Got My Kong On, Jack Nasty

I wear a scarf and hat inside my bungalow while sitting here with you, dear reader(s).
What a lovely contrast to the many months of sitting in this very chair, sweating from the face without exerting any energy whatsoever, due to the combo of summer, inadequate air circulation and a general lack of fan(s).
This evening finds me sipping a chemical concoction - decaf, fat and sugar free instant Chai - with my first Personal Christmas (TM) tree ever in the background, a three foot noble fir sitting in sugar water, it's ankle draped with a paisleyed tablecloth, and the shittiest array of tree lighting this side of the Rio Grande. I neglected to purchase those delicate white mini lights, so I've substituted red and blue until such time as I aquire them.
Soundtrack for decorating:
Sam Roberts: Brother Down
Nick Cave: Carry Me
Some new Strokes song
Madonna: X-Static Process
T. Rex: Monolith
Johnny Cash: When the Man Comes Around
Spoon: all of Gimme Fiction
Ted Leo: Me and Mia
The Undertones: Teenage Kicks
(In truth I think the actual decorating only took the length of Van Morrison's Cleaning Windows)

My First Personal Christmas (TM) Glass Ornaments: a pomegranate, a pickle, a frog, a robin, a hen, an owl, a hedgehog, a fish of unknown genus and species, a salmon, a barracuda, a squirrel, a very wee bunny and three Chinese firelantern flowers. Apparently in Germany on Christmas morning families play "hide the pickle" which is akin to hide the matzoh only not Jewish and with a greater propensity to be misread as incestual impropriety. You find the pickle and "win" Christmas or something. Do you think IV catheters would make interesting ornaments? They come in different colors of plastic hub depending on size of needle. I could hang them like those glass icicle ornaments. I would take out the needle first of course. For two Christmases in a row, my mother has made a tree out of pussywillow twigs in a bottle like an empty Hornitos bottle. Five twigs or so, with some orange, white and blue lights adorning them. Classy. We're like that.

This is pretty silly. I'll be working both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but as it will be a coal-in-my-stocking, lonelyheart time of year, gimme pine needles.

Three people Who Made Me Emote to the Point of Tears This Week While Sitting in the Dark, by Sarah:
1) Ennis Del Mar/Heath Ledger. Waiting in lineup for a matinee of Brokeback Mountain yesterday, watched a parade of ancient gay couples flow out of the Grove theater, holding canes and hands and having red-rimmed eyes. Cardigan-sweater old. Goddamn to you, Loneliness - you make good art.

I now have three favorite man performances of the year: Cillian Murphy, Joaquin Phoenix and Heath. Heath is probably the best of those, ya?

2) Kong/Andy Serkis and Ann Darrow/ Naomi Watts. Now. Well. I went with Eric and Will-Jordan to see Kong at midnight last night in the Cineramadome. We were treated to the trailer for Miami Vice. Someone in our vicinity kept letting off air biscuits, barking spiders, what-have-you. Despite this, and the rising temperature of a sold out cineramadome, the spectacle of Kong was stellar. Yes, too long. Yes, OTT in all respects. Campy, corny a bit. However, um, beautiful? Yes. Yes Petey's a genius, but without Fran Walsh and Phillippa Boyens he would be maybe not so much.. In the OG Kong, Ann is passive, shrieking, and there are those rapey overtones, those Large Evil Black Man/Victimized Virginal White Woman issues. All of course alongside the nasty colonial/savage stuff. In this Kong, Ann is active and she is as much a victim of Carl Denham et al as she plausibly is of Kong (which she isnt anyway, but that's how the film crew sees it). It seems that the business of moviemaking is even worse. Look what happens White Man when you go where you should not. Heart of Darkness...the way Our Lovable Nerds comment on the racist platform of the first movie is brilliant but I'm not telling you how they do it. A lot of it felt like a silent movie, or rather, the most important parts did, aided immensely by the score (written in six weeks!)...but it's wierd to think there is an entirely different one sitting in Howard Shore's computer somewhere. And that face. That sweet sad face.
Jack Black is fucking great.
I cried, yes I did. I cried today even while hearing Ebert's review on podcast. Jordan made fun of me, but that is because he has a pingpong ball for a heart and mine is like a big wet sponge and it leaks sometimes, so what?


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