tributary

Thanks to Eileen Tabios for the good words. It is nice to be praised for the weird stuff, tho obviously I do not consider my interest in malls weird. I do not try to explain my interest. It is a pre-existent condition. And persistent. I may even collect my many responses to commercial input in a separate blog. So today (Saturday), we could not resist another visit thru the commerce.

It really is of interest to Beth and me, the sense of the economy as figured in how the mall seems. We did, as it happens, pass by the mall yesterday, Black Friday. The parking lot looked full, and police details busily directed traffic. We skipped past to get food for a hungry betta.

Black Friday, the concept, is a nice bit of hopeful manipulation. The sense of infused desperation to get those discounts is overplayed, but effective. I recollect that Apple, for one, was actually pretty chary with its economy-invigourating price points last year. I know, it is fine for some of the population, to rise betimes and race to the store. I am not insensitive to saving money—hardly that!—but that there is little that I am needing to need by way of indiscretionary spending seasons my disinterest in rushing to consume. Don’t worry, I’ll consume. Soy Americano.

So Beth and I entered the mall and were immediately swept into the vortex of Eddie Bauer 25% Off All Merchandise. We both got a Mt Everest t-shirt. I like Eddie Bauer stuff. A fully-equipped manikin seems like a stark statement of the conditions to be met in places like Everest: just this against a sub-zero hurricane. They have a large tv screen showing a Bauer sponsored expedition to the big hill. Ed Viesturs is among those in the expedition. The video is worth a visit to the store. The music piped thru the store was something fatuous by Frank Sinatra, a Christmasy song with strained lyrics and melody with and Frank playing with the timing. Frank’s I don’t give a shit infuses my own. Purchasing an item gave us the opportunity also to get at smashing discount a mitten with an attached ice scraper. We did not make that purchase but it’s a cool idea.

From there we went to Nordstrom’s next, I think. To get there, we passed a string quartet playing selections from The Nutcracker, just to give some tone to the place. Giving further tone, the hawkers at the kiosks and carts tried a new (to me) tack: asking passersby: Can I ask you a question? No is the proper reply. It is intrusive, and as an introduction it could just as easily have been a question about my stance on abortion or life insurance.

In the window of Anthopologie (which is the phoniest store name, lame division, that I have noticed at the mall) had an answer for all those books that nobody apparently buys: an ostrich-sized bird made from books! The store sold clothes, women’s I think. We did not enter.

A red carpet was thrown down at the lower entrance to Nordstrom’s. This was a perp walk. Lined along the carpet were salespeople ready to share their perfume sample and belief therein with you. I think they spray strips of paper which then are dangled under willing noses. We declined.

I was disturbed that the carpet led nowhere, just stopped. I would have continued it, or delivered some attraction at its end. Otherwise it is just there to wipe your feet. Were our feet less dirty last week? We just breezed thru Nordstrom’s this time. Beth saw a nifty watch on the face of which was an anime figure. The figure, we were told, was the designer, one Beth had heard of. The $200 ties (and cheaper) were pretty good. Nice designs. Still, I did not see how the price of said woven Spidey-web was indicated in the quality of the ties as compared with mere $70 ones. Our exit coincided with “Santa Baby”, Eartha Kitt, Marilyn Monroe, Madonna, who knows.

The Apple Store, okay. It was even more spare now than it has been. They removed the counter at the front. Instead, near the middle, a table where purchases can be finalized sits. I would guess there were 15 red shirts (Apple store pros) in the store, possibly more, and maybe 10 customer groups. Possibly people are wore out from the discount that Steve Jobs allowed us to have on Black Friday. We actually got one of those tiny iPod Shuffles, auxiliary for Erin’s currently on the DL Zune. I should like to assert that Apple’s minimalism is leaving me behind. Not so much the tiny Shuffle but buttonlessness is no virtue. That wheel, I find with my Nano, is hard to control if hands are cold or you are wearing gloves. If you pocket the device you run the risk of the volume finding ways to go up up up or down down down. I do not, alas, feel that I am a better person because there are no buttons on the iPod. Steve, forgive me. I am just not minimal.

Pressing on to somewhere, I saw a man with a rake. At the mall. Maybe he purchased it at Sears, but if so why did he not leave by a side door. Flaunting that thing flouts the effort at upscaleness that the mall tries to express. How does the thing work, anyway, and how do you plug it in?

We made a pointed effort to find Abercrombie and Fitch because on our last visit we realized that we did not hear the thump of A&C’s background music. We checked the store listing and saw Abercrombie, listed as a children’s apparel store. Finding the store we saw that it was the murkiness we have come to expect from A&C, only directed younger. Did Fitch get religion or something? Where will all the sullen models go?

We entered J Crew this time, just to be efficient. I recall noting how lovely the place used to look, with lots of prime colours. They went batzoid with the snow theme. Crumpled shiny white paper glaringly suggested snow, I got that part. Up front there was a feature of women’s white tees. These tees were decorated with silver beads and what I take to be silver nano tubes, or they could just be metallic jimmies. The motif was reindeer, and that was all right, but does one wash said article of clothing? J Crew concedes the problem: additional beads and jimmies are supplied with the purchase. The white on white of the displays gave zero focus. I did not bother to investigate whether any men’s clothing got mixed in with the men’s apparel. I have shifted to Bauer Town.

We visited several women’s clothing stores. Beth did, I took the chair at the doorway. Ann Taylor had no chair, but it had a comfortable flow and roominess so I could get out of the way easily, and listen to the music.

Beth sought a dress, que possible. Chicos, which featured as decor ghastly gold trees made from tin foil, laughed at the idea. Beth was informed that nobody wears dresses, they’re old-fashioned. That point can be argued but the larger issue of course is how much you want to antagonize customers. We see that stores are choosing to go quite far in that direction. Good luck with that. I thought a good response to Can I help you? would be: Do you have carrion? Just a thought.

J Jill is similar to Chicos, but more positive as a shopping experience. It was set up more comfortably, and the music was better. John Lennon’s rather sanctimonious Christmas song was topped by George Harrison’s “Ring Out the Old Ring in the New”. I am not so happy with Harrison’s excursions with Phil Spector (the American Roman Polanski?), and neither was Harrison, but Harrison was good for some genuineness. The song made me happy. J Jill had dresses but nothing to go home with.

Stepped into a store featuring silver jewelry. Beth wanted to see a couple of pieces. The salesperson was crisply helpful and informative, at least what I witnessed. NO store that I saw at the mall was so busy that salespeople need to evaluate your clothing to see if you are worth helping. We were not going to buy, but you never know. A run on Days Poem could occur as people realize they want to read about Walden, hobos, bears, Fu Manchu, and Tarzan, and then I could get Beth the gifts that I want her to have. So don’t be a dick, salesperson.

A final purchase occurred at FYE (For Your Entertainment). This store is a relic, it sells cds and dvds. The experience of poking thru the bins for music or movies is kinda out the window, isn’t it. I went in knowing what I wanted, and capable of finding it. Star Trek. We watched it this Sunday morn, after family breakfast. It was satisfying. We have established Star Trek as our Thanksgiving movie.

That is largely my report. We went to Costco today, for some necessities. Ah, the delight! I will just mench that our car was parked next to a car with a license that matched ours 5 out of 6 digits, 3rd digit being X instead of Y. Which just shows to go you.

It is a good holiday, I warrant. Granted, it is built upon historical misprision, but it has its offering that we can honour, has it not?

I recall the scope of American history, as taught to me. You know, Columbus discovered this country, and that was really neat, then the Pilgrims came over, and that was really neat. Nothing much mentioned about the time between those really neats. After the amicable Pilgrim/Indian detente, we suddenly learn that Indians are our enemy, surrounding that hero Custer and annihilating his troops. Et cetera. Any reasonable scan of these ‘facts’ would leave you wondering but the real story is how mythic proportions are so important to the national concept that these stories stay bound in the psyche. It is like Whitman working overtime.

The antidote, it comes to me, is such like In the American Grain, which casts a doubting, acerbic eye on the given facts. Williams had his enthusiasms but was a relief from the doctrinal side of Whitman.

Anyway, not for me to school thee, Reader, on this, I am just recognizing the rotten parts. I want to speak of the good parts, too.

Our plans were to have Thanksgiving just ourselves. Not to be insular, but that we have not had our own celebration in years. We were looking forward to the chance. Friends, however, in a similar predicament invited us to dinner. They are pared down to just three, their eldest son being away in college, and their families spread across the country. We decided to split the meal.

Beth is the genius for cooking grand meals. She was in charge of the turkey, dressing, gravy, and her should be famous squash soup. I have done Thanksgiving meals but it is not my cooking strength. Beth started in on the bird around 9:00, same time as the Macy’s parade began.

The parade is one of those holdovers from my childhood. I remain interested in it, as part of the Day. I think the first thing that I saw was some theatrical clutter from the Broadway production of omg Annie. How do people put up with these exploits of grim production? The fakeness is plangent, which is one thing, but it is celebrated, which is quite another. I mean, phoniness as a defense I understand, but how do you turn it into a glory? Welcome to Macy’s.

So okay, there was that set piece, which appalled Beth. I simply savoured yet another Pure Product of America, Incorporated.

The hosts of this spectacle were 2 from the CBS morning show. I do not watch that or any morning show. The woman was Latina, which allowed her to reference that she was Latina. The guy was a dull plum. The deal is that Thanksgiving is a celebration of our diversity, yet it is also a dedicated study of but one strand of heritage. Turkey yes, but with plantains or matzo balls or lasagna or…

So these two were directing traffic, which consisted of a steady flow of actors in to hype their latest projects, more Broadway inanities,  occasional glimpses of marching bands, longer views of floats, and some scripted banter with the crisp projection of wet toast. At first I was switching to the NBC version of this, but found no escape, so I stayed with CBS.

Early on, we were thrown to the Hard Rock Cafe, for a song by Reba McIntyre. She looked a bit refurbished but she is likeable, with that weird C&W genuineness that Dolly Parton has. I do not think that she or her band were lip syncing it, unlike all the Broadway crap.

There was an antic moment with her band. The bass player, who looked very bass playerly, was going all groove guy. In his funk transport, he swung his bass around, nearly hitting the pedal steel player, who kept replying to these infreactions with mystified stares.

The production streamed by for three hours, and I was there for it all, tho not with full attention. The best float was the last: Santa’s. It spanned two vehicles, and consisted of a village scene above which flew a sleigh and reindeer. Nifty engineering and it looked fine. Bravo. Sitting next to Santa was a little girl that I guessed was the producer’s daughter. Unlike all the other children in this and all the other floats, she was not laughing or excited, just sat there primly. You could imagine her complaining that she was cold or that she wanted hot chocolate. I am of course extrapolating.

Well that was it for Thanksgiving tv. No football. We carted over our contribution to the dinner around 3:00. PLUS a California Chardonnay, a South African Cabernet. Never did open the German wine…

Years ago, while working for a wine business, the possibility of importing South African wines opened. Sanctions had been lifted. I at first thought this was terrible, an exploitation. It turns out that all three of the wineries that we imported were signatories to an agreement to reject apartheid, provide all workers with proper working and living conditions, and generally be benign businesses. There was no such thing in California at the time, and we know that Ernest and Julio were far from gracious towards the migrant workers upon whom their business depended. The wines of RSA are wonderful with a heritage there of some 3 centuries. Don’t miss them if you can. I guess I digress.

So the meal was as it should be. Our hosts with their traditional corn pudding, which I had never had before, and us with Beth’s squash soup, with a sparkle of orange zest and spices. Plus all else, and desserts.

Post-prandial music was an array of country sorts of music, the highlight of which was a recording by Allison Krause and Robert Plant. I never was a fan of Plant with Led Zep, tho I get why he shrieked, what with having to compete against pyrotechnic Page, and the heaviest handed drummer this side of Buddy Miles. His oeuvre is quite varied, and his singing is too. With Krause he sensibly sings in support, and does so generously. Surprisingly pleasing music to me, surprising because it was outside my usual earful.

And Beth wanted, still, to do a dinner at home, and we had already ordered a small turkey, so we boot up again today… I can now report, in update, that this second turkey done well as well. And I made an apple/blackberry tart via Martha Stewart, complete with leaf shapes (of crust) on top.

Happy Post Thanksgiving!

Beth and I took a faulty cellphone to the Verizon store at the mall on Tuesday, and ended up amongst the emporiana for quite a while. Woo hoo.

Must say that we are into the shopping experience, even if we buy nothing. That’s why Costco is such a treat. I mean, the satisfaction of buying 20 rolls of paper towels is obvious. You can look at the calendar and think how many days and weeks, months even, and you will not have to buy paper towels. But walking around thru all that input is compelling too.

The mall is interesting for its complex of strategies. There are failures, of course, but even among the successful the methods vary. People lunging at you with their products does not seem workable, but many use that model so it must have some success. One plucky person said as we nixed his advances, just remember it is the greatest product ever. I think it was something you put around your neck to relax.

We arrived at the mall around 11:00, which is to say the place was still rubbing sleep from its eyes. We went directly to the Verizon store.

The game here, you sign in, then wait your turn to be served. You are more than welcome to survey the kajillion phones and accessories available to you. Tempting, but I have not yet committed to the phancy phone, not that I champion Ned Ludd, here. It is a slippery slope of buy more. Commerce, thy name is envy. We did not have to wait long before someone escorted us to the service desk.

After that business, we wandered around. Let’s see. Brookstone pulled us in with their usual trick. One of the sales help was playing with a radio-controlled helicopter at the doorway. Neato. How come I never got one of those? I was drawn to an ecology experiment, a small frogitorium. This was a niche consisting of a clear plastic box filled with water, gravel, 2 tiny frogs, and a bit of bamboo. The bamboo helps maintain proper oxygen level in the enclosed system. Take that, sea monkeys!

Looks a little Spartan in there but at least the frogs are paired (said the anthropomorphist). Well, we have a betta at home, a professionally chippy breed. He seems to keep interested.

I think we hit Nordstrom’s next. They are new in this area but Beth knew them when she lived in Seattle. She remembers the stores being decent value ones, but they are more upscale now. Beth got into a conversation with the person at the jewelry counter, memories of Nordstrom’s. The woman revealed that several people were from Seattle and also from Alaska, where Beth lived for a number of years. Surprising how many people from Alaska that Beth meets.

We wandered out of Nordstrom’s and stopped at Au Bon Pain. I remember going to one long ago, a regular sit down restaurant. Now it is a get it yourself place, mostly bread and coffee, plus soups and sandwiches. Decent enough stuff in a cramped and awkward setting. If we could just eschew customer comfort, I know this business will take off, says the expert at corporate.

Television screens are set up all over the mall, with a constant stream of ‘content’. The content consists of tedious bits from CBS shows, like the morning program or that wearisome late night one with the Scottish guy, looping with daunting regularity. Plus random headlines, trivia quizzes, and other distractions. Jiggle a piece of string in front of me and you got my attention.

On a previous loop there was some rock band in a live mall show. I mean 30 seconds worth of the dynamic excitement, which included excited teens connecting with rock star theatre. At the mall. Come on baby light my fire.

Beth entered the Betsey Johnson store, I hung by the doorway. The message here would be hip and young, tho I do not know if such a message is itself hip and young. There was a telly in there, as well, but with its own content. I stared at it longer than I might because it seemed that Suzanne Somers was in the video. Could that be? Is she fresh enough still? I could be wrong, it could have been a pure nobody. This content consisted of said Somers doppelganger (but I really wonder it if were the star herself) putting Latest Styles on a tall thin model. It was antic in a sort of legally required way, with brightly coloured accessories being put on and removed at better than normal speed. When each transformation was done the Somers character would hold up a speech balloon with some trance-inducing comment. I dunno. I did not consult with Beth but I think the salesperson was moderately helpful.

We returned to Nordstrom’s because I was curious about men’s apparel there. I usually wear men’s clothes but there are times that I wear men’s apparel. Beth swore the store served men as well but I had yet to see the like there. One thing I will say about Nordstrom’s, it is set up with a vision. There are no tall displays or inner walls to limit the vastness of the place for the shopper. The horizon is full of merchandise. All of which could be yours.

Maybe 3/4 of the place is for the lady of the house but the gent is well served as well. I felt fairly impervious to the studious charms of the goods until I tried a winter coat on. It was a charcoal cashmere and silk (or whatever) thing that felt really, really good. It was something I could use, tho I am not in desperate straits coatwise. It was priced higher than I ought to pay, tho I felt it was worth the price. Two salespeople, passing by, said it looked good on me, which indicates some training on their part. It is not that I need to be swayed with that, it is just that too many stores are filled with whaddya want.

A salesperson in men’s wear asked if I needed help, but I just wanted to prowl, which I proceeded to do. Beth engaged him in a long conversation. He was informative, opened sales possibilities but did not press. He too was from Seattle. The only other thing besides the coat that struck me was the parti-coloured socks. They bordered on psychedelic. I did not know the well-dressed man was doing that. When I ran track, it was our thing not to wear white socks, in fact the louder the socks the better. When I started running on my own years later, I perspicaciously wore ONLY white socks. Now my rules are fluid.

I realize that money is just money, and some people do not blink at $200 ties. I do not see what you get at that price over something cheaper by 20 or 40 percent. Silkier silk, I suppose.

We left Nordstrom’s with the idea of finding a simulacrum for that coat there, at more modest price. We passed by J Crew, which looked like it had had a snowstorm inside, decorator gone wild. I used to like J Crew, but the people there are snotty enough to make you reconsider shopping there.

We entered Burberry Street hopefully. It was set up confusingly so that you do not know where to go at first. That is bad planning. I found something that was in the ballpark, stylewise. They only have one example of each style, so that the salesperson can sales you. She got one that might fit. It sort of did, but was cut oddly, or maybe I am. No, I’m pretty regular. The price was more than 1000 bucks. I had no inkling from the quality that I perceived that such a price was possible. C ya.

The center of the mall features Santa’s photography workshop. It consists of a maze of Xmas decoration leading to the man himself. Santa was in, but over-excited children were not. I could see him thru the glitter, looking bored and mildly forlorn.

This mall, I should mench (and have mentioned), was the scene of that blockbuster hit Paul Blart Mall Cop, which I have not seen. It was filmed just after Xmas, last year or maybe the year before. I am sure we visited other venues, we always do. Beth always asks about business (as part of a grander economic view), and always gets interesting answers.

No bookstores at the mall. Surprising?

Somewhere along the way, we could hear the song Santa Baby. Oo, I think we were at Whole Foods. It was thankfully not the Eartha Kitt version, nor by anyone trying to sound like her. It was upbeat, which muted some of the song’s parlous shock. Hey, it was co-written by the niece of the Jacob K Javits Convention Center. What a heinous song!

From the mall we went to Marshalls because it so happens that I got a coat there by the same manufacturer as that one at Nordstroms. The guy at Nordstroms, by the bye, said that the maker of $200 ties there also sells goods to Costco. I really like the coat I got at Marshalls, made by Sanyo, and priced for Marshalls. There were a few serviceable coats, but nothing warranted a splurge. Beth found a coat she liked but let it pass, let it pass. I saw WWE action figures, featuring all of my favourite stars: The Edge, John Cena, Randy Orton, even Rick Rude and Arn ‘The Enforcer’ Anderson. I used to watch this crap years ago but except for ads do not see that stuff anymore. My friend, long ago, said of The Gong Show: it gives a comprehensive view of ourselves. Likewise wrestling, and it isn’t comfortable.

I never had interest in GI Joe as a gullible proto-consumer. Too static, I imagine. Seems like soon enough you are throwing rocks at such things, or shooting a BB gun. Let’s put a firecracker in his hand!!! I guess it is suplexes out the window for our WWE friends.

For the young lady, there was a Hannah Montana text phone. Push a button and you get messages from Hannah, Miley, and two of Hannah’s (not Miley’s) friends. These messages are described as uplifting, and include such as YOU ROCK! and C U L8TR. There’s a clip on the phone so that it can be attached to bag or pack. Which means your child can zone out in spelling class with lame messages just like her older siblings in chemistry.

Yesterday, another shopping trip, we went to Whole Foods for final bits of Thanksgiving. We are going to friends this year (today), but we are bringing the bird. We have not had Thanksgiving at home since 2004. We got a second bird just so that we could do it ourselves this weekend. Both of us strongly missed my father. The four of us had a nice compact. I used to bake 8 loaves of bread a week, just enough for the 4 of us. The first loaf, no matter when it went into the oven, would be gone by dinner time. For various reasons, I stopped making bread. Made some yesterday. Forgot some details but they came out fine.

A foggy Thanksgiving today. May it be a happy one, for you, for me, for all.

Erin and I watched this last night. Meant to watch Jason & the Argonauts, but it was no longer in Comcast’s freebies. I remember seeing Jason when I was young, eyes wide no doubt. The special effects hold up well. But anyway…

Spiderman (I do not really want to use that requisite hyphen, thank you) is about as good as superhero movies get. It is nice that Sam Raimi knew what to do with the money he was given for it. The movie looks fresh from the start.

Tobey Maguire is an unlikely choice for Spidey, in the sense that some blander hunk might have been chosen. He has dorky charm. No complaints about the rest of the cast. Kirsten Dunst puts depth in the pretty girl role, and Willem Dafoe is Willem Dafoe. Gosh he is wiry. I think he was in a movie in which he was a boxer in a German concentration camp, fighting (literally) to survive. Lean then, lean now.

As with all these superhero flicks, there is a long portion supplying us with how the superpowers developed and how the arch villain came to be so arch. Added to that is several other plots mostly surrounding Pete and MJ. Thanks to Marvel, comix turned to the inspiration of soap operas to keep their legions of fans interested. Yeck. It is just clutter when you do not really mean it.

So anyway, when something hi-tech goes wrong for Peter, it is a good thing, when something hi-tech goes wrong for Dafoe, he’s blowing people up. Well, that Dafoe is tightly wired, we all know that.

Spidey in action is giddy stuff, reflecting the tone of the comic. Yes, as Peter Parker he is morose, but swinging thru NYC, he’s a happy camper. The effects sometimes look cartoonish, but the sweeping camera views make up for that. And unlike with Star Trek, I was not suffering vertigo.

I liked the 2nd Spidey, as well, tho I can barely recall it except that it had Doc Ock, and there was the scene in which Spidey stops a train, which was cinematically exciting but I’m thinking that it pushes the reasonable limits of Spidey’s strength. Never saw part trois.

Funny to think of comix as such a mine for movies. I mean, yes, of course they invite the transfer, but they are hit or miss. Mr Fantastic’s powers, for instance, are just ridiculous, unbelievable. Spidey stopping a train leaves one wondering if he has limits. Tho he was mightily wasted from the effort, you still think, come the climax, he will have to do more. I think with myths like Jason, there is a more meaningful imperative. At any rate, Spidey comes as close as I have seen for a superhero movie to have soul.

Ron Silliman's collection of check it out is a valuable resource, but the vague and enigmatic titles for his links throw stones in the passway. A clearer indication of the rewards at the end of the click would be welcome. Just a suggestion from Dear Reader. I appreciate his effort natheless.

1. Jack Kimball’s Pantaloons. This has been a worthy read for years. Jack’s criticism and his reportage have always been strong. For a while now, his focus has been on the political mush surrounding and overwhelming us. The result of that focus is not simply commentary but a political implementation of language. This is keen stuff. In some sense, language is politics. Jack has been deploying language like bolts of disordered reason. It is a sort of healthy overunsimplification that twists the way the lowdown villains twist, then twists again.
2. Ben Friedlander regularly serves American Poetry in the Age of Whitman and Dickinson to us. Ben is a scholar, has that rigour, but is also a poet. This blog represents notes of his interest. I particularly liked the intimations (he’s adverting a full study) of Dickinson’s war poetry, and a brief on Theodore Parker, who was much more Emersonian (if you will accept that shorthand), than I knew. Not just an abolitionist, that is: he was friends of the Brownings!

We planned to visitate the Leonid Meteor Shower this week but had the day wrong. Beth had to work that night and Erin conscientiously thunk about his early class next day, so we canned it. But I woke at 2:00 got up and wandered locally for 90 minutes. I saw little in terms of meteor thigns, tho conditions were decent.

The next night, things were green, and we were hopeful that bits of star stuff would continue to zip excitedly thru our atmosphere. Finding a darksome locale for viewing in our populous region required some thinks, but we chose some conservation land amongst the 4000 citizens of Carlisle, MA, hoping the coppers don’t prove a bringdown, man.

So there we were, on a blanket on the ground. Temperature was around freezing, sky was clear. Time: 23 hundred hours.

I am inexplicably cheered by the sight of Orion, mon ami. It is one of the few celestial bodies that I can identify. I read that the meteors would emanate from the region of Mars, another body that I can identify. Not for us! The few meteorites that we saw (witnessed would be an appropriate verb, so fleeting is their appearance) were off to the left.

But it did not matter that we saw so few. It was lovely being out there together, with the expressed intention of looking at the sky. Even aircraft, mostly from this planet, are of interest. We could hear owls hooting, the occasional rustle in the woods of maybe deer, and then…

And then a nearby auditory gallimaufry—or do I mean salmagundi?—of coyotes on the hunt. They were down that way, towards the river (the mighty Concord of legend was about a 1/4 mile away). We took their excitement as cue to leave. Yes, we got spooked, but aggressive coyote packs have been documented recently. A couple of years ago Beth and I watched a lone coyote in broad daylight stalk carelessly within our apartment complex near the center of town, here kitty kitty kitty. What I am saying, it was a concern, tho really, we were done by then, and ready for easeful sleep.

It was fun and more to share this with my family, that is what I am finally saying.

I thought I saw this movie before but it turns out I saw the sequel, The Howling II, which has little to do with this thing. It is a werewolf movie, directed by Joe Dante and starring a fairly good cast. Not a great movie, but worth watching. Okay, worth watching if werewolves are worth watching. There is something to the genre, more compelling, perhaps, than the extended malarkey associated so much with the Vampire genre.

I suspect that this movie might have seemed pretty decent when it came out in the early 80s but now its aura of datedness obscures its virtues. Movies get dated quickly. The only type of movie that I want to see is guilty pleasures, which is to say, they interest me despite themselves. Poetry, you know, offers no guilty pleasures. You take poetry on the level it was intended. Few movies satisfy me on that level.

Anyway, the cast is pretty good. Dee Wallace Stone all play a tv reporter who allows herself to meet with a serial killer. Something happens in that meeting. She nearly gets killed and he does. And she is much shook up by this, so goes to a getaway with her husband. This  getaway is a sort of Esalen. It is run by Patrick MacNee.

Among the denizens at the institute are John Carradine and Slim Pickens. Another character in the movie is played by Dick Miller. Do any movies lacking at least one of those three exist?

The plot fizzles a bit. I mean, guess what, everyone’s a werewolf. First hubby gets bit, then Dee’s reporter friend, and so on. The chills are given surprisingly little scope.

What is given scope is the special effects. Rick Baker is credited as a consultant, la-de-dah. In the glee of using new technology, Dante offers prolonged execution of werewolf transformation processes. I would sooner see the stop action sort of transformation that Lon Chaney underwent than these static animatronic rituals. Watching this stuff is as interesting as listening to Bill Gates explain future conveniences to us.

I wonder who established that these physical transformations make noise? The crunchy plastic noise that these extending snouts produce is not what you call intuitive to me. The werewolves, when all that is done, look little better than the Halloween masks you wore when you were eight. Again, I’ll take Lon Chaney and his hiatus from Gillette.

The plot goes as you might expect. Dee and a co-worker escape from Esalen. Dee is bitten during the escape. They arrange for Dee to tell the world about the menace. On a newscast she explains things, then turns into a werewolf, at which point the co-worker shoots her. See, there were effective elements in the movie but everything, finally, just hangs there. Sigh.

The sequel, as I recall, was more outré. It followed directly from Dee’s funeral. Someone who was not in the original decides she needs to know more, and heads off to the Balkans, where things are more orgiastic, and accents are thicker. It was a little more laughable than this movie, by my estimation. There are three or four other Howlings that I have not seen. Don’t miss them if you can.

Just saw this thing, a Sam Raimi production. It has some of the virtues of the Spidey flicks, but not quite put together.

The movie starts with a bang. A gang in a warehouse awaits the arrival of a rival gang. There are just 5 in the rival gang, and they are frisked before they meet the gang leader. A member of the rival gang has a prosthetic leg. At a key moment, one of his comrades grabs the prosthesis, which proves to be a machine gun, and slaughters everyone but the boss of the first gang. The boss is then confronted by the rival leader, who looks like a meanie, albeit an urbane one. He is played by Larry Drake, who I know was on one of those endless dramatic shows in the 90s that I never watched. He trims his cigar with a cigar trimmer, then does likewise to the gang leader’s fingers. Ouch!

And then we turn to Liam Neeson, who is a scientist. You can tell: he wears a cardigan. He and his assistant are working on synthetic skin. Neeson’s girlfriend is Frances McDornand. She’s wasted in this flick, gasping and screaming mostly. Does it well, at least. Neeson’s role is thankless, spent much of the time wrapped in bandages. Oops, jumping ahead.

Okay, plot machinations in which McDornand discovers hincty business by the local billionaire. This sends the new gang boss to Neeson’s laboratory. He and his motley crue kill the assistant and mangle Neeson, in the course of which Neeson gets dunked in the synthetic skin, blah blah blah. The laboratory blows up and it appears Neeson is a goner. Gee, short movie.

Raimi does a transition in which McDornand stands staring at the burning laboratory, then the scene changes around her and she is at the cemetery mourning Neeson. Hokey, but thanks for trying.

A much-damaged Neeson is found, tho not identified, and brought to a hospital, where an apparent relative of Doktor Frankenstein merrily experiments on him. She takes 5 minutes to map out for us how John Doe’s nerves have been derailed and as compensation he has added strength but also adrenal surges that affect his moods. He also does not feel pain. Neeson suffers the diagnosis but bursts from his bounds before the doktor could share her prognosis, but we can guess, eh?

Neeson, resembling DeNiro in Frankenstein, albeit with facial bandages, shuffles off to a spare vacant warehouse to continue work on synthetic skin. He manages to build quite a set up, and perfects the skin so that he can go out in public. Not only that, he can create perfect likenesses of other people. And so he exacts revenge. Oh but wait, the skin holds together for only 90 minutes. His public appearances and guest shots can only last that long before Dorian Gray’s picture returns.

Neeson begins by grabbing one of the gang members, who he tortures in a sewer for info on the gang. Neeson, Darkman, finishes the guy by sticking the guy’s head up a manhole in brisk traffic. Fun Fact: the actor playing this gang member is Raimi’s brother. Hmmm…

Part deux of Darkman’s revenge consists of making himself look like another gang member. As this gang member, he absconds with money that was supposed to be delivered for the boss. The boss in his displeasure exacts a compelling toll.

Darkman feels good enough about his synth skin to return to McDornand, still with the 90 minute time limit. She had a minor dalliance with the billionaire after Neeson was presumed dead, btw.

Darkman goes coocoo for Cocoapuffs at times due to the adrenaline surge. He plays around with the boss and his gang, who play back, with McDornand getting threatened and such. The movie basically goes stupid.

Practicing for Spider-man, Raimi has Darkman dangling from cables quite a bit. Turns out that the billionaire is behind the gang boss. All bad guys die but Darkman turns from McDornand because he is ridden with comic book guilt and the usual mush.

Raimi has some verve here but this is a laboured effort. It is his first big Hollywood film and I am sure he had to buck the experts in the money room. Neeson did not seem comfortable at all, and McDornand, as I said, was wasted. So, in sum, it is just another comic book angst party except, because the comic book came out after the movie, it did not have the built in excitement that DC/Marvel extravaganzas bring (if they bring nothing else). Apparently the movie was popular, but I find it comme çi comme ça.