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7.30.2001


I went to see Sexy Beast last night. I wasn't expecting too much because someone had told me it was a movie about thugs and a big robbery/heist thing and I'd just seen The Score which was about thugs pulling a big robbery/heist thing and was, you know, really bad. What I'm saying is that I wasn't expecting too much. But it was really pretty good.

The next paragraph is totally unrelated to the above paragraph (except for the fact that Ben Kingsley is in both of the movies I'm talking about).

My friend and I were talking about Schindler's List after the movie last night. Remember how when Schindler's List came out, everyone treated it like it was not just a movie, but a serious event? Somehow, it transcended normal culture and entered this protected space. There really weren't any negative reviews; people spoke about the movie in hushed tones, etc.

Removed a couple of years, I have some thoughts about this. First, I think if the same movie were released today, it would not be treated the same way. I think, as a society, we're too far into this absurdly ironic space to take anything on one level. I'm not sure this is a bad thing.

Secondly, I'm not sure that Schindler's List as a sweeping cultural event was a good thing. It seems to me that what Schindler's List did was open the Holocaust for discussion, present a picture of the Holocaust that had an unnaturally happy ending, and then close the discussion. It felt to me like I was being told, "OK, now, as a society, we're done with the Holocaust." Instead of being forced to confront what we as a people did, we were able to sidestep a lot of it. I'm pretty sure this isn't a good thing.
..:.:4:02 PM:.:..


7.25.2001


Is it just me, or is advertising on fortune cookies a sign of the coming apocalypse?


..:.:8:15 PM:.:..


7.23.2001


My mother likes to frame pictures she has taken. She has lots and lots of framed pictures around her house. Some are vacation pictures, some are pictures of her garden. Most of these pictures, however, are of our family: me, my sister, herself, her cats, etc.

I was housesitting last weekend feeding her cats while she was on vacation and I was bored, so I started looking closely at her framed pictures. Before they just blended into this framed photo melange, but this time I spent the time to really look at them. I noticed something very disturbing: my mother has WAY more pictures of my sister than of me. Here's the final count (this is pictures in which we appear alone -- there are a couple in which we appear together):

My sister: 12
Me: 3

And, if that wasn't bad enough, here's the kicker:

Her cats: 5
..:.: 5:29 PM :.:..


7.20.2001


There's been (as I'm sure you've seen by now) a casualty at the G8 protests in Genoa today. There's this Reuters picture of the dead protestor which you can't help but see everywhere. I saw the picture and looked away, then looked again and couldn't help staring at it. And I know that this is the most cliche possible thought but the photo just seemed so real. Not to get too detached, but I looked closer and I think one of the reasons the photo is so moving is the stuff that has fallen out of his pockets.
..:.: 3:17 PM :.:..


This children's book, A Guitar for Janie, is great. It starts:

"While her sister slept and her parents watched television, Janie rocked for an audience of appreciative stuffed animals, attentively seated in front of her closet."

Plus, it comes with a great two-song 7" record.
..:.: 12:15 PM :.:..


7.19.2001


I had a teacher in Elementary School who used to always say Gallagher-ish stuff like, "Isn't it funny that you drive in a parkway and park in a driveway?"

Man, I used to think that stuff was funny.
..:.: 3:28 PM :.:..


7.17.2001


I was just looking through the Yahoo! most popular photos and saw this one of Neil Diamond. The first thing that came into my head was "Ohmigod, Neil Diamond's dead -- ohmigod, ohmigod. That's awful."

Then I read the caption and discovered that he was alive and well and had just announced that he was going on tour in support of a new album.

I don't really have a point here, except to say that I think I'll have to spend some time over the next couple of years preparing myself for Neil Diamond's eventual demise.
..:.: 5:47 PM :.:..


7.16.2001


I was away this weekend visiting friends in Vermont. A couple of weeks ago, I had transferred from my mom's house to my car (with the not unreasonable expectation that I'd get around to bringing it up to my apartment) a book I'd written in elementary school.

The book is called "Airline Tragedy" -- it involves a plane crash, a tropical island and some snakes -- and I wrote it when I was 10. Here is an excerpt:

My friends found the book and spent pretty much the entire weekend ragging me about it. One of my friends grew visibly embarrassed for me while reading a passage where I referred to my eyes as "crystal blue."
..:.: 1:20 PM :.:..


7.13.2001


When I was nine, my best friend Brian and I decided to rewrite Romeo and Juliet (you know, the Shakespeare play) for a "modern audience". We didn't get very far. In fact, I think the only real progress we made was changing Sampson's name to "Mister T". I'm not kidding.

This is why I'm suspicious of modern adaptations of Shakespeare's plays.
..:.: 12:39 PM :.:..


7.11.2001


I went to see The Glass Menagerie tonight at The American Repertory Theatre. It was very good -- I think there are big things in store for this Tennessee Williams chap. He shows a lot of promise.

On the way to dinner, it was pouring outside. We sat at the Vietnamese restaurant eating our spring rolls watching the wind whip the rain sideways outside. People were scrambling around as their umbrellas turned inside out. By the time we were done with dinner, the rain had passed and there was a big rainbow visible over Harvard Square (see below).

The highlight of The Glass Menagerie was definitely discovering upon arrival that Andrew McCarthy was playing the role of Tom. I know what you're thinking. Yes, it was the same Andrew McCarthy who was in Mannequin and Weekend at Bernie's. I shouldn't pick on him, he was really excellent.

If you don't know The Glass Menagerie (I assume you all know the play, but I'm working toward a joke here, so bear with me), it has as a central element a set of glass figurines. The key figurine in this glass menagerie is a unicorn.

So my evening was made up almost entirely of rainbows and unicorns. I am an eleven-year old girl. Please shoot me.
..:.: 11:48 PM :.:..


7.9.2001


I don't know the answer to this question: What percentage of baking soda is sold as a refrigerator deodorizer?

As I said, I don't know the answer, but I bet that it's a pretty large percentage. Take me, for example. In my whole life, I've probably used five tablespoons of baking soda for anything vaguely related to cooking. Given, however, my long-standing and weird paranoia about handling food that has gone bad, I have bought a LOT of baking soda for the purpose of deodorizing my refrigerator.

Tonight at the supermarket, I saw that Arm and Hammer now has a special box of baking soda designed to be kept in the refrigerator/freezer. Deodororizing was clearly not the original use for baking soda. How did this happen? Isn't there anyone interested in making, at a reduced price, a refrigerator deodorizer that is not intended as an ingredient in bread? Or is that not possible and there's just this odd synergy?
..:.: 11:58 PM :.:..


7.7.2001


Adventures with Car #3

Because I like to conform to the laws of narrative, here is a third Adventures with Car. (Some people will tell you that "things happen in threes." Things don't really happen in threes, they happen all by themselves and later, when we're trying to place meaning on these wretched things and, at once, convince ourselves that nothing else bad will happen, we say that these "things happen in threes." I have found, though, that the people who will tell you "things happen in threes" are exactly the kind of people you do not want to disappoint.)

Today I brought the trash out to the trash barrels on the side of my building. The trash is kept right next to where I parked my car. As I was going back to my apartment, I stopped at the back of my car and put my foot up on the fender so I could tie my shoe.

While I was bent over tying my shoe, a man yelled from across the street, "Hey, don't step on his car!"

I ignored him.

I'm starting to doubt, though, whether it is, in fact, my car or if I stole it after all.

Ah, Massachusetts.
..:.: 6:34 PM :.:..


7.5.2001


Adventures with Car #2

Yesterday I drove from my apartment to my sister's so we could go together to a 4th of July barbecue. On my way, there's a rotary in Powderhouse Square where the cops watch carefully to make sure people yield entering. I saw a cop behind me, so I was extra-careful not to do anything wrong. (I'm not saying that I don't obey traffic laws when there's not a cop behind me. No, I'm not saying that. I'm just saying I was EXTRA-careful.)

I made it through the rotary onto Powderhouse without incident. When I was about two blocks from my sister's apartment, I saw the flashing lights of the police car in my rearview mirror. I pulled over and sat there waiting for the cop to come talk to me.

While I was waiting there, I was starting to get angry. I'd done nothing wrong. I was being careful and conscientious. I am a model citizen, pulled over for no reason. The cop is taking his sweet time in his car and I am getting angrier and angrier.

After maybe 5 minutes another police car pulls up behind the first one. Cop #2 gets out of his car and walks over to the driver's side window of the first police car. The two cops talk for a minute before Cop #1 gets out of his car.

Now I'm angry and confused.

Cop #2 walks to the right rear of my car with his hand on his gun. Let me stress this last point: he had his hand on his GUN. A minute passes and another police car pulls up. Three cars. Mark Anderson: Public Enemy #1

Cop #1 walks up gingerly to my window and says, "This car has been reported stolen. Would you like to explain why you're driving it?"

I'm still angry and confused. I say, "What the hell are you talking about? This is my car. It's not stolen."

Cop #1 says, "Watch your tone of voice. Show some respect."

I have seen episodes of Cops where conversations start out like this and the person in the car usually ends up getting his face pushed against something. This dawns on me and I start backpedaling, "No, no, no. I wasn't being disrespectful. I'm just confused. This is my car."

The cop asks for my license and registration and then goes back to his car with Cop #2 to talk it over. While they are talking another car pulls up. There are now four cars and four officers. A couple of minutes later all four cops come over to my car. Cop #1 says, "OK, this is really weird. We don't know what's going on."

Cop #3 (a cop heretofore unmentioned) says, "Apparently, there was some entry mishap. We've never seen this happen." All four cops start talking about how odd it is. After a minute, Cop #1 gives me back my license.

Just as he's about to walk away, Cop #1 turns back to me and says, "Hey, it's going to take us a while to sort this out. It would be a good idea if you didn't drive this car around too much. I wouldn't want a State Policeman pulling his gun on you." Then he laughed and walked back to his car.

Ah, Massachusetts.
..:.: 10:58 PM :.:..


7.3.2001


Adventures with Car #1

Today as I was driving home from Burlington on a back road, the traffic slowed nearly to a stop in front of me. The cause of the traffic was unclear. In fact, as I looked closer I could see that there was nothing keeping the front car (maybe three cars ahead of me) from moving. It wasn't a traffic jam really. A car had just stopped in the middle of the road. I thought maybe he had engine trouble, but then a car coming from the opposite direction slowed down and stopped just short of where that first car was stopped.

Then I saw the movement from the side of the road and all at once a big deer and a little deer (I like to think of them as Mother and Child, although it could have been a mismatched Deer/Midget-Deer union) came dashing across the road and into a big field across the street.

I sat there in my car watching them prance into the distance playing as only Mother and Child (or Deer/Midget-Deer, who really knows?) can. I wouldn't go as far as saying that it was life-affirming, but it definitely affirmed something. Maybe it affirmed my love of Hallmark® cards or of corn syrup. I don't really know.

I sat in there in my car, tracking the deer, thinking happy thoughts about our place in the Circle of Life™, singing Hakuna Matata, when (I'm not making this up) the three drivers behind me laid on their horns at exactly the same moment.

Ah, Massachusetts.
..:.: 4:12 PM :.:..


7.1.2001


I keep a pad of paper and a pen next to my bed. I do not do this because I have great ideas/thoughts in the middle of the night that I'll want to remember the next day. No, I do this because I have discovered that what my groggy, half-asleep mind considers to be profound insight into the nature of the world invariably turns out to be very, very funny. Funny in that what-the-hell-could-I-possibly-have-been-thinking? kind of way.

Saturday morning I discovered this scrawled onto the pad:

"It bothers me not that I am inept but that other people don't seem to know that I am inept."

I encourage anyone who knows what I'm talking about to contact me.
..:.: 10:59 PM :.:..



mark@markand.com
aim: mdanderson45