Bruno Kirby 1949--2006

These are some of my favorite lines he has spoken onscreen:

"You know what the title should be? 'Yes I Can, If Frank Sinatra Says It's Okay.' "

"You made a woman meow?"

"No one has ever quoted me to me before."

[Carmine says, "Lorenzo! Due espressi, per favore!"]
Victor [explaining]: " 'Two espressos', he says."

"What'd you use for protection, paper or plastic?"

"No, that was, 'I like your ass, can I wear it as a hat?' !"

Wonder Boys, indeed

Five and a half years later, Michael Douglas says this about Wonder Boys:

"[It] was a huge disappointment personally. I loved the movie and we didn't even get critically acknowledged as far as awards go. I thought it was a fucking disgrace. I'll be honest - it really hurt my confidence. It was a punch in the gut. "

The writer of this piddly article on IMDb concurs the film was "ignored by awards ceremonies and audiences alike."

Okay.

This is my stock in trade, and I can tell you off the top of my head precisely how they are wrong. Dead wrong. (No, actually, just wrong.)

Wonder Boys was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay; this alone puts it on Oscar's unofficial "Top Ten" list, since there were just 10 films to split the Picture, Director, and Writing nominations. It also won the Oscar for Best Song. (Remember? Best Song was a two-way crazy-race between Bob Dylan channeling Vincent Price and Bjork channeling water fowl?) Furthermore, Wonder Boys was nominated for the Golden Globes for Best Picture, Best Screenplay, and Best Actor for Douglas. Douglas should even have a tangiable reminder in the form of his Best Actor [plaque/statuette/whatever knick-knack] he won from the Los Angeles Film Critics Awards, one of the three most prestigious critics' awards in the country. The L.A. critics also gave their Supporting Actress award to Frances McDormand for this same film. Finally, the script earned a Writers' Guild nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. That's quite a respectable showing for the Oscar season scramble, definitely among the 10 most honored of the year. And anyone who read that article online was two clicks away from the full list of awards. See!

So he can suck it.

Ah, Crazy People!

What a hilarous way to start the day.

I was walking to the train, and at at the first major intersection, a guy approached me: a white guy in his 30's, fairly clean looking, wore fairly clean clothes (of the skater variety), had shaven about a day ago. He said, "Excuse me, Miss. I just got out of the hospital," -- and he held up his hand to show me a vaguely hospital bracelet-looking strip of plastic around his wrist -- "I got beat up last night and had to spend the night in the hospital," -- he said with no visible bruises or scars -- "Can you spare 25 cents so I can pick up a prescription at Walgreens?"

What prescription would that be, 20 milligrams of Asskickacil? (Do not take Asskickacil if you are pregnant or operating heavy machinery.)

Somebody must have been sitting at my desk, possibly using my phone, either after I left work yesterday or before I got in today, because there was a multiplication problem scribbled on the top page of my post-it notes. It's clearly not my handwriting, but more importantly, the problem is 25 times 5. Not only was this person incapable of computing 25 times 5 in their head, but they actually wrote down where they carried the 2. I should charge this person $1.25 for use of my post-it note, say that it is only payable in quarters, and see how long it takes them to count out the change.

Today, I am a beeech.

This Picture is Awesome

I now have three anonymous comments on this blog. I suspense is killing me; who are ya?

I just took some shots of my Fisher-Price Little People collection (I love my new digital camera), and I'm crazy about this shot.















In cinematography, this might be called a color chaos composition. Outside of cinematography, you might get beat up for calling it that.

In 7th or 8th grade, one of my mom's co-workers gave her a zip-lock bag full of Little People, because she had heard I collect them. It was an awesome gift, though it did leave me with a few doubles. (No two people in that shot are exactly alike. Ones that appear to be the same are either made of different materials [wood or plastic], or have different faces.) I told Tom that I had some doubles, and he said he did as well, and we could trade.

We could have traded the next day in school like sane people, but we were going to see each other that night at CCD (a.k.a. Catechism, Sunday School [except it was during the week] -- basically Catholic instruction we were signed up for through church, which was necessary to make our Confirmation), so it was agreed the trade would take place then. And still, we could have traded before or after class, but we chose to trade during class. So there was a lot of whispering and hand signals, and fake-accidentally dropping pencils to swap. The whole time our teacher (who was the nicest, coolest CCD teacher ever, so I feel kinda bad), knew we were up to something but couldn't figure out what. From that trade, I got a few of the construction workers in the back right corner.

Years later, during our senior year of high school, Tom came to journalism class with a large shoebox taped shut and handed it to me: "It's a present for you." It was his Little People collection. Something like 15 people, and a bunch of animals, vehicles, and furniture. I carried that box around with me all day, and displayed a few on my desk for every period of the day. (I don't remember if this actually happened, but I like to think that in at least one class, while I arranged a handful of Little People in the pencil groove on my desk, a teacher went on a long-winded lecture about how us seniors will be transitioning into the real world, you'll be in college before you know it, you are adults now, blah, blah, blah. "I'm sorry, I didn't hear you, I was thinking of a name for the farmer.")

And now I am pissing away time at my adult, real world job by writing about my fondness for toys. Sweet.