Christmas in July or Over the Moon

Tonight I went to Moon at The Ross. It was really good, and I'm starting to come around on Sam Rockwell. It is an uncomplicated "science-fiction" film that executes with its simplicity. Kevin Spacey is a wonderful voice for the computer, GERTY. The actress who plays Tess, is Dominique McElligott, which I think is a great name.

After, I went to Ivanna Cone and had a dish of White Chocolate Lemongrass, Caramel Oreo, and . . . Waaaiit for it . . . EGGNOG! And a really good eggnog at that.

Walter Cronkite, Frank McCourt, and . . .

So I'm getting better at faking discipline, though I really needed to make a blueberry pie tonight, I also wanted some pie. I haven't had a piece yet, but the overflowing juices were pretty tasty. I'm curious to see how the blueberries from the Garden State taste.

One of my favorite new music videos is Taller Children from Elizabeth and the Catapault.

Lazy and No Count

Whence discipline?

Please. I need help.

I have plenty of ambition, but the discipline to achieve, I'm bereft.

Many of my readers are of the post-grad variety. I ask where you get the discipline to do the work you don't want to do, but must. Is it the financial burden of Master's and doctoral work that drives, or an innate thing you've had since birth, or the future reward of accomplishment? But those are all motivations, which I think are different from discipline. You see, that is my problem, I can't even provide examples of others' discipline eggs.

Do I just need to get powder milk biscuits?

Dappled and Drowsy and Ready for Sleep

Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, Robert McNamara, Steve McNair, Karl Malden, Oscar Mayer, and I almost forgot Billy Mays.

I'm sure part of it is a heightened attention to celebrity deaths, but this seems like a lot in a fairly brief period of time. Usta be these sorts of deaths came in threes, but maybe there will be another before the end of the week which makes nine, or three sets of three.

I had Cardamom Rose Pistachio ice cream from Ivanna Cone tonight. If it were only pistachio, it would have been amazing because of the high ratio of whole pistachios, but there were also some bursts of cardamom flavor. I was also pleased that I couldn't detect any rose; I always find rose stuff to taste like a perfume.

Last weekend I watched Away We Go and Public Enemies. I enjoyed each of them. Maya Rudolph, John Krasinski, and the rest of ensemble cast performed wonderfully. It is also well written, my favorite line coming from the child in the resort hotel lobby. The writers take three or four family scenarios as a foil to the central characters of Burt and Verona. The success is that they make the fairly cliche family types interesting while furthering the development of our couple. The music by Alexi Murdoch was also nicely done.

For interesting crossover, Sam Mendes also directed Road to Perdition, another 1930s crime film with Al Capone and Frank Nitti. I love Road to Perdition. Directing, acting, score, cinematography, set design, costumes, writing, I can't think of a thing I don't really appreciate about it. But we're talking about Public Enemies (I prefer both to The Untouchables, which I found to be weak except for Sean Connery's lines.), and it was what I expected from Michael Mann, an incredibly accurate, taut film. Johnny Depp was probably not in the greatest role for his "charisma," but it works. The actor who really struck me was Stephen Lang, in the role of Agent Winstead (a fed from the Southwest requested by Melvin Purvis, who has actually been in gun fights before). There was something about him that I recognized, then I looked him up on IMDb and it came rushing back to me. He played Ike Clanton in Tombstone.

Jules Cazedessus did something for the film too. Another thing I loved was the hood ornaments on the cars. Not necessarily in the film, but appreciated by me are the Packard swan/pelican, the Nash flying man, and the 1931 Buick.

Now for something completely different. You can order a milk shake as a chocolate malted. Can you order a root beer floated? Or is it classier to order a float as root beer ala mode.

Silly Thoughts

So two years ago today, a second cousin of mine got married on 7/7/07. In 2010, October 10th is on a Sunday.

Paved Paradise

Since I last posted, I had a wonderful weekend in MN with my family celebrating a cousin's high school graduation and my twin uncles' 50th birthday. This trip included a black raspberry pie whose berries had been picked not 12 hours before they came out of the oven in a pulchritudinous pie. One of the people who came back for a second piece (and was still talking about it the following morning) was Jean-Yves, a retired French chef who started as saucier at La Caravelle in 1969 in NY and moved to sous chef at Le Cirque before finishing at the University Club as Executive Chef. I'm still quite proud that I was able to make something for him to enjoy.

The parking lot behind Prescott Hall, in front of my work, is being refinished this week. Monday they sprayed a new coat of tar/asphalt, and today they painted new yellow lines. I find the immaculate lot to be a thing of beauty and wish I had the means to take some aerial pictures before it is spoilt by use and the bleaching sun. The black lot and yellow lines are striking. Then again, it could just be the tar fumes talking.