Don Knotts Gone

Don Knotts was in one of the first movies I saw in the theater, The Apple Dumpling Gang. Appearantly, he was also a highly decorated WWII veteran. I guess he was no Mr. Chicken after all.

The Continental

Now, The Continental is more to me than a beloved SNL sketch character. It's how I knit. And it really is faster.

At first, I hated continental knitting because my purl stitch was out of control, then this kind woman hipped me to The Norweigan (scroll down a bit to see it). When I first saw it, it blew my mind, but when stopped trying to understand it with my mind and let my hands do it, it all came together. The kind woman also taught me the Russian knit stitch. My wrists and nerve tunnels will forever be grateful.

Leave it to the Norweigans and Russians to invent better ways to make warm clothes.

Waiting to Sex Pale

Last weekend at the movies was to kinds of fun: proto-post-modern clever and the inner-teen dreamy with a twist of social comment.

First, Papertrix, Snacks and I saw Tristram Shandy, a film geek's delight of the Brit variety. If you enjoy self-referential, self-mocking, self-indulgence, then get yourself to it before it leaves town as fast as it came. (Unless you live in New York where you'll probably be able to see it in a theater at least a month from now.)

Later, I saw Something New with my friend who only enjoys "normal movies" in which time moves in one direction only: forward of course. Something New, a comedy about a black woman dating a white man, shouldn't be something new, yet it is. If it wasn't, then why was it released by a company like Focus Features? Even in a fairly conventional entertainment movie, this topic is still a big deal, folks.

Most Rom Coms and Chick Flicks seem as unfamiliar to me as Wuxia Pian (and far less entertaining). Usually the only ones that don't make me ill are the "urban" ones, and even those have little I can relate to. These parades of impeccable fashionistas and high powered executives who are still "down" are comfortable fantasies of African American upper middle class life that remind me of the Hollywood glamour of the 30's and 40's. The characters are beautiful creatures, fun to watch but unlike anyone I really know. The values are occasionally tweaked, but never fully questioned.

Something New didn't exactly burn the mother of bourgie values down. It was too cuddly and cute for that. But the main character, Kenya, and her family were as close to recognizably human as I've ever seen in an unassuming romantic comedy. I haven't watched a movie and thought "That reminds of so-and-so." so often since I first saw Crooklyn.

Sanaa Lathan's Kenya had just the right brittleness and intelligence. The movie's cultural specificity and its ambivalence to the society that stood in the lovers' way (you gotta have something stand in the lovers' way) was strong enough that people will leave the theater with something to think about. And that made me feel a little less corny as I ate up the more conventional parts of the movie (the candles, the getting caught in the rain, the pretty clothes). There's even a debutante cotillion. Just try to pull that off, Drew Barrymore!

So if you like "normal movies" with a hearty side of satire, looking at nice clothes, and watching guys do heavy yard work, try Something New. If you've ever been in a debutante cotillion or considered paying hundreds of dollars for a weave, see it in the theater.

1-800-DIAL-ECTC

I thought I was through with "the dialectic" when I graduated from college, but in my new job, I find myself trying to come up with exciting copy that'll sell this bugger of a concept. The same goes for mimesis, Augustinians, ideology, and anything Lacan.

Since most of the books we're hawking are meant for small coiteries of scholars who seem to spend a lot of time talking to themselves, pushing these ideas isn't a problem. In fact, think these guys eat this stuff up. It's when my boss wants to sell a book to the "informed public" that I cringe to read the word "dialectic" in the manuscript.

Other words, like gender, are an easy sell. Who doesn't love gender. Even if you don't really know what it means, you know what it means. Sometimes I get the feeling that about 10 years ago, people started slapping "gender" on a cover just like "new and improved." And now they can't stop.

Ethnography: Now with Gender!

I guess I shouldn't make too much fun. I was filled with a different social science, one briming with "bank hegemonic" goodness, "cultural products," and "content analysis." And my taste for literary criticism was soured by my 10th grade English teacher.

Apocalypse Snow

Okay, maybe it's not fair for a Minnesotan to say this, but...Philly, get over yourself. It's just snow. On Saturday, the marathon lines at the grocery store would have lead you to believe that the end times were nigh. But no, it was only a forecast of snow on a weekend. On a weekend, mind you. Yes, the snow was thick, but most of the able-bodied dug themselves out quickly by Sunday afternoon. The kids got to make snowmen. Industrial salt companies and ski resorts made some money. There were a few jackknifed tractor trailers on the freeways, but when are there not? Perhaps the autumn spike in the birth rate will be a little higher than usual.

Yes, the snow was a big deal, but not such a bad deal after all, at least not in the city.

Draped in Cheet-o

This weekend, I found a yarn that is the exact same orange as that irresistable snack, so much so that I couldn't stop myself from buying it.

Looking for New Dwellings

I've been living in the same place now for about six years, that's my all-time adult record. I suppose I'm about as attached to my current apartment as I've been to any building, that is, not so much. Just enough so that I let out a restful sigh when I return to it after a short trip. I can't afford that notion of a house or an apartment being a reflection or extension of my self. Still, I enjoy my friends' interior design.

Soon I'll have all the necessary elements in line to secure a new apartment.

Yes, I've done some stuff and thought some thoughts since January 30. Yet I didn't bother to share them here. Here, I must be so general, but so it's the specifics that make for good reading. Universal feelings are best in popular music lyrics.

I must write 3000 words for work by next Wednesday. I am knitting a beret.