers could cleanse and unchain their spirits in an atmosphere of greater honesty and trust.  Of course, there would have be to some lockers available to protect their wallets and pinky rings from the unscrupulous who might rob them.

 

 

  

What's Up With Mary Worth?

 

Ramsey Car Theft Generates Laughs, if Not Leads

By Petula Dvorak   Washington Post Staff Writer   Wednesday, June 22, 2005

The reaction across the city was swift, and a bit on the mean side. "Bwahahahaha!" one Internet chatter howled in response to the news that D.C. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey was the latest victim of the District's car bandits. Chief Ramsey doesn't mind "if everyone gets a little chuckle." "I have to say, when I heard the chief's car was stolen, I chuckled," said Tania Shand, a D.C. resident who is still mourning the theft two years ago, from a street corner in Shaw, of the beloved burgundy Honda Civic hatchback she called Rosie. "Looks like no car is safe. I guess if you're police chief, you don't think your car will be stolen," Shand said. "But guess what?"

.....NO PROBLEMO!  Mary Worth is ON it.

What's Up With Mary Worth?

 

Mary's Recipe for Popcorn Chicken:

6-7 lb. chicken
1 cup melted butter
1 cup  herbed stuffing
1 cup uncooked popcorn
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Brush chicken well with melted butter, salt
and pepper. Fill cavity with stuffing and popcorn. Place in baking pan with
the neck end toward the back of the oven. Listen for popping sounds. When the chicken's ass blows the oven door open and the chicken flies across the
room, it's done.

Footnote:

See>  Mary Worth, 6/16 (2 entries)

         Mary Worth, 6/15

Concert: Yardbirds, Ram's Head Live, Baltimore, MD Review by A Cubist Cohort

6/19 Review by a Cubist Cohort:

The Yardbirds were one of the most important groups ever.  This concert featured two of the original members (Jim McCarty and Chris Dreja), and three deputies.  A tribute to a great and seminal rock band by two guys that were there from the beginning, plus some very professional helpers.  Yes, it was part of the continuous Geezerstock festival.  Yes, it was exactly what you would expect it to be, and no it could not be missed by a true Yardbird's fan. 

This is the modern world, to quote another British band.  I purchased my ticket online and printed it at home, pausing to think what an incredible convenience that is.  The location was thoroughly modern as well:  Ramshead Live is part of Power Plant Live at the Baltimore Inner Harbor.  The atmosphere was hangar-like , but the sound system was quite good.  The setting is among the theme restaurants and concrete carnival of a tourist section of town, like any American city.  Adding to the urban alienation, you park in a facility (and this is very important for any GeezerRock concert--plenty of convenient parking), and you go from a cement ant hill across a theme park courtyard into a modern showcase shed with a high stage and no seating.  Like many "revitalized" parts of D.C., it's all just too new to feel real, but it was tailor-made for you after considerable research and market analysis.

                            "Shapes of things before my eyes

                             Just teach me to despise

                             Will time make man more wise"

                               The Yardbirds.com - OFFICIAL WEB SITE

 

 

 

 

 

 

(not written by Washington Cube)

Book: The Sociopath Next Door--Martha Stout, Ph.D.

We are used to thinking of sociopaths as violent criminals like wild-eyed Charlie Manson, but in The Sociopath Next Door, Harvard psychologist Martha Stout reveals that a shocking four percent of ordinary people have an often undetected mental disorder, the chief symptom of which is that the person possesses no conscience.  Stout contends that one in twenty-five everyday Americans, therefore, are secretly sociopathic, and they can do literally anything at all and feel absolutely no guilt.

How do we recognize the remorseless? One of their chief characteristics is a kind of glow or charisma that makes sociopaths more charming or interesting than the other people around them, as Stout puts it..."more alive."  They’re more spontaneous, more intense, more complex, or even sexier than everyone else, making them tricky to identify while leaving us easily seduced. Fundamentally, sociopaths are different because they cannot love. Sociopaths learn early on, however, to show sham emotion, but underneath they remain indifferent to others’ suffering.

Sociopaths live to dominate and thrill to win, and they are adept at seeking pity.  In fact, Stout's chief contention is that the most universal behavior of unscrupulous people is not directed at our fearfulness, as you would imagine, but perversely, by an appeal to our sympathy. Sociopaths have no regard whatsoever for the social contract the bulk of humanity operates under, but they do know how to use it to their advantage. Most of us would agree that giving special dispensation to someone who is incapable of feeling guilt is a bad idea, but often, when an individual presents him or herself as pathetic, we do so nonetheless.  Pity and sympathy are forces for good when they are reactions to deserving people who have fallen on misfortune. When these same sentiments are wrested out of us by the undeserving, by people whose behavior is consistently antisocial, this is a sure sign of potentially dangerous engagement with a sociopath.

I viewed this book as watered down to the lowest common denominator in learning about sociopathic behavior.  If you really wish to delve into the subject, try reading The Crime Classification Manual, or anything within the criminal justice field.  Once there, find books that have chapters like....Chapter Ten:  Blood Splatter Patterns.  ABSOLUTELY guaranteed to clear the seat next to you on the Metro.  John Waters once said that he loved reading questionable books in public places:  Michael Jackson Was My Lover by Victor Gutierrez being a fav.

                                 

Movie: Mr. & Mrs. Smith= House Porn

I went to see Mr. & Mrs. Smith last night.  I'm filing this one under a category I think of as "house porn."  A house porn film is a movie that seems to fetishize material goods:  clothes, cars, home furnishings.  These films started in the 1920's and into the Depression-era when people were poor and movies acted as an escape from their dreary, daily situation.  The segues into the good life were more heavy-handed back then (but only slightly,) and this visual candy has been in movies ever since.  The oddest ones have the plot moving along, then they grind to a halt while there's a fashion show...in a night club.  I came home after the movie and watched the last half of Cat People (1942).  Another film about a troubled marriage, only instead of being an assassin, the husband's new bride has the habit of turning into a panther and ripping people to shreds.  Both films contain the subtext of poor communication within a marriage, and both films have their couples seeking the help of a psychiatrist as marriage counselor.  Smith's was like Lara Croft marries Tom Bishop from Spy Game superimposed on the Bickerson's.

The Bickersons/The Bickerson's Fight Back by The Bickersons : MusicOutfitter

                               

Salon Redux Or...Yes...Men's Fantasies DO Come True

Meanwhile, back at the salon:

I had to return to the salon today for a pedicure [wasn't able to get nails and tootsies done on the same day, and for the reading public's knowledge, it was OPI's "You're A Pisa Work" (hot pink).] 

This salon has recently started offering spray-on tanning, and for those of you not familiar with the concept:  you strip down to your undies (or get naked)  and you have someone spray you with an air-brush tool that covers you with a fake tan.  It supposedly gives you a more even coating than past products.  One of the employees who wanted to try it out had her naked body covered with the "tan" and then proceeded to walk around in a spa robe flashing anyone that wanted to see how it came out.  I learned, from listening to the other women, that the drying process is the dicey part.  Sometimes you have to get on all fours so that your breasts dangle down freely to prevent "smudging," or sit there with your legs splayed open (ditto on thighs), and I thought "If men knew about this, they would be dying inside...all of those fantasies about women exposing themselves to each other in locker rooms, or being in sexually questionable positions in public...and it really happens." 

The spa gods were watching over me today, because just as I had settled into my pedicure chair, a man sat down in the chair next to me, and we kept him laughing during the entire experience.  He hadn't even gotten comfortable before I said to him, "Am I glad to see you.  I'm going to grill you on this so I can write about it."  I told him that all of the men that I know wouldn't even consider getting a pedicure (or manicure for that matter), because "it isn't a thing guys do."  He said his men friends told him the same thing, but that he was comfortable with his masculinity and that for him, it was a combination of pampering and taking care of himself.  He stressed it wasn't as important to him in terms of how he looked to others, but rather how he felt about himself.

We told him a lot of stories about meeting men, and pick-up lines, and "players."  I told him that I had been such an innocent about the things that men and women do to each other in the relationship game that I wasn't even aware that some of the behaviors usually attributed to men (and not fairly--it's not good to generalize), were also present in women.  He said, "Ohhhhh....let me tell you"....and off he went.

The woman doing my pedicure told us about how one of her male friends called her last night at 3 a.m. wanting to see her.  She added "... and you know what he wanted."  She told him, "I want to be invited to the party, not see you when the party's over."

I was teasing her about her "ex" that we all jokingly call "The Baby's Daddy," and how he called her yesterday asking if he could bring her lunch (which he did by the way, and showed up on time, to boot).  I said to her "You've got him jumping through hoops for you,"  and she said, laughingly, that the other night she had told him "Face it.  I've got you whipped, and you're my bitch." 

Pedicure Man took a call while having his feet worked on, and he told his friend "I'm getting a pedicure and being charmed by three lovely women."

                      

            The Spray Tan Room AKA The Room Of Compromising Positions

Footnotes:

See> My Manicurist's Bruised Love Bite, 6/3

See>  Manicurist Revisited, 6/17

The Gem Sweater Lady, Satire & Obsessions

                                    The Gem Sweater Lady

 

I stumbled on this website via a Boston blogger who's moniker is Honey Bunny:    The Honey Bunny Blog

Leslie Hall And Her Gem Sweater Lady Links:

http://www.lesliehall.com/index8.html 

http://www.lesliehall.com/8-sweaters3.html

She also has a video:

 http://www.transbuddha.com/mediaHolder.php?id=437

All I know is that she's passing through this area sometime in  early July with her traveling show of gold stretch pants, collection of gem sweaters and synthpop Elvis impersonations.  Watch for her as Leslie & The Ly's.

The funny thing about all of this, (from my experience) is that so many times the pomegranate martini drinkers will be standing around, sipping, and saying "Oh isn't this a biting satire on the 80's," and then you delve deeper, and it turns out the person isn't aiming for satire at all, but rather has some long-standing, deep-seated obsession for the bling of sequined sweaters.

A good example of this phenomenon is the singer Tiny Tim from the 1960's.  Tiny (real name, Herbert Khaury) was picked up as a camp item during the '60's for his ukelele renditions of 1920's-30's song classics, plunked while swaying in a plaid sports coat and long, unruly hair.  The hip elite picked up on it and thought "how clever....so witty," when in truth he had been bumming around for some time, obsessing over music of that  era.  He was singing Al Dubin songs before he was discovered, while he was discovered, and even after he was dropped in the public mind and reduced to playing State Fairs.  Tiny Tim Memorial Site

So who knows with Leslie, the sweater girl.  She may be doing this as an art statement reflective of her culture....or, she may just really be into bejeweled sweaters.

Manicurist Revisited

  The Manicurist's Hand, And The Tools Of Her Trade

 

Meanwhile--back at the salon....

I went in for my manicure today and heard the usual odd snippets of conversation:

(A little girl, at age four, standing by her mother's pedicure chair,  discussing their upcoming trip to Europe)

Mother:  "...so we'll be seeing Paris."

Child: "Paris Hilton?"

Mother: (laughing) "No, not that Paris."

Child:  "What other Paris is there?"

Mother:  "Paris is in France."

Child:  "Paris Hilton is in France?"

Mother:  "No, Paris is the capital of France."

Thank God the child let it drop and didn't ask why Paris Hilton was the capital of France.

I also heard the same child say to her mother, "I'm thinking of getting highlights."  Her mother reassured her daughter, she would not be getting highlights.  Her daughter said "I think I would look good with them."  Age four.  This episode reminds me of the story my friend told me about her niece at that age.  She disappeared from her mother's view in the salon, and when her mother found her, she was at the reception desk, trying to make a hair appointment for herself, telling the receptionist "I want my hair cut just like Dora the Explorer."

Two salon employees walking by commenting on their bosses' displeasure at the tee shirts they wore today:  One shirt said "This is the only thing I had."  The other said "Blow Me," with a tiny blow dryer drawing under it.

On the subject of Father's Day:  A teenaged girl came in discussing how she didn't want to give her father a card or gift, she hated him so much.  She said,  "Well, Josie can sign her side of the card with "I love you, I love you, I love you, and cover the page, and I can add "with x, Katie, and that should be enough."  She also added "Only 403 more days left until I leave for college, and I won't have to live in the same house with him anymore."  Happy Father's Day, Guy.

Since she was, in effect, being held captive in the next chair getting her nails done, I asked her something my brother and I had been discussing the other day.  We had commented that when we were in high school, we learned keyboard skills through typing classes, and you had to focus on accuracy, speed, and knowing where the keys were.  My brother said to me (and neither of us knew, for certain) that he thought these days the kids were taught basic skills about the keyboard/computer, but that it was probably more of the hunt and peck school and that speed wasn't even an issue.  He brought this up since I type over 100 wpm.  So I asked:  "What do they teach you in high school now?"  She confirmed what my brother had correctly guessed at--they are taught very rudimentary basics (in terms of keyboarding skills), and she said 99% of her classmates used one or two fingers, they did not know the proper fingering of the keys, nor did they have speed.  So there ya go.

I brought up the subject of nicknames, and asked the women around me what some of their nicknames were.  Here is what they told me:

Larissa Lou

Suzie Q

Boober (the guy and girl both call each other that)

Pumpkin Butt

Toots

Doll

Doodlebug

Lazy Vision (Now this one was really interesting.  As a child, her mother put bells on her shoes, and she once asked her mother, "Did you do that so you would hear me if I was running away," and her mother said, "No.  You basically just sat there and never did anything.")

Footnote:  See> My Manicurist's Bruised Love Bite, 6/3

 

 

What's Up With Mary Worth? #3

Footnote: 

 See> What's Up With Mary Worth?...Or, Smashed:  A Drunken

         Girlhood, 6/15

See>What's Up With Mary Worth...Later That Same Day, 6/16

 

The National Zoo Cheetahs & Josephine Baker

Five baby cheetahs were born at the National Zoo on April 14th (three girls and two boys), and they are available for public viewing for the first time on June 25th.  Adult cheetahs can be individually recognized by looking at the stripes on their tails, and each cheetah's tail is unique like a person's fingerprints. Even the two sides of a cheetah's tail are different. The baby cheetahs have been shaved on different body parts (such as the left rear leg), so that their keepers can tell them apart.

                  Guess who?

It reminds me of a story I remember reading from the infamous former editor of Vogue (and doyenne of style), Diana Vreeland.  She had a wonderful anecdote about Josephine Baker, by then living in Paris, and her pet cheetah, Chiquita.

Vreeland had gone to a Montmartre film theatre to see a film, L'Atlantique, about lost Foreign Legion soldiers in a desert oasis. The delirious soldiers dreamed of the beautiful Queen of the Lost Continent who was surrounded by a fountain of champagne with basking cheetahs. When the lights went up in the theatre, Mrs. Vreeland was shocked and delighted to find she was sitting next to Chiquita, Miss Baker's pet cheetah. Josephine told Diana she had brought Chiquita for an outing so that she could see the cheetahs in the film. Outside the hot theatre, an enormous white and silver Rolls Royce was waiting for Josephine Baker and Chiquita. Diana Vreeland describes how the driver opened the car door, Josephine let go of the cheetah's lead, Chiquita whooped and took one elongated leap into the back of the Rolls Royce, with Miss Baker in her white couture Vionnet dress leaping in behind:  a vision of glamour and speed and legs, legs, legs.  Mrs. Vreeland always said that for her, that one image always summed up the style and cultural climate of the Deco years.  

 

Josephine Baker and Chiquita

 

 

What's Up With Mary Worth?...Later...That Same Day

DCist Goes Batty

There was mention in the DCist blog this morning about an article printed in The Washington Times warning of rabid bat activity:

Health alert issued after rise in rabid bats

Fearing a fatal foe, D.C. health officials have issued the "bat signal." 
 The threat is not the Joker or Mr. Freeze. It's rabies.  A year after the number of rabid bats found in the District increased to 16, the D.C. Department of Health yesterday issued a health alert, warning of increased bat activity and asking residents to avoid contact with the flying mammals.
    Although no alert has been issued in Maryland or Virginia, D.C. officials did not want to take any chances after a bat captured earlier this year tested positive for rabies, said Dr. Gregg A. Pane, director of the D.C. Health Department. The District normally sees one or two cases of rabies among bats each year.
    "We just wanted to get ahead of the issue," Dr. Pane said. "We've had an increased number of bats coming into homes and one case of a rabid bat."
    Bats tend to be more active in the spring and summer, raising the risk of rabies exposure for humans and pets, Dr. Pane said. Fewer than 1 percent of bats have rabies, he said.
    Those who think they might have been bitten by a bat should wash the wound and immediately seek medical attention. A vaccine exists, but the disease is typically deadly if left untreated.
    Residents who find bats in their homes should seal off the room to prevent the bat from escaping, turn on a light if possible to encourage the bat to sleep and call Animal Control, Dr. Pane said.
    The recent heat wave might have encouraged bat activity, Dr. Pane said. Bat colonies during the summer seek out hot areas, such as crawl spaces and attics, as females raise their young.
    "They're still active in this warm weather -- unlike humans," Dr. Pane said.
    In Maryland, four rabid bats had been reported as of Monday, said Kim Mitchell, an epidemiologist for the state health department's Center for Veterinary Public Health.
    Last year, thecenter reported 23 rabid bats, up from 10 in 2003, Ms. Mitchell said. But bats, which accounted for nearly 7 percent of rabies cases in the state last year, are a minor threat compared with raccoons, which were involved in 72 percent of cases. In Virginia, the state's Health and Game and Inland Fisheries departments did not report an influx in bat population or activity.
    "Springtime is when bats tend to be more active, but we are not aware of any greater activity than is typical for this time of year," said Julia Murphy, veterinary epidemiologist for the Virginia Department of Health. The department last month reminded residents that bats become more active in the spring and summer.
    "We don't want people to have direct contact with bats, but if they do -- for instance, waking up in a room with a bat -- we want them to know the best course of action to take," Ms. Murphy said.
    While asking residents who find bats in their homes to trap them so the animals can be tested, she cautioned that residents should not try to trap or kill bats that are not a nuisance.
    "We don't want to promote the proactive removal of bats from their area, because they are very useful to the environment," Ms. Murphy said.
    The winged creatures managed to wriggle their way into the Virginia legislature earlier this year, and Gov. Mark Warner signed a bill designating the Virginia big-eared bat as the official state bat.
    Although a healthy person is more likely to die of a bee sting than a bat bite, the District's alert was meant to protect people, not scare them, Dr. Pane said.
    "A small percentage of bats have rabies and a small percentage are going to bite you, but one case is too many," he said.

I felt the need to enter a comment to DCist against bat slander:

Sir:

I am a bat born and raised in Washington, D.C., and I feel compelled to speak out against the recent article in The Washington Times which makes reference to a health alert issued by the D.C. Department Of Health "...warning of increased bat activity...and asking residents to avoid contact with the flying mammals."  As if we wanted anything to do with YOU after centuries of persecution and slander through your myths and legends and blatant misinformation.  As if we really wanted to get tangled up in your hair coated in all of that nasty "product" that you habitually dump in there, or your stupid, derogatory Batman movies.  You want to be like us, but we don't want to be like you.

How about a little appreciation for all of those insects we devour each year, especially those pesky Tiger Mosquitoes.  We put our lives on the line for you.  Granted, there is an occasional case of rabies among the bat population (which is in the millions), but this equals far less than a fraction of one percent.  The very few among us who might become stricken by rabies quickly lose the ability to fly which is about the only time we'd be down on "your" level, or down on "your" precious ground that you have trashed, polluted and otherwise fouled.  And that's another thing, I am sick and tired of people saying how dirty bats are.  Bats are clean.  We spend a lot of time (and I speak from experience) grooming ourselves.  We hang from one foot and use our teeth and other foot to groom our fur and wings.  You think this is easy?  Take a look in the mirror, pal.

How about when you see a flock of bats on a warm summer evening, raising a little salute to a fellow mammal who is more than happy to keep out of your way.  ~~Myotis Auriculus, Washington, D.C.

 

 

What's Up With Mary Worth? Or...Smashed: A Drunken Girlhood

I just finished reading a memoir entitled Smashed: Story of A Drunken Girlhood—Koren Zailckas (Viking, 2005).  Beginning with Zailckas'  experimental drinking at age 14 in Bolton, Massachusetts, she takes the reader through her inebriated college years and beyond into her journeys of binges and excesses...black outs, possible date rape.  It is the author's contention that she is not actually an alcoholic, but rather a victim of alcohol abuse.  According to Zailckas, this stems from the encouragement of a society which views teen drinking as a rite of passage, not an emotional or physical problem.  A not very insightful cautionary tale woven with statistics.  Recommended cocktail while reading the book:  Drunksimus Maximus: 1 1/2 oz blackberry brandy, 1 oz Southern Comfort® peach liqueur.  Stir both ingredients together in a large shot glass and shoot.

 

Is She Really Gonna Eat That? (Tofu)

Dinner was at a favorite Japanese restaurant, Niwano Hana, 887 Rockville Pike, Maryland (Wintergreen Plaza). Due to the hot weather, dinner was shared, light fare:  shrimp shu mei, crabroll sushi, kapamaki (cucumber) sushi, tamago (egg omelette) sushi, and tofu steak.  Shrimp shu mei isn't even Japanese, it's Chinese food taken up by the Japanese as part of their palate.  I once had a Japanese waitress in full blown kimono wrinkle her nose and tell me she hates tofu, so I guess it's an acquired taste, even in Japan.

                                  Shrimp Shu Mei

 

                                          Tofu Steak

                         Tamago, Kapamaki, Crabroll

Payless Shoes For Kids Who Are Paid Less

Driving down Rockville Pike, I saw a Payless Shoes for Kids.  Question of the day:  "Do you go in there and pay less for shoes for kids, buying shoes that were made by kids who were paid less?"

                    Eternal Questions of the Spotless Mind

Cocktails For Two--The Letter "I"

Back at the beginning of the year, I had made a New Year's Resolution to have a cocktail a week, preferably with friends.  Another friend recommended I work my way through the alphabet a few times during the year...and so I did, starting with the letter "A."  This and that got in the way of the weekly event starting in March, and I've just now started up again with the letter's "H" (see Hep Cat entry) and "I."  Today's drinks were "Italian Surfer" and "Indigo Blues."  I have a wonderful bartender who loves having the chance to be creative and learn new drinks, and I've always got my Mr. Boston Official Bartender's and Party Guide in hand.  I also rely heavily on a website that has a huge selection of cocktails, A to Z that are more contemporary than the classics you find in the book:

Cocktail recipes: 8000+ appetizing drink recipes.

The Indigo Blues

1 1/4 oz Jose Cuervo® Especial gold tequila
5/8 oz triple sec
1/4 oz Blue Curacao liqueur
2 1/2 oz sweet and sour mix
juice of 1/2 limes
1 splash pineapple juice

Shake and strain into an ice-filled hurricane glass with a salted rim. Garnish with a lime wheel.  Serve in: Hurricane Glass

Italian Surfer

2 parts pineapple juice
1 part  amaretto almond liqueur
1 part  Malibu® coconut rum

Add a splash of orange juice, and a splash of grenadine. Pour ingredients into an ice filled glass, shake to mix and pour.  Serve in a highball glass. 

                       Indigo Blues Cocktail

 

                    Italian Surfer Cocktail

The bartender had just gotten back from a trip to Florida, and she said the beaches in Miami were "filthy....even dirtier than Ocean City."  She amended her statement by saying "Well, Miami is a party town," and I said "Yeah, and I guess their beaches are showing you "the night before."  She said the sand was littered with beer cans, cigarette butts, and all sorts of detritus.  I said to her, "If you want a beautiful beach, go to Hawaii."  She sighed.

 

Appaloosa

Just finished reading Appaloosa by Robert B. Parker (Putnam's, 2005). I usually read Parker's books when they come out, especially the Spenser series.  For me, they are a one sitting read:  huge margins and spaces and large font type.  He's a master of the short chapter and the even shorter sentence.  In Parker's world the men are always sparse in language, but fast on action: they are manly men.  Two partners are taken on by the citizens of Appaloosa  to act as hired guns/Marshalls and clean up a bad crew on the outskirts of the town.  One reviewer described the dialogue as "...laconic Gary Cooper on quaaludes," and this would be apt.  It's as if Parker took Spenser and Hawk out of Boston, sent them back in time, and instead of mulling over things in Spenser's office with coffee and donuts, they are now sitting in a saloon with whiskey added to the coffee and fried biscuits.  It's funny to read these terse, emotionally sealed messages between the partners, and then think about the dialogue used on the HBO Western Deadwood, where a town character named Al Swearingen gives off soliloquies to a decapitated Indian head in a box that ring as Shakespearean as Richard III in their floweriness and complexity.  I would still recommend Appaloosa for an idle, quick read between your more serious summer reading, but if you really want to read good Westerns, go back to early Elmore Leonard:  The Bounty Hunters, The Law At Randado, Escape From Five Shadows, Last Stand At Saber River, Hombre, and Valdez Is Coming.                                        

The Rules of Combat & Capitol Hill & Steve McQueen (again)

When I worked on Capitol Hill, I had a photograph of Steve McQueen tucked into my bookcase.  It was a shot of Steve from The Great Escape where he is sitting in The Cooler with his back against a wall, holding his baseball glove and ball. 

                               

 I suppose the picture was a commentary on my working in a stressful job and feeling trapped.  I also kept a defused hand grenade in the same case with a printed copy of "The Rules of Combat."  My co-worker Tim handled military issues in the office, while I handled veterans matters (among other things), and every year the Pentagon would send him this book with the latest in every piece of weaponry you could think of from assault weapons to missiles. I called it my "Wish Book," and there were times he would pass it over to me so I could peruse a grenade launcher or flame thrower to use on a co-worker, or a suitable tank for going out into Washington rush hour traffic. 

We both loved war films and were always quoting from The Great Escape  "They've found Tom!  Open up Dick and Harry!" (the escape tunnels), or Kelly's Heroes, or our favorite of them all, Patton.  When things would get bad around the workplace, I could count on Tim to know to say "Thirty years from now, when you're sitting around your fireside with your grandson on your knee and he asks you, "What did you do in the great World War II," you won't have to say, "Well... I shoveled shit in Louisiana," or "Now, an army is a team - it lives, eats, sleeps, fights as a team. This individuality stuff is a bunch of crap," or  "They're ivory. Only a pimp from a cheap New Orleans whorehouse would carry a pearl-handled pistol" (referring to his pistol grips) , or our all-time favorite " Rommel, you magnificent bastard.  I read your book."  There were times when all Tim had to say was "Rommel," using George C. Scott's voice, and I would lose it.  Patton was always going on about the Carthaginians, and that was another trigger word that would make us laugh.  "The Rules of Combat" came about because we worked people who would come straight out of college full of piss and vinegar and think they were taking on the world, or their co-workers, and they all seemed to love Sun Tzu's The Art of War. 

The Rules of Combat

If the enemy is in range, so are you.

Incoming fire has the right of way.

Don't look conspicuous: it draws fire.

The easy way is always mined.

Try to look unimportant, they may be low on ammo.

Professionals are predictable, it's the amateurs that are dangerous.

The enemy invariably attacks on one of two occasions:
a. When you're ready for them.
b. When you're not ready for them.

Teamwork is essential; it gives the enemy someone else to shoot at.

If you can't remember, the claymore is pointed at you. Claymores are labeled "This side toward enemy" for a reason.

If your attack is going well, you have walked into an ambush.

Don't draw fire, it irritates the people around you.

The only thing more accurate than incoming enemy fire is incoming friendly fire.

When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is *not* our friend.

If it's stupid but works, it isn't stupid.

When in doubt empty the magazine.

Never share a fox hole with anyone braver than you.

Anything you do can get you shot. Including doing nothing.

Make it too tough for the enemy to get in and you can't get out.

Mines are equal opportunity weapons.

A Purple Heart just proves that were you smart enough to think of a plan, stupid enough to try it, and lucky enough to survive.

Don't ever be the first, don't ever be the last and don't ever volunteer to do anything.

The quartermaster has only two sizes: too large and too small.

Five second fuses only last three seconds.

It is generally inadvisable to eject directly over the area you just bombed.

Tracers work both ways.

                               _______________________

Sometimes Tim would grab the  hand grenade and pretend to pull the pin and lob it deeper into the office. The funny thing is the Congressman liked to sit back in my area, and I'm sure he saw all of these things, but he never commented on them.  Well...maybe the grenade, but he loved that as everyone did.  Ultimately I gave the grenade as a birthday present to one of my agency liaisons, and he told me it was always a conversation piece in his office.

Tim was a fantastic driver and had owned many racy sports cars, including a Lotus Elan.  He told me driving that car was like sliding into an envelope, it was so narrow, and he had to drive it shoeless to have better control of the pedals.  One day, during a lunch hour, we played hookey and took a sports car for a test drive.  It was wonderful having Tim at the wheel with his mastery and feeling the wind whip your hair around and blow all the cobwebs out.  We had another favorite hookey thing to do for the "cobwebs."  We'd drive out to Gravelly Point by National Airport and hit the spot in the grass where the planes come in at their lowest, sometimes just 100 feet over your head.  We'd lie on our backs and take in the rush of it all: the sheer power of the plane and it's force.  The planes were so low, you could actually count the rivets on the underbelly.  It's one of those great things about D.C. you won't find in the guide books.

D.C. Park and Bike Guide - National Airport

Tim's nickname for me was "Emma," after Emma Peel in the Avengers.  I will have to write about all of the nicknames I've acquired over time, but Tim was the only one to ever call me Emma.  A great co-worker and a great guy.  He died a few years ago, much too young, and I still miss him. 

   Emma        

The Mermaid's Chair--Sue Monk Kidd

I just finished reading The Mermaid's Chair by Sue Monk Kidd.  It was an interesting, complex novel that explores themes of: 

1. Woman's dislocation from herself and the quest toward self-union, identity and self-belonging.
2. Can a woman have inner freedom and  relationship? What is the impact of one upon the other?
3. Creative, erotic and spiritual awakening in women
4. Re-visioning and empowering Sacred Feminine figures and how their iconic imagery functions in women's experience.
5. The convergence of the sensual and the spiritual. How is spirituality sensual and sensuality spiritual?
6. Mid-life marriage; the pull and power of soul mated love and ordinary married love.
7. Reconciliation of the spiritual and the human
8. Communities of women
9. Crisis of faith; how is religion used as immunity from life?
10. Betrayal and forgiveness
11. Diving and surfacing; the process of descent and re-emergence in women
12. Parental loss; impact of the missing father.
13. Mother-daughter relationship
14. Leaving home to find home
15. Islands/ cloister/ essential solitudes

I think that covers it...laughing.   Kidd came upon the idea for the novel, when she heard about a mermaid chair (not as described in the book), that resides in a church in Cornwall, England.  The Norman church of Saint  Senara in the town of Zennor probably stands on the site of a 6th century Celtic church. It is believed to be named after Princess Azenor of Breton, the mother of Saint Budock. It was restored in 1890, by which time all but one of the original carved oak seats had disappeared and been replaced by family boxes. Two medieval bench-ends remain and have been made into a seat. One end is the famous carving of the  Mermaid of Zennor.   She holds a comb and a mirror in her hands. Legend claims that this siren enticed Matthew Trewhella, the handsome son of a churchwarden, into the sea. He was never seen again.  On the south side of the church tower is a bronze dial, bearing the figure of a mermaid, and an inscription .  

                                       The Mermaid's Chair

 

 

           

St. Senara, Zennor, Cornwall, England    

                    

        Coney Island's Annual Mermaid Parade                                   

From the diary of Christopher Columbus, 1493:  "The day before, when the Admiral was going to the Rio del Oro, he said he saw three mermaids who came quite high out of the water but were not as pretty as they are depicted, for somehow in the face they looked like men.  He said that he saw some in Guinea on the coast of Manegueta."

 

The Depths of the Sea

Edward Burnes-Jones

 

 

 

Cinderella Man And The Greenbelt Movie Theatre

I went to the Old Greenbelt Theatre in Greenbelt, Maryland to see Russell Crowe and Renee Zellweger in Cinderella Man.   Greenbelt was the first planned suburban community in this country, and the Greenbelt Theatre's existence goes back to September 21, 1938. http://www.ci.greenbelt.md.us/About_Greenbelt/the_greenbelt_museum.htm

The opening attraction that night was Little Miss Broadway with Shirley Temple. Admission was 30 cents for adults and 15 cents for children. In those days movies would premiere in one of the large downtown Washington theatres and would play the Greenbelt three to six weeks later.   The Greenbelt closed as a movie theatre in 1976, but was reopened as a community arts center between 1980 and 1987.  All new projection and stereo equipment were installed along with a much larger 40 foot Cinemascope screen. It's one of the last full-sized movie theatres where one can see films as they were meant to be seen.  I still mourn Washington's lost movie houses, especially The Circle.  The Circle was a repertory theatre which showed such a vast genre in cinema.  I saw all of Fellini there, and Truffaut and Herzog, and so many others.  They would pair films in logical two's so you could see The Big Sleep and The Maltese Falcon, when they were doing their Bogart film tribute.  I remember going to see Casablanca there, and it was sold out.  People demanded to be let in, and they sat in the aisles on the floor.  That's the passion you used to see for cinema in this city.  I always sat three rows up, center aisle, far left seat.  The Pedas brothers (the owners) allowed this homeless man to hang out there, and he always sat down on the far left front, letting out these loud, bronchial coughs that became a part of the theatre for me.

Upon entering the Greenbelt, past the concession stand, there is one of the original projectors on display:

    

Since I was going to see a movie set in the Depression era, it seemed appropriate to see it in a Depression era movie house.  The movie was fine.   It was a typical Ron Howard push-your-buttons-feel-good affair:  downtrodden decent chap struggling to stay afloat and care for his wife and three children, overcoming obstacles to succeed and win as a boxer, while maintaining his dignity and principles.  The audience broke into applause when Crowe, as James J. Braddock, won his championship fight against Max Baer.  Naturally, when you hear Max Baer, you have to think of Max Baer, Jr. playing Cousin Jethro Bodine in The Beverly Hillbillies:

   

                          Max Baer

       

              James J. Braddock   

   Max Baer, Jr.  (seated) and the cast of

                  Beverly Hillbillies

                       Wee Doggies

I can't help but think of Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard saying "We didn't need dialogue.  We had faces!  They took the idols and smashed them: the Fairbankses, the Gilberts, the Valentinos!  And who've we got now? Some nobodies!" Renee Zellweger does not have a "face."  Just this year, I was reading a critique of her work and someone described her face as having "...that puckered cat anus of a mouth."  Cruel words, but boy did they stick.    Between her scrunched up eyes and the mouth, I cannot look at her anymore without remembering that quote.

In the meantime, we've got Mike Tyson back in the news (speaking of honor and principle to the sport of boxing), and after giving up in defeat during his latest fight he has been quoted as saying "I'm not going to lie to myself.  I'm not going to embarrass this sport anymore."  Actually, it probably sounded more like "I'm not gonna lie to myseth.  I'm not gonna embarrath thith sporth anymorth."  Gee, Mike...can we count you DOWN on that?  I wish.