Coraline

The iPhone takes terrible pictures, especially in low light, and especially when you ask a stranger to handle it.  Thus the "this is the only known photo of the bell tower gunman" look of the photo to the right.

But this is Ellen and I after seeing Coraline, a movie we really liked.  The movie's in 3D -- so everyone had to wear these bug-eyed glasses.

I have liked stop-motion movies in the past -- Wallace and Gromit comes to mind -- but they all kind of have a matte-finish, clay plainness to them.  Which kinda works for the drab English life of W&G.

But Coraline absolutely glowed from within, with a beauty to which it had no right.  In particular, the garden scenes (let's discuss after you've see it.)

The story sometimes lagged, but during those times, there was always some clever bit of design or animation that kept me entertained.  For instance the "snapdragon" flowers in the garden are actually shaped like dragon's heads.

After you see the movie, let's discuss of what the soft crinkled tunnel to the other world reminded you.

Over Stimulus

Saturday we attended a Deaf West Theater production of "Pippin," that 70's pop chestnut.  The cast was a mix of deaf and hearing actors.  Those hearing actors who spoke their own roles also signed them.  Deaf actors had a counterpart who spoke their lines while they acted and signed them.  This was occasionally beautiful, but had a weird effect on the show: not much dancing.  Now there's not much to the story of Pippin.  In fact the book is lame.  But in the 70's production I saw, the lead character (the role originated by ben Vereen, played by Northern J Calloway when I saw it) performed some real show-stopping dance numbers.  But not this production, everyone was too busy signing!  Putting on Pippin without the dancing is a little like porn without the sex, if you ask me.  Two thumbs down.

Yesterday, as if to cleanse the palate, I went to a two-hour "Support the Economic Stimulus" meeting of a local Obama support group, for which I had done some phone-banking during the run-up to the election.  There were about 40 of us, crammed into a coffee-break area in an open-style office space on Melrose.  It sure seemed like a motley crew of people my age, if the pre-presentation chatter was any clue.  The somewhat overweight lady next to me seemed, from her slow and simplistic speech patterns, to be a little "off," kind of in the way the men and women who worked in my high-school cafeteria were "off."  She kept interrupting other people's conversations to say something like "I hope I can help."  I avoided looking at her.

The meeting started boringly enough, with the showing of a video made by Tim Kaine, governor of Virginia (?).  Oddly, the TV was somehow mis-calibrated, and the only color possible was blue.  So it was sort of like a Democratic infomercial filmed by a Nam Jun Paik.  Gov. Kaine -- not the most entertaining orator --  answered e-mailed in questions about the stimulus.  To me, his answers were glib and condescdending, which I thought was a rip-off for us faithful.  He didn't seem to think there were going to be ANY problems with transparency or getting the dollars out there.  Well whoop-de-do for you.

The real entertainment started when the video ended.  The two meeting leaders asked us to go around the room and for each person to describe how the economic downturn had affected them.  It started out calmly enough, with seemingly more than half of the room un- or under-employed (me included).  The lady next to me said something short and sweet about wanting to help, but I was nervous about allowing her to help.  Maybe it was just me.

Then we got to the fat gray-bearded man in the corner.  This guy was ANGRY.  Angry at Republicans, angry at Democrats for giving in too much to Repubs, angry at Obama for compromising.  Is this what he worked so hard for?  (He never got around to his own situation, but I can't imagine it was good.)  Some granola muncher who reminded me of Janice from the Muppets band jumped in to defend Obama ("we need to trust him!"), others dove into the fray, and we had a full-fledged argument going on!  A smile crept onto my face as I saw the fat man's visage turn red.  Now we're talking!  The two meeting leaders tried impotently to calm everyone down, like the cops on the street in the final chaos of "Animal House" -- but without success.  Others in the room had to shout the arguers down before we could being going around the room again.

No more arguments broke out, but there sure were several people who were passionate about the current economy, or who liked the sound of their own voice a lot, or both.  Teachers, retirees, unemployed film producers, and even one hypnotherapist who said his business was doing just fine.  Bastard!

Finally catharsis was achieved when one woman -- another underemployed film producer -- gleefully started letting loose with "fuck this" and "why the fuck won't they do that?"  It's amazingly freeing when everyone's been speaking very politely if passionately and then someone just starts using the f-word, like we all do all the time.  People smiled and I laughed out loud.   Hooray for you!  Although I think I might have smelled alcohol on her breath.  Oh well, no matter, you go sister!

Of course the meeting was only two hours long, and this "everyone talk about their situation" took almost the whole time.  The meeting leaders did very little to try and move it along from the zealots and the bloviators.  Only the very last few minutes were left for brainstorming things we could do to support the stimulus, which naturally devolved again into every shouting about boycotts and calling Gov Schwarzeneggar (sp?).  Janice, fat gray-beard, and everyone else just started yelling.  I loved it!

Curry Flavor

Although it may seem inadvisable given the end of my last post, tonight I made chicken curry for dinner.  It was delicious!

Now I guess I just have to work on my food photography skills, since the accompanying picture isn't that appetizing, if you ask me.

Along with the curry, besides peas and rice, was Garlic Nan, purchased at a local Indian market that Ellen and I visited for the first time.  It was like stepping off an LA street into a third world market, where everything looked foreign: big bags of grain and rice on pallets, weird brands of food mix, bottles of barley soda.  Also available, on top of the shelf units, were tablas and sitars.  Behind the counter were all sorts of religious icons.  We stuck with the nan, mango candy, and some dubious looking Indian cookies.

Bon Appetit!

The Clifton's Diet

An article in the LA Times alerted us to a Los Angeles institution -- Clifton's, a downtown cafeteria.  Fun!  Kitschy!  Good cheap food!  Authentic LA!  I love cafeterias (ever since the one in Dadeland Mall, Miami FLA), so I convinced the wife to accompany me that very day to Clifton's for a late lunch around 3PM.

Parking is such sweet sorrow.  Actually not sweet at all.  You'll pay $15 to park anywhere near Clifton's, thus ruining anything "cheap" about your lunch.  But no matter -- we were full of eager anticipation for our gustatory adventure.  We haven't walked a downtown street in years, so we were enjoying the multi-cultural throngs on a warm winter day as we strolled towards the restaurant.  The entire jewelry district lay before us, but we didn't see any elderly Nazi war criminals.

Walked in the front door of Clifton's and were immediately struck by the dingy sadness of the place.  The famed bakery counter, bathed in non-appetizing flourescent tones, was only half-full of lonely, aging cakes and pies.  On a bench right near the entrance sat a 400 lb woman in a mauve jogging suit hiked up her top in order to scratch her Buddha-like belly.  Surprisingly, I remained hungry.

The decor itself seems to have seen its best days about 40 years ago.  It's meant to have a sort of log-cabin, Country Bear Jamboree feel to it, but now has the feel of one of those run-down Santa's Villages, as if the Bears had gone bankrupt a while back.  There are little pockets of theme-park-ishness with woodsy cabin interiors next to formica tables, and back-lit photos of the American west on the walls.  There's even a motorized racoon who slowly, jerkily pops up out of a tree trunk every five seconds or so.  His fur looks dirty.

We grabbed trays and ambled on down the food line.  It seemed like "late lunch" was a bad choice, since the food looked old enough to vote and many of the sneeze-guarded countertops were bare.  I chose a fried chicken leg, spinach, mac n cheese, and a piece of chocolate banana cake.  The lovely wife got spaghetti and meat balls.

We chose an upstairs table overlooking the great unwashed below.  The place was sparsely populated, with the occasional patron yammering to a seemingly perfect stranger about some inanity.

The food was LOUSY.  Chicken leg bland, ditto the mac n cheese.  Cake a little bit stale.  (Spinach OK I guess.)  The wife glumly ate her spaghetti in dutiful silence, offering up that it was cold only when asked.

But here comes the best part.  I almost immediately started to feel a rumbly in my tumbly, and not the good kind.  (Is there a good kind?)  My stomach twisted and turned, as if trying to avoid the food coming down my gullet, like Regan in the Exorcist trying to avoid a splash of holy water.  I hastily recused myself to the downstairs mens room, which was old and run-down but clean.  Still, this was one of the rare times I used one of those tissue  paper toilet seat covers.  Isn't it neat the way its little paper tongue makes it flush itself down?

I told the wife we better cancel out movie plans and head home.  She nodded, worried.  Pretty much once I got behind the wheel of the Prius and motores back onto the streets of downtown, heading back to Glendale, my intestines started sending me a message.  An urgent one.  I had to GO.  I gunned the little engine and turned my wheels onto the 110 North.  Right into bumper-to-bumper TRAFFIC.

Now it was a race against time.  And not a fun one.  I needed to go, and I wasn't about to stop in Chinatown and look for an open restaurant.  We inched along as I tried to visualize making it home in time and breathed deeply.  Things were getting more urgent with every minute that passed.  Soon we got onto the 2 North, out of traffic, and I stamped on the gas pedal.  The fried chicken leg sped through me.

Got home, ran into the first floor bathroom just in time.  Phew!  Look out below!

So thank you Clifton's, for a memorable afternoon.  Never again.