My first "construction" project is a success! Behold ye the self-built microwave-holding shelf. My first attempt didn't leave enough room to squeeze the microwave in. I only had to lower the bracket on the right a wee bit and instead of drilling a new screw-hole for the lower slot I just hammered in a nail, which I'm not sure does any good for support, but whatever. I didn't think this was going to work but it did. Yeah! No ugly microwave cart for me.

Micro-waves!

From McSweeney's:

BUTTERBALL HELP-LINE
HELP-LINE.

BY ALYSIA GRAY PAINTER

When are these guys gonna tour already! I'm a front-row fan, don't they know?

Off The Beaten Track

I'm in the final stretch of my Terry Gilliam marathon! Three more to go! (Or four, depending on how I feel about watching Brothers Grimm again)

I started with:

Time Bandits

Oh, Time Bandits! You know, it's that one with the troupe of midget (little people? What's the proper word these days?) thieves with the little boy. They go through time and meet Napoleon and Robin Hood. I love the Robin Hood part. "But then, they haven't got two pennies to rub together. Because they're poor!" Classic, very Monty Python-esque. The little boy actor is kind of annoying. Not such a charming little fella. I love Randall though, and the Evil Genius guy.





Then on to:

Brazil

I've never come across this movie before but I've heard that it's pretty classic Terry Gilliam, so expectations were high. It's interesting but not my new favorite. The guy who plays the Frenchy bad guy in Adventures of Baron Munchausen and also Keira Knightly's dad in Pirates of the Caribbean is the lead. Even though he's great, I found it kind of hard to buy him as this head-in-the-clouds innocent. But Gilliam here creates an interesting vision of the future. Mona from Who's the Boss plays the main guy's mother and she's obsessed with plastic surgery and wining and dining with high society. Robert DeNiro is excellent, of course, as a mysterious heat engineer/terrorist who is working against this highly controlled/bureaucratic society. The ending's a little sad, but not surprising given what is to come in the Terry Gilliam repertoire.


With much glee:

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

I've owned this movie for a long time and I think it will remain one of my favorites. Baron Munchausen is such a fantastic character, a gallant, red-haired, Don Juan-y kind of guy. And he's got his band of misfit/superheroes: the fastest man alive, the strongest man alive, a guy who can see really far, and a guy who can hear really far. On his journeys he meets Robin Williams as the man on the moon and Uma Thurman as Venus. All the while cheating death time and time again. Now that I've read Don Quixote I can definitely see shades of it in this. Seeing that Terry Gilliam later tried to adapt the story to film (unsuccessfully, too bad) I'm sure he was influenced by that book.




And finally, at least, so far:

The Fisher King

I was certain upon finishing this that it was not written by Terry Gilliam and I'm right. It's a different film for him. It doesn't have the heavy fantasy element, for one. It's kind of great that searching for the holy grail is a theme though. Like, shout out to my peeps! But it's not a minor theme, in fact it's very integral to the story. I found Robin Williams kind of cute in this flick. He hammed it up just where he needed to and not beyond and wore the twinkly, contemplative look just where he needed to. Jeff Bridges makes me think of the DJ guy in Northern Exposure in this one. They do kind of look alike. Oh, and Tom Waits plays a beggar!

This is appropriate since elections are coming up:

Pap
(noun)

1. Soft or semiliquid food, as for infants.
2. Something lacking real value or substance and considered to be unsuitable for the minds of adults.
3. Slang. Money and favors obtained as political patronage.

Usage (the dictionary helped me with this one): "uncouth, self-seeking politicians primarily interested in patronage, privilege, and pap" (Fiorello LaGuardia).

Okay, I'll make my own:
These political ads like to accuse the opposing candidate of accepting pap.

Does anyone actually use this term? Maybe we should. American Heritage Dictionary mo-fo's!

This reminds me of the Beach Boys for some reason. Must be the staggered chorus?

To Our Continuing Friendship

Tap Tap

My mom used to make these balls of dough filled with meat and cabbage that I absolutely loved and could hardly ever get her to make because they are a lot of work. I gleaned a tenative recipe from her that I wrote down, verbatim, like this:

turker burger - brown w/ salt/pepper/garlic powder
cut up onion
cut up cabbage
put in skillet w/ meat
cook until soft
roll mix in dough (fold & pinch)

So when I dragged this gibberish out of my recipe book it was oh so much help. Cooking with my mom wasn't learn a recipe, it was learn by observation. I've never been really good at this. (Except for my killer mac n cheese!)

The above instructions sound rather straight forward and I thought this was an easy job... Until I started working with the dough. This is why "bakers" have a profession all their own. I bought premade frozen dinner rolls because they are already in a ball and I let them sit out and rise while I was at work. I even covered the dish with a wet towel like I vaguely remember my mom doing.

I came home and the rolls looked partially cooked. Very large and crusty on the outside. This is not what I was going for. So I de-thawed some more rolls, this time only for the recommended 3-4 hours. Okay, so all is well and I had the meat and the cabbage ready to go but I picked up the dough and I didn't know what the heck to do with it. Don't you knead dough? So I started to roll the dough in my hands, pretty much just smearing it all over my palms and not creating a thick, pliable, workable mass.

I was hungry and didn't want to start over, so I gently flattened one ball, dumped on some meat and cabbage, and covered it with another ball and folded the edges together. Voila. My closest approximation of my mom's "krautburgers." They tasted okay.

Krautburgers

I'm always excited when another package arrives from Amazon.com. Here's a new song in my music library:

Here Cometh

Tap Tap

This is a good theme song for this time of year:

Yo La Tengo - Autumn Sweater

Yo La Tengo

Word of the week! My new English-major nerd feature!

I picked this one because it's fun to say.

lascivious:
(adjective)
1. Of or characterized by lust, lewd
2. Exciting sexual desires

Usage: Sister Mary Margaret was shocked by Father John's lascivious advances.