Saturday:
After a day spent strolling around the city while catching up on my podcasts (mostly episodes of the Viking Youth Power Hour), I met up with my chums Chez Norton's with the intent of seeing Borat. Twas not to be, alas, for the show was Soooooold out. Whoever is running Harkins Theaters right now is really dropping the ball on the Borat release: we went to the Scottsdale 101, one of the largest Harkins theaters in the area, and they were only playing it on 1 screen (whereas they had devoted THREE screens to some kids movie that probably won't be playing in 2 weeks), and not even on the Cine Capri big screen (rather than put Borat, a film with steady buzz, on the big screen, they opt to put "The Santa Claus 3" on there). Fucking imbeciles. We ended up heading back to my place and watching "Rounders", because Eric is the only member of our little coterie who has never seen it (and for all its predictable plot twists and self-important background music and occasionally contrived-noir-dialogue, its still a great movie; John Malkovich as Teddy KGB alone makes the film, even if he's barely in it for more than 15 minutes).
Sunday:
Once a year, a very rich friend of the family throws a large party at his house. The party's purpose? Drinking wine. The man owns so much wine that he throws a tres-chic party once a year just to GET RID of all the wine he'll never have enough time to consume. Now THAT is decadence (what's really decadent: he has a chocolate fountain. I swear I go to this thing just for those chocolate strawberries...). Since the divorce, my adopted father still has a standing invitation to the party (as do I), so since he was in town and I had the day off, I went to the party.
The perks of the party: good food. Marvelous beef tenderloin and grilled veal, fresh fruit, the aforementioned chocolate-strawberries-from-the-Gods.... he even had his own sushi chef (whose services I didn't call upon, seeing as I don't eat fish, any kind of fish, nor sea food for that matter). The wine itself was excellent, although I must confess that I don't have a very sensitive palate. Most people in my family can take a sip of wine and dissect it, tell you every single element of flavor it contains. Me? I'm still at the "it sucks" and "it tastes good" phase of wine-appreciation. I'm probably the only male member of my clan that will never become a sommelier. The free vino and chocolate strawberries is why I keep coming back to this shindig. It certainly isn't the company. Not that they're bad people per se... they just happen to all be living in tax brackets far above my head, and I have absolutely nothing in common with these people. Which is why I brought two books with me to the event: Herbert Marcuse's "One-Dimensional Man" and Bob Black's "Beneath The Underground". I was able to finish both during the party. In most situations, reading during a party would be considered a SERIOUS party foul, but fuck it, the odds of me having an interesting conversation at that event is about as good as Saddam Hussein getting a pre-execution handjob from Donald Rumsfeld.
Monday:
Work, work, work. Had dinner with the pater familias. We drank tall glasses of beer and discussed politics, which is something we don't usually do. Oddly enough, we have very similiar viewpoints (a bit disconcerting, that fact). I was also able to finish Guy Debord's "Society Of The Spectacle" today. Excellent book. I loved the early sections of the book where he discusses the spectacle in terse, brief paragraphs (it kinda reminded me of the Tao Te Ching). Now I've started in on "An Introduction To Theories Of Popular Culture" by Dominic Strinati; so far, good stuff, although a lot of Adorno's theories seem way offbase to me.
Random Scuttlebutt:
-Of all the books I've read recently, I really dug the Bob Black book the most. Even though it didn't have as much heavy-duty content as some of the other books, Black is a stylist. He can actually write, and he writes very well. His thoughts on the anarchistic movement in particular were very interesting. Hakim Bey called him "the fastest pun in the west" on the back of the book, and after finishing it, I'm inclined to agree with that compliment.
-Music: Parliament is at the top of my playlist. "Flashlight" and "Bop Gun" all day long.
-Poetry: picked up a CD of Lawrence Ferlinghetti reciting "A Coney Island Of The Mind" backed with music written by Dana from Morphine. I wish the music was a bit more aggressive, a bit more present, but Ferlinghetti's performance holds my attention. I don't usually listen to poets recite their work, but I'm digging "Coney Island".
Yeah... not much else beyond that. Tomorrow: ballot-casting time!
After a day spent strolling around the city while catching up on my podcasts (mostly episodes of the Viking Youth Power Hour), I met up with my chums Chez Norton's with the intent of seeing Borat. Twas not to be, alas, for the show was Soooooold out. Whoever is running Harkins Theaters right now is really dropping the ball on the Borat release: we went to the Scottsdale 101, one of the largest Harkins theaters in the area, and they were only playing it on 1 screen (whereas they had devoted THREE screens to some kids movie that probably won't be playing in 2 weeks), and not even on the Cine Capri big screen (rather than put Borat, a film with steady buzz, on the big screen, they opt to put "The Santa Claus 3" on there). Fucking imbeciles. We ended up heading back to my place and watching "Rounders", because Eric is the only member of our little coterie who has never seen it (and for all its predictable plot twists and self-important background music and occasionally contrived-noir-dialogue, its still a great movie; John Malkovich as Teddy KGB alone makes the film, even if he's barely in it for more than 15 minutes).
Sunday:
Once a year, a very rich friend of the family throws a large party at his house. The party's purpose? Drinking wine. The man owns so much wine that he throws a tres-chic party once a year just to GET RID of all the wine he'll never have enough time to consume. Now THAT is decadence (what's really decadent: he has a chocolate fountain. I swear I go to this thing just for those chocolate strawberries...). Since the divorce, my adopted father still has a standing invitation to the party (as do I), so since he was in town and I had the day off, I went to the party.
The perks of the party: good food. Marvelous beef tenderloin and grilled veal, fresh fruit, the aforementioned chocolate-strawberries-from-the-Gods.... he even had his own sushi chef (whose services I didn't call upon, seeing as I don't eat fish, any kind of fish, nor sea food for that matter). The wine itself was excellent, although I must confess that I don't have a very sensitive palate. Most people in my family can take a sip of wine and dissect it, tell you every single element of flavor it contains. Me? I'm still at the "it sucks" and "it tastes good" phase of wine-appreciation. I'm probably the only male member of my clan that will never become a sommelier. The free vino and chocolate strawberries is why I keep coming back to this shindig. It certainly isn't the company. Not that they're bad people per se... they just happen to all be living in tax brackets far above my head, and I have absolutely nothing in common with these people. Which is why I brought two books with me to the event: Herbert Marcuse's "One-Dimensional Man" and Bob Black's "Beneath The Underground". I was able to finish both during the party. In most situations, reading during a party would be considered a SERIOUS party foul, but fuck it, the odds of me having an interesting conversation at that event is about as good as Saddam Hussein getting a pre-execution handjob from Donald Rumsfeld.
Monday:
Work, work, work. Had dinner with the pater familias. We drank tall glasses of beer and discussed politics, which is something we don't usually do. Oddly enough, we have very similiar viewpoints (a bit disconcerting, that fact). I was also able to finish Guy Debord's "Society Of The Spectacle" today. Excellent book. I loved the early sections of the book where he discusses the spectacle in terse, brief paragraphs (it kinda reminded me of the Tao Te Ching). Now I've started in on "An Introduction To Theories Of Popular Culture" by Dominic Strinati; so far, good stuff, although a lot of Adorno's theories seem way offbase to me.
Random Scuttlebutt:
-Of all the books I've read recently, I really dug the Bob Black book the most. Even though it didn't have as much heavy-duty content as some of the other books, Black is a stylist. He can actually write, and he writes very well. His thoughts on the anarchistic movement in particular were very interesting. Hakim Bey called him "the fastest pun in the west" on the back of the book, and after finishing it, I'm inclined to agree with that compliment.
-Music: Parliament is at the top of my playlist. "Flashlight" and "Bop Gun" all day long.
-Poetry: picked up a CD of Lawrence Ferlinghetti reciting "A Coney Island Of The Mind" backed with music written by Dana from Morphine. I wish the music was a bit more aggressive, a bit more present, but Ferlinghetti's performance holds my attention. I don't usually listen to poets recite their work, but I'm digging "Coney Island".
Yeah... not much else beyond that. Tomorrow: ballot-casting time!
i've read the tao te chen all i remember was it was pithy though
yeah and morphine i havnt listened to in a long time but i liked em way back when
im going to try to gather up my unappreciated media this week you working sat. or sun?