today's 2:45 movie

You know, I sit (sleep) through MANY kid movies. "Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore" is undoubtedly one of the WORST. With the WORST voice acting. I think it was LITERALLY phoned in from home, or possibly even a car, as the (second-string) actors read the text off of a mobile device. You might think, as I did, that Nick Nolte as the voice of a giant Anatolian Shepherd (I just saw one at the dog park) might be somewhat amusing. It's not.

But why do you even care, you say, why get so worked up? I honestly don't why I'm so worked up about the shittyness of the movie, since I really did sleep through a good one-third of it. This one pissed me off. "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" was delightful and life-enriching compared to "C and D". I'm sorry. I don't usually spew like this.

And enough with the 3-D already. But I know it's not going away.

It was funny for a dog to say "Let's cut to the chase." I'll admit that.

design love

Google has used a Josef Frank design for their logo today in honor of the 125th anniversary of his birth. {Isn't it really a masthead?} I became aware of this amazing designer when Michael and I spent a vacation in Stockholm and Helsinki. Not first (and or second) on everybody's list of European cities to visit, but I'm part Finnish and my mother has trained me to obsess on things Scandinavian.

Down the street from our hotel was a design/furniture/home store called Svensk Tenn. There was some of the most stunning fabric I'd ever seen. Bold, bright colors in amazing combinations, amorphous plants and amoeba-blobby shapes. Does just looking at something amazing give you a short-of-breath tingly rush? Do you daydream about it?

It was so expensive. I couldn't even let myself buy a pre-cut remnant, it wasn't discounted at all. We bought a set of plasticated placemats with his "Manhattan" pattern.

I visit his designs now and then online. There's some amazing furniture pieces also. And wallpaper in may of the fabric prints. Anthropologie sold a wingback chair and dining chairs upholstered with his designs.

My imaginary perfect kitchen remodel has black slate, cherry wood, and Josef Frank curtains.

And now Svensk Tenn has Joseph Frank handbags! And my birthday's coming up. I don't even want to check the exchange rate, do I. I just did. It's not that bad, really. I wonder if anyone carries them in New York. Hint, hint.

maiden!

So, yes, for the price of free, Michael and I thought it would be fun to see Iron Maiden at the Garden. We are talking about a classic band here. Did we go just to say we did? Okay, there's some of that. I think I'm drifting into midlife-crisis territory here, and I would like to consider myself still a person who will rock out now and then, rather than fall asleep on the couch catching up on whatever HBO is serving up.

Having partied with the burnouts during high school in the mid 80s, I consider myself, shall we say, "sympathetic" to metal. Not really a huge fan, but I always felt like I "get it". I've spent a few lost afternoons and evenings watching Alice Cooper concerts on video. And "Spinal Tap". I can hardly begin to describe how fun it was to watch "Spinal Tap" with a bunch of actual teenage metalheads who LOVED the music and wanted to know does the band still tour, and did say these exact words "I know it's supposed to be funny, but it's really good." Moments to savor for a lifetime. I'm doing it right now.

The audience ranged from old dudes in black t-shirts to younger dudes in black t-shirts, and one confident gentleman loitering about in a kilt and black t-shirt. He looked like he knew his way around a Highland Games.

The Iron Maiden show was, well, fine. We had our earplugs to take the edge off (they've taken enough abuse already). A highlight was the tribute to recently departed Ronnie James Dio, who is credited with the creation of the "devil horns" salute. Bruce Dickinson said, "You will never catch me doing this at a concert, except right now, for Ronnie." So we all gave the salute to Ronnie in heaven. Also, the band seems to have missed the memo on not smiling onstage, they seemed genuinely grateful to the fans, and appreciative of the loyalty. And please buy the new CD.

Because we are old, we skipped out early and caught the 10:30 train home.

my Hopper

Here's my imaginary Edward Hopper. The text on the left side reads, "HOW MANY HOPPERS DO YOU NEED". We went to an exhibit a few years ago, and were surprised to learn that the original "Captain Upton's House" is "From the collection of Steve Martin". Ours cost five dollars. "SK" sold paintings at rock shows years ago.

Nighthawks in the imagination

Edward Hopper's "Nighthawks" "an emblem of New York City"? Really? I always thought it looked like Chicago or LA or somewhere else. I guess I was mistaken.

I don't usually skim the op-ed pages of the NYT, but today, I saw yesterday's, and stopped at this essay about trying to find the actual location of Hopper's most famous work, which I'm sure you remember from dorm rooms everywhere. And no, it doesn't really depict Marilyn, James Dean, and Elvis after hours.

["Nighthawks", Hopper said in an interview..., “was suggested by a restaurant on Greenwich Avenue where two streets meet.” The location was pinpointed by a Hopper expert, Gail Levin, as the “empty triangular lot” where Greenwich meets 11th Street and Seventh Avenue, otherwise known as Mulry Square. This has become accepted city folklore. Greenwich Village tour guides point to the lot, now owned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and tell visitors that Hopper’s diner stood there.} Jeremiah Moss, NYT Monday, July 5, 2010.

I'm looking at it in a book right now. Too much sidewalk, which is too clean. My eye keeps being drawn to the empty space in the lower left foreground, which seems slightly distended, as if by a fisheye lens.

When I think of Hopper, I think of more of the wide open spaces, which I imagine to be in other, less crowded parts of the country. A house bordered by weedy fields. A first floor motel room. So looking at the plates in "Edward Hopper and the American Imagination", I realize my memory does not match the reality exactly. As I page through the book, I see that he did paint New York scenes, but the harsh, clear sunlight of the daytime paintings which are set elsewhere are more vivid in my memory. My imaginary NYC, my imaginary Edward Hopper paintings, and Edward Hopper's imaginary NYC do not line up.

The consensus seems to be that the "Nighthawks" diner existed only in his imagination.

the empty holster

So, right up front. I'm going to admit to being underwhelmed by Toy Story 3.

The short that precceeds it is puzzlingly retro-sexist, but so difficult to describe, I'll just say that it features a blobby cartoon character is drooling over a cartoon bikini girl. That set me down into a stew of righteous feminist indignation before the movie even started. Then in the first five minutes, there's a big fiery explosion, and a mushroom cloud (it's made of plastic monkeys, but still). I can't help but feel like I'm nitpicking here, but I come to a Pixar film looking for some shameless emotional exploitation, not action movie stuff. I guess it could be taken as a wink and a nudge to the usual summer-movie-mayhem, but it wasn't funny. It was a little funny. Looking forward to a big tearful catharsis, I remained dry-eyed until the final minutes. I guess nothing could push my buttons like montage of Jessie being loved and abandoned by Emily while Sara McLaghlan sings.

Toy Story is still about playing with toys the right way. It's a horror to be played with the wrong way. Being loved to death by young pre-schoolers is equivalent to dismemberment and reconfiguration at the hands of Sid, serial-killer -in-training. Though in the minds of some, he is creative, unbound by conventions and rules.

The most intriguing aspect of it all is, as always, the empty holster. There's always a little tension around Woody's removable hat being lost, but even Big Al, the heartless mercenary toy collector who is so excited to find a Woody complete with hat, never mentions what is missing from the holster. I always wonder how and when exactly these decisions get made, because nothing happens by accident in a Pixar movie. [Pixar provides a great argument that great (popular) art can be made by committee.] A TV cowboy of another era wouldn't be complete without a gun (or two), but by today's standards, it's unthinkable to provide a child with even a tiny six-shooter. So the compromise is an empty holster. What's the quote about a gun in the first act, having to go off? "One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it." I pulled it from Wikipedia entry on Chekhov. So what does no gun mean? And who is Woody's original owner? I've always assumed he belonged to the missing and never mentioned father. (I did the math and it works out well enough.If Andy is 17 in 2010, and "Woody's Roundup" aired in the early 60's, that adds up.) The empty holster is the symbol of the lost father, that Woody can fill in for but never fully replace. As the father is never mentioned, neither is the gun.

Woody also fills the role of boss of the toys. He's the jovial manager that David Brent/Michael Scott (I love both US and UK versions of The Office) are always trying to be. Quick with a joke, trusted, admired, beloved. Able to muster his troops and calm the savages in a crisis. And he has a militaristic, buffoonish sidekick jockeying for power in Buzz Lightyear. Hmm, I may have to expand on this later. I wonder if I can make footnotes.

book trees

It's tree trunks with little cubbies filled with books to exchange. It's in Berlin. I want one. With magic book fairies.

From NY Times article on globalism by Michael Kimmelman.