apropos of anything

I’m not certain “quiet” is the right word, actually. Tumultuous, maybe. Tentative, definitely. Or, possibly, withdrawn. At the moment, withdrawn is an exceptional fit.

Withdrawn is not conducive to blogging. (Hence the drought from last Monday, and even that was a throw-away kind of post designed to fill space.)

In lieu of a real post, then, I’m offering up an excerpt of poetry that’s somewhat reflective of the goings-on in my brain despite having nothing to do with the goings-on in my brain. Cookies to the first person who can recognize it, without the help of Professor Google. It’s a pretty popular piece, so that shouldn’t be too difficult, which means I’m going to remove some trademark lines:

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

…

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
[They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

Title and author necessary to win.

There are some blogs brewing in my head, but I haven’t had a chance to flesh them out yet, so here’s a quick-and-dirty one to fill space until my thoughts clear. (Too much to think about these days, non-linearly as always, which isn’t necessarily conducive to speed.)

I can’t remember the last movie I saw in the theater. There simply hasn’t been much out that I’ve wanted to see, although I do have one or two in the queue (notably Thank You For Smoking and American Dreamz). Now the summer movie season is a mere few weeks away, which means filtering through the hype to figure out exactly which potential blockbusters I’m actually interested in.

Of COURSE the poster is his face.

Mission Impossible III (May 5): When this film’s two predecessors were released, I knew they were overhyped, but I went to see them anyway, like a mosquito that knows the bug zapper is a Portal of Doom yet flies into it anyway. But this time, this time I am truly torn.

On the one hand, I have actors whose work I like, such as Laurence Fishburne and Keri Russell, and I have J.J. Abrams, who may have let Alias devolve into a rapid vortex of suck the last two years, but who seems to have redeemed himself a little last week and who at least created the originally awesome show to begin with.

On the other hand, I have crazy Tom Cruise, who has been known to jump on couches and whose child was “coincidentally” “born” mere days before the premiere of his new movie and who could not help himself of buying into the grand celebrity tradition of kooky names. Perhaps if he’d named her “Sarah” instead of “Suri” I might be rolling my eyes less. Goodness knows I certainly couldn’t roll them any more.

So the question is — do I go see a movie I’m pretty sure will be nowhere near as good as it claims to be (nor anywhere near as good as it could be) despite crazy Tom Cruise? Or do I run as fast and as far away from the encroaching Scientology as possible?

The DaVinci Code (May 19): And speaking of overhyped, Dan Brown’s book was the most over-exposed bit of fiction since The Firm. It was a page-turner. A thriller. Period, end of statement, finito. And as that, it was perfectly entertaining, but let’s not pretend it was on the same level as The Interpreter of Maladies.

But, like the Grisham books and the Jack Ryan novels, The DaVinci Code was made to be a movie. Add Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou (of the delightful Amelie) and Ron Howard, and you have me looking for the sign-up sheet. If it’s not good, I won’t be terribly disappointed because I don’t really care much either way. I suppose it helps that I’m not Roman Catholic, but there have been enough unflattering movies made about Muslims that the religious tempest is simply not making my radar.

Aww, Wolverine, it’s good to see you.

X-Men: The Last Stand (May 26): Notice how they’ve dropped the “3″ from the movie title, as originally this was supposed to be the last of a trilogy, but the new buzz claims they’re not done with this franchise yet. I wish they would have stuck to the trilogy idea. It’s easier to make good movies when you know you’ve got a finite set to work with, and I’m afraid they’re going to sacrifice quality for quantity in the end.

This is the first X-Men movie with new director Brett Ratner, enemy of fanboys everywhere, and that might not be a good sign. I’m going to withhold judgement until I see the movie, but for now, you have to admit they’ve at least done a stunning job with the ad campaign.

I know nothing of the comics, so I’m unfamiliar with Pheonix, but I’m looking forward to seeing how they weave her into the story. The positive thing about the previous two X-Men movies is that they’ve managed to balance the special effects with a story, so I hope Ratner doesn’t go all Chris Columbus on us. If I wanted to see a special effects extravaganza, I’d watch one of the Star Wars prequels.

Cars (June 9): I have not the words to express how much I loved The Incredibles, although I did make a feeble attempt. Really, Pixar hasn’t gone wrong yet, so Cars is a safe bet to be full of punny goodness.

The “all-star cast” is too tiny to see.

A Prairie Home Companion (June 9): I like the idea of PHC, but I have to admit, to myself and to the Internet, that part of the draw here is Lindsay Lohan, who I have a fondness for because I loved, loved, loved her in the remake of The Parent Trap, where she was just too cute for words. It makes me sad to see her headlining Defamer, and not in a good way. (As if there were a good way to headline Defamer.) It doesn’t hurt that I’m a fan of Robert Altman’s previous work either, or that I generally expect a Garrison Keiller project to be enjoyable, and to come equipped with a nice flair, too.

The Devil Wears Prada (June 30): I know I go on and on (and on and on) about how much I loathed the book. I did loathe the book. If I had to choose between using a copy of that book or the heel of my shoe to kill a cockroach, I’d choose the book with no qualms or regrets.

However. It might actually make a good movie, given the right casting and the right direction. The casting part they appear to have down; I have no doubt Meryl Streep will make an amazing Miranda Priestly, and Anne Hathaway (who is in my good books for being a cute little starlet who has yet to grace the Defamer servers and who was even content to sit back and let her Brokeback Mountain costars get all the accolades for the movie) may even be able to sell the insipid protagonist whose name I have blocked from my memory. (I think it’s been changed for the movie, which is no end of funny to me.)

If they do it right, the movie will provide the missing “show” part of the story. It will fill in the blanks and flesh out the characters. It will make me actually care what happens to these people. If they do it right.

But even if they do it right, do I want to go see a movie that might actually be entertaining and funny if it means adding to the coffers of that hack Lauren Weisberger?

Is this not the most beautiful film poster you’ve seen all year?

Superman Returns (June 30): Ah, the big one. Superman Returns. Y’all know about my teeny-tiny (read: all-consuming) love for Superman, right?

I have been excited about this movie since they finally fired Nicholas Cage. (His dramatic abilities aside, Nic Cage is not and never will be Clark Kent or Superman.) I don’t know if they’re going to do it right. If they don’t, I’ll probably be crushed, like the Tolkein fans who came out of The Two Towers complaining that the elves don’t show up at Helm’s Deep.

For me, there are two keys to a good Superman story: how they portray Lois Lane, and how they portray Clark Kent. Is Lois all hardcore and feminist, a journalist and nothing more? (No.) Is Clark a bumbling, incompetent dork? (No.) Does she have too much edge for it to be believable that Clark loves her? (She shouldn’t.) Is Clark the real person, or is Superman? (Clark.)

Kate Bosworth worries me. So does Brandon Routh, a little, because I’m afraid they cast him more for how perfectly he looks the part than for his acting abilities, but since I’ve never seen him in anything, I shouldn’t really say.

It doesn’t really matter though, because if I go to only one movie all summer, it’s going to be this one. I may come out of it raging, but I’ll go see it. It’s Superman. I simply couldn’t stay away.

On another note, it’s interesting to see how many September 11 movies are waiting in the wings this year: Giuliani Time, United 93, World Trade Center, and The Road to Guantanamo. I’m curious to see how they’ll be received, whether people will go to see them, and how many of them are going to get it right. (For the record, my money is NOT on World Trade Center.)

I got a ticket today for “not obeying traffic laws” when I turned from Baker St. onto Centennial Olympic Park Dr. It’s an odd intersection in that Baker is one-way, and COP is one-way, but the other side of Baker is two-way, which means they have a sign posted to clarify that you cannot take a left turn on a red light like you normally can when turning from a one-way onto a one-way.

The officer said the light was red when I turned. I know it wasn’t. It had just turned yellow as I hit the intersection, which means it was almost definitely still yellow when I cleared the intersection. As I turned, I saw the two cops on their bikes sitting in the shadow of the Inforum building. I saw one of them turn to look at the light, but by that time, I was well clear of the intersection.

My problem isn’t so much that I got a ticket. I’m not thrilled about it, but it’s not the kind of thing that typically stays with me all day. My problem isn’t really that the cop lied (repeatedly, and through his teeth) either because that says more about him than it does about me.

My problem is that the cop accused me of lying.

I wasn’t. I don’t appreciate being made to feel like I was. If he’d claimed the light changed while I was in the intersection, I’d know he was lying to me, but again, that would say more about him than it did about me, and I’d get over it. Instead, he described the incident as though I’d deliberately turned on a red.

I know why he did it, and I know it still says more about him than it does about me. But I do not lie. His insinuation that I do, or that I was, makes me feel angry and dirty all at the same time. Just because the Atlanta Police Department has problems with honesty (and, from what I hear from “the inside”, racism) doesn’t mean they should be treating me as though I’m one of them.

I can’t wait until the next time a telemarketer calls asking for a donation on behalf of the APD.

That’s when you blog because you can’t sleep anyway, even though you should be since you spent the majority of the day walking around like the sludge at the bottom of somebody’s coffee pot and since you’re supposed to get up early tomorrow to run a few miles — because you haven’t in a few days and because you feel like a walking tub o’ lard since you’ve spent the weekend chowing down on chocolate pot de creme and fish biryani and plum crisp and cheeseburgers — and also wash your hair before work.

It’s hard to sleep when your brain won’t shut off, but it gets plain ridiculous when it’s full of frivolous things, like how you like Tuesdays because that’s when the new movies and music gets released, or how mortified you were that time at work when one of your managers asked you what you planned to shop for in India, and you said, “Oh, the usual: shoes, clothes, handbags, jewelry,” and one of your teammates said, “Husbands,” and for once in your life you couldn’t think of a thing to say because your brain decided the middle of a launch was a perfectly acceptable time to shut off.

When you close your eyes, and your eyes go, “Ahhh, refreshing,” you’d think your brain would get the hint instead of creating an Excel sheet in your head for how to best consume all of the extra food in your refrigerator and on what days to do it. Or trying to figure out where to look to replace your Superman pajamas when they finally break down; the man may be of steel, but the pj’s bearing his insignia are of mere cloth.

Sometimes you just have to break out the Big Girl Voice that lectured yourself out of bed that morning and MAKE yourself go to sleep because you just can’t spend another day overusing the word “literally” while spelling it “literarly.” After all, kids don’t just discipline themselves.

Where have you gone, Leo Mazzone? A city turns its lonely eyes to you as you rock slowly back and forth in Baltimore, surrounded by seafood and within spitting distance of the President.

We head to Turner Field, expecting our Braves to show up and play like they usually do, and instead the pitchers who take the mound have ERAs in double digits and our viewing experience is somewhat akin to having a root canal.

It doesn’t matter if you can hit if you can’t pitch, and these days our pitchers couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn.

Meanwhile, the rest of the MLB is in some kind of bizarro world where the Cardinals are second-to-last in their division, the Cubs are relatively hot, and the godforsaken Mets, the poor man’s Yankees in the sense that they try, and try, and try, and spend, and spend, and spend, and yet never succeed, THOSE Mets are almost perfect.

I hate the Mets.

Maybe Roger McDowell hasn’t had enough time yet to influence his pitchers. Maybe Camp Roger underwent some growing pains. Maybe our pitchers are just… lousy. (But I don’t really think so.) Whatever it is, I’d really appreciate it being fixed because this whole sucking thing is just wretched to watch.

I told myself I was going to stay away from this subject because the last bout of flaming is still too fresh in my mind, but I’m surrounded by headline after headline, opinion after opinion, nine hours a day, and I’m just bursting to throw my hat into the ring. I know I shouldn’t, but here I go anyway.

The immigration debate is one I take very personally because my parents are immigrants. I am one of those who have directly benefitted from the “lamp beside the golden door.” The life, and the opportunities, I have as an American are vastly different than what I would have had as an Indian child. Much as I love India, much as India has grown in terms of economy and social issues, I’ve always been so glad and so grateful that I grew up here instead.

It would seem odd then, that as the child of immigrants, I am strongly in favor of tighter borders and more stringent immigration laws.

My parents did it the right way. They waited for the visas and the green cards. My father came over on a student visa, applied for a greencard, and once that was approved, he applied for my mother and my brother. Legally. The whole process took years, during which my parents were separated and my father barely got to see his son, but they didn’t cheat, they didn’t cut corners. They did it the way it’s supposed to be done. Why should somebody else get to circumvent the system?

I’ve heard of people who came in on a visa and then never left. I clearly remember all of the men who came to visit my mother when I was a child, hoping she could find them an American-born girl to marry so they could get green cards. It didn’t matter who they married — short, tall, ugly, pretty, smart, uneducated, tempermental, bitchy, whatever — so long as she had citizenship status. (This, by the way, is one reason I am so picky about who I marry; I am not going to be an American visa for a man who doesn’t care if I have two legs so long as I have one American birth certificate.)

And then there are the border-scramblers, the people who live close enough that they can pay a smuggler (of HUMANS!) to get them over the fence or through the tunnels. If you have to resort to sneaking, there’s a distinct possibly you shouldn’t be doing what you’re doing.

Today is a “national day of action for immigration justice”, which means thus far thousands of people have taken to the streets in protest, or in solidarity, or in whatever, many of them carrying signs that say, “We just want our rights.” Except… you’re illegal. That means you have no rights. You cannot demand what was never yours to begin with. If you scale a wall or scurry through a tunnel, if you have come on a student/visitor visa and never leave, if you marry somebody you’ve never met because she’s an American citizen and you’re not… YOU ARE ILLEGAL. You do not get to self-righteously demand “a better life.” You do not get to demand anything, except perhaps transport back to your country of residence.

We have laws. We have them for a reason, and a simple desire for “a better life” is not enough to pretend they don’t exist. Everybody wants a better life. Why should it go to the people who push their way through instead of the people who wait patiently? Why should it go to the people who blatantly disregard the system instead of the people who are willingly to obey the rules?

The media, and the Republicans, have made much of the security side to the immigration debate. “It’s a security issue,” we hear over and over again. “We can’t just let anybody in.” The general assiness of that statement aside, if we’re going to spend more than 80 billion dollars on a war in Iraq (that we’re allegedly fighting to make our nation more secure), the very least we could do is make sure our borders aren’t so porous that smuggling in materials for a dirty bomb is easier than getting your license renewed at the DMV.

There’s also the argument that illegals do the kind of work the rest of us wouldn’t touch for wages the rest of us would mock. They keep our prices down by working under the table for less than minimum wage. For a moment let’s suspend the tax and healthcare issues and consider only what kind of a lifestyle is supported by less than minimum wage. Would I pay a little bit more to keep companies like Wal-Mart from skimming every available penny they can? I sure would.

I love how many different kinds of people you see on American streets. I love how even as a child of immigrants, I’ve always felt American, unlike my European counterparts who have spent generations feeling outcast and unwelcome. I know that has everything to do with America being a country built entirely of immigrants, and I’m not at all anti-immigration. I simply believe anyone who wants the privilege of living here should observe the laws we have in place. It’s the first step towards being a good citizen.

“I feel like despite your rhetoric, that compassion and common sense have been left far behind during your administration. And I would hope from time to time that you have the humility and grace to be ashamed of yourself.”

So said Harry Taylor to President Bush at the president’s speech in Charlotte, North Carolina.

How Taylor got himself into what had to have been a carefully screened audience, I have no idea, but Harry Taylor, if I knew how to find you, there’d be bouquet of flowers heading your way right now.

Giada de Laurentiis has a new book out, and I bought it, despite never having seen her show on the Food Network and despite flipping through her freshman offering and passing on it. I bought it because Borders sent me a coupon for forty percent off, because the reviews were good, and because Grant seems to approve. The latter is relevant because I figure if I like the recipes he posts on his site, I should trust his cookbook sense as well.

As is my wont, I sat in the bookstore and flipped through the pages first. It’s one of the rare Italian cookbooks that doesn’t use some kind of alcohol in every recipe or devote a large chunk of its pages to pork. Strangely, booze and bacon just doesn’t do it for me. De Laurentiis does use a lot of pancetta and prosciuotto, but I can work around that. Roasted pork loins, on the other hand, leave me grasping for options.

There’s one thing about Giada’s Family Dinners so far. The pictures. Lots of pictures. It’s just that… so many of them aren’t of the food so much as they are of Giada, who is a lovely woman who seems to own only scoop-neck t-shirts. Very scoopy scoop-neck t-shirts. Sometimes you can’t see the food for the scoopiness. If it’s a marketing ploy, I don’t get it, considering the cover of the book is relatively tame, and in any case, your target audience probably doesn’t care to see those particular features.

(Ivan pretended he didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. Ken took it like an honest man and admitted the pictures were… distracting.)

For the most part, I’m willing to forgive in exchange for the butternut squash lasagna and raspberry tiramisu. I mean, wouldn’t you?

I made her ravioli with creamy tomato sauce last night. I changed it up a bit because I’m attempting to clean out my refrigerator before the vegetables I bought two weeks ago and the multiple open bottles of pasta sauce spoil; I always feel so guilty when I let food go bad that it preys on my conscience when I know I have potential for rot in the fridge, and then my obsessive-compulsive self has to do something about it expediently. In any case, de Laurentiis did say the recipe was open for manipulation, so I’m comfortable appraising it even with my tweaks.

It’s fast, simple, and unpretentious, and the resulting dish is very acceptable for a weekday meal. I don’t know that I’d serve it at a fancy dinner party, except perhaps as a starter. The recipe that I really want to try is her penne with creamy spinach sauce, but I have to finish going through the refrigerator first.

Really, truly, madly, deeply.

I think it’s botox. I’m pretty sure it’s botox, actually. You have to wonder at the irony of the picture they chose to go with that quote. Either the editor hates Sharon Stone, or he has a wicked sense of humor, because, seriously, the BOTOX. She looks like smiling is incredibly painful.

It could be worse. They could have put this photo with it instead.

Oh, come on. Guess! It’s so easy. Surely, surely you have been counting down to this day since mid-February. Maybe even earlier.

Guess!

It’s not exactly sporting to give up so quickly, but okay. I’ll enlighten you. It’s Opening Day!!! Not that ridiculous “Every day in Atlanta is opening day!” slogan the city’s marketing team unleashed upon us last November… baseball’s Opening Day!

(I can’t even use proper punctuation, I’m so excited! See all the exclamation marks?! I’m just going to give up typing for now and code until the Braves take on the Dodgers in L.A. this afternoon at 4!)