Liam Neeson Pivot Questionnaire

1. Contentment 2. "Whatever." Especially when it's your son saying it. 3. bird son 4. got to be leaf blowers 5. Actually, exercise. 6. violence 7. dickhead 8. I think joinery, carpentry. 9. teaching. I had two sisters who just retired after 35 years. (I) couldn't do it. 10. I gave this a lot of thought, James. "Your wife's inside with a big chilled bottle of pinot noir."

Mad Men Cast and Creator Pivot Questionnaire

Matthew Weiner, Creator; Jon Hamm, Don Draper; January Jones, Betty Draper-Francis; Vincent Kartheiser, Pete Campbell, John Slattery, Roger Sterling; Jared Harris, Lane Price; Christina Hendricks, Joan 1. Christina: Yes, John: Tomorrow, Jared: Now, Vincent: Braggadocious, January: Love, Jon: No, Matthew: It's more for music than for meaning, but I love the word Melancholy 2. Christina: Chafe, John: Moist 3. January: Laughter 4. Matthew: Humorlessness 5. Christina: Wind, John: Mine is a variation of wind which is (makes a trombone/fart sound), January: I love it when my baby does that (points to John) noise Jon, "With his mouth or with his butt?" 6. Jon: Mine's more of a sort of vocal inflection, but I had this experience recently in an elevator where these two women were talking (Turns to Matthew and says, You be the woman and try to sell me on . . . Turns to audience and says, Most of my conversations with Matt start with me saying, "You be the woman." the benefits of this hotel.) Interrupts him with a loud positive Valley Girl-ish OK! 7. Christina: Fuck, John: Mother Fucker (with some incredulity), Jared: Well I'm English, so it's got to be CUNT!(projected), Vincent: Fuck my face in half (head slightly tilted back with eyes half closed) (January, "Women don't think your creepy, sweety."), January: Douchebag, douchebag. Jon: fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck (give or take a fuck), Matthew: There's nothing better than asshole. As a word. 8. January: I'd love to be a marine biologist, Jon: I've been one before and I'd go back to it again in a heart beat. A teacher., Matthew: Me too. 9. Matthew: The DMV, department of motor vehicles 10. January: "You're not dreaming.", Jon: "Was that so hard?", Matthew: "We're all full up. Go back."

Mark Ruffalo Pivot Questionnaire

1. Lovely 2. Neo-con 3. Passion 4. Greed 5. children's laughter 6. children crying 7. fucker 8. writing/directing 9. cement work 10. "Welcome. Jesus was a liberal."

Modern Family Cast Pivot Questionnaire

Just the adults: Ed O'Neil (Jay), Sophia Vergara (Gloria), Julie Bowen (Claire), Ty Burrell (Phil), Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Mitchell), and Eric Stonestreet (Cam)

1.Sophia: felicidad, Gloria: felicidad
2.Jesse: panties, Mitch: moist, Eric: "My least favorite word was gonna be moist."
3.Jay: Gloria, Gloria: Jay
4.Julie: Entitlement, Claire: messy rooms, Phil: vegetables, Cam: vaginas
5.Claire: silence, Eric: raindrops and whippoorwills
6.Ty: "The Yankees win.",
7.Ed: Motherfuck, Sophia: $%^&puta!,Julie: dagnabit, Claire: Cuntlicker
8.Ed: blues musician, Jay: pimp
9.Gloria: (Ed says, "lady wrestler." Sophia says, "She'd be a good one.")
10.Ty: "Oh my self, your dad is hilarious. Come on back and have a laugh." Mitch: "Those cocksuckers downstairs were wrong. You guys are totally allowed up here."

Brad Pitt Pivot Questionnaire

1. Daddy?
2. I pooped.
3. Exploration, Discovery
4. When someone unequivocally tells me it can't be done.
5. my baby sleeping at night, the breathing
6. I have this friend of 23 years and we probably talk almost everyday on the phone and she does this: "(Loud gum chewing noises)" and it drives me mental.
7. Cock! It's underused. It has great power, and I think we can do for it what the Brits did for "cunt." So think about it.
8. architecture
9. right now? politician running for an office
10. "I'm thinkin' 'bout redoing the place. Got any ideas?"

Movies 1-5 of 2012

I wanna keep track of the movies I watch this year.

First of the new year was Blue Velvet. Images of Dennis Hopper and his gas mask haunted my youth. I had a recurring dream where he was chasing me in a labyrinth in the equivalent space of a crawl space beneath a house. Seeing it now, I didn't like it.

First theatre marathon was David Fincher's Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Mission:Impossible Ghost Protocol, and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

I preferred the Swedish GWTDT. I agree with Ebert that the US version is almost too confident and polished:

"Fincher is certainly a more assured director than Niels Arden Oplev, who did the 2009 Swedish film. Yet his assurance isn't always a plus. The earlier film had a certain earnest directness that seemed to raise the stakes. Emotions were closer to the surface. Rooney Mara and Noomi Rapace both create convincing Salanders, but Rapace seems more uneasy in her skin, more threatened. As the male lead Mikael Blomkvist, Michael Nyqvist seemed less confident, more threatened. In this film, Daniel Craig brings along the confidence of James Bond. How could he not? He looks too comfortable in danger."

M:I Ghost Protocol was directed by Brad Bird, of Pixar experience. I liked this movie. I thought the action set pieces were really great. Ethan Hunt climbing on the outside of one of the taller buildings in the world with dysfunctional sticky gloves is good stuff. However, I also liked the third installment of Mission: Impossible with Phillip Seymour Hoffman as the villain, a much darker film, and Ghost Protocol with its rich, redeeming story telling is basically a Pixar movie with the Mission: Impossible material.

I tried to read Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and got about a quarter of the way through it before it was due back at the library and had finally hit the theatres in Lincoln. I might return to it (in the meantime, I have The Spy Who Came in from the Cold at my bedside). I really liked the movie. Very nicely written and performed.

SUPER with Rainn Wilson, Ellen Page, Liv Tyler, and Kevin Bacon (more victims in his degrees of separation) was a film I'm still uncertain about. It came out around the same year as Kick-Ass, and a year after Defendor. I've intentionally avoided Kick-Ass and haven't seen Defendor, so I can't compare it to others in the citizen turns comic super hero genre. But through the movie, I was unsettled by the violence. At one point, Frank cracks open a guy's forehead with a heavy pipe wrench for butting in line. It could be the way the writer and director of the Dawn of the Dead remake and Slither executed the blood and gore, but it affected me in a way I wasn't expecting. Then the movie ends and wraps up with a nice voiceover and montage about how all the horrible things Frank did were for the greater good and that his means were justified by the end.

I hold the belief that if a story (novel, tv show, movie) is spoiled by finding out the ending, then it wasn't worth the journey. I think something should be valuable throughout its consumption, but this movie challenges that belief for me a bit. I don't know that something can't be redeemed by its ending. I guess in that way my experience with this movie and the movie's plot parallel each other.

When I rate things on Netflix, they have five stars. For me one star is a hated it and regretted wasting my time watching it, two stars are I didn't like it, three stars are I did like it, four stars are I would be happy to watch it again, and five stars are that I would gladly own it.

Blue Velvet **, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) ***, M:I - Ghost Protocol ***, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy ****, SUPER **

Comma Chameleon

The Power of And. The key to great improv: Yes and . . .

Bread & Cup, Beaker & Flask, Abe & Arthur's, Pies & Thighs, Pies & Pints

I say it is time for another punctuation mark to get some respect. The comma is really great. So very useful.

Naturally, it has all the handy functions in grammar, which yields the metaphorical applications. There's the pause (some mumbo-jumbo about how taking a break and slowing down is even more important in our break neck paced modern society. "The Sabbath is God's comma.") It frames ideas in a supportive and elucidating fashion that a period just can't pull off. Then there's the meaning that it adds through its pacing of words: Eats, Shoots, and Leaves; "Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise." I even like how it sets off who's speaking or being addressed or the tone/mood/feel of the subsequent sentence (see first sentence of paragraph).

Eat Me. Drink Me. (or the Magnificent Seven)

It is getting late here, so I'm not going to post pictures yet, but I wanted to get my wonderful day all down in words before I forget some of it.

I'm vacationing in Portland, staying with my aunt just south between Sherwood and Newberg. Yesterday was the Coast starting at Tillamook and her cheese factory and going down to the beach at Lincoln City south on US 101.

Today, instead of going to Multnomah Falls and Crown Point, we "relaxed," which gave me the opportunity to go into Portland and hit up some restaurants/bars I'd been wanting to catch. My day started with making a rhubarb custard pie.

I made it to Clyde Common (1) at the tail end of their lunch around 2:40 and just before the 3 o'clock Happy Hour, so after my barrel aged El Presidente with my juicy cheeseburger and out of this world crispy fries, I had the Nasturtium (a cocktail with Dolin Blanc vermouth, Canton de Domaine ginger liqueur, and Bonal Gentiane-Quina aperitif) at the bar.

I thought my friend Neil was doing a tasting/cocktail demonstration across town at Immortal Pie and Larder (2) (a little wine and savory hand pie boutique) from 3 to 6 but discovered when I arrived at 4:15 that it didn't start til 5. This allowed me to wander up the street and discover Bipartisan Café (3), where I enjoyed marionberry pie à la mode with my Stumptown coffee (an "only in Oregon" moment).

At 5 I joined Neil, who I hadn't seen since Spring of '96, for a tasting of four aperitifs, starting with his company's Imbue bittersweet vermouth, Cocchi Americano, Cardamaro, and coincidentally, the aforementioned Bonal Gentian-Quina.

Since dinner with my sister's recently transplanted roommate wasn't until 8, I went to Voodoo Doughnut, Too (4) (as the original downtown location with the ambiance of the homeless is still under renovation) where I got an Angel Dust (marionberry filled, powder sugar coated), Old Dirty Bastard (peanut butter with Oreos), and Portland Creme (chocolate glaze with Bavarian creme) in addition to my Voodoo dozen (13 of their choice). For those concerned about my poor little pancreas, I only had the Portland Creme in the parking lot, saving the rest to share later.

The combination of my aunt's GPS and my Google Maps phone app got me to Beaker & Flask(5), which was everything my mind built it up to. I loved my New Vieux (view, not veau, for those of you rusty with your French) a "twist" on the classic New Orleans Vieux Carre with rye, apricot, Benedictine, and bitters, served on the Rock (they've got one of those fancy ice machines that makes the baseball sized ice cubes so your drink doesn't get diluted as fast.). While my crispy pig ears were being prepared, I asked if they had a session beer (an easy-drinking lower alcohol beer you can drink multiples of in a session), and sho'nuff, they had a beer called Session Lager. It was like asking for a refreshing drink and getting Refreshing Drink™. Nevertheless (what is the protocol on Nevertheless versus Nonetheless?), the Session lager was a fitting complement to my fried bar food.

All of that timed perfectly for me to pick up my sister's friend for dinner at Grain & Gristle(6), where I had mussel frites with my Upright Brewing's Seven (a Belgian style beer)after half of a Fressen pretzel. Dessert was at Rose's Ice Cream(7) where I had a shake made from fresh cantaloupe ice cream.

The last of it was when I got home at 11:30 and had a slice of the pie with some Yogi ginger tea.