home again, home again, jiggety jig.

there were many cookies consumed.
also chocolate (mmm, lecker ... brandy-filled chocolate santas).
candles burned cheerily, and it snowed- oh, how it snowed! a thick blanket of great big snowflakes!- it snowed all day on the 25th. it was a beautiful mess.
It was great to see my family, though we missed Erika, who had a Christmas dinner (just for the hell of it) at the Hyatt in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, for fifteen bucks. we got to talk to her on Christmas Eve, and boy, was it surreal to hear her voice on the phone, so far away...
I hung out with my older sister, who has the most adorable apartment ever- currently drenched in christmas decorations from the Erzgebirge (the cute little ones, not the scary huge nutcrackers); we watched all of Wives and Daughters on tape and wept as Molly got to got to Africa with Roger and wear pants...
my brother and his wife, my sister-in-law (I just like saying that), who is too cool, have a beautiful new house, which I got to see (now I know why you want me to move back east, bro- you need cheap labor!), and they took me to the Big Mess Cabaret at the fabulous Trocadero, a former burlesque house on Arch Street in Philly...
and did I mention how much we all missed Erika?

I got in late last night. it's only a three hour time difference; I can't help feeling like a wuss, but I'm having the hardest time getting my bearings again. head is pounding, tired but not sleepy, and feeling a little sensitive. best to pack my yawning self into bed now, before I get morose.

good lord. someday I'll manage to pack a suitcase in under 2 hours.
I'm off to freeze my butt off for a week and a half.
there may be updates while I'm away.

thenpush orpull

I am the proud new owner of a Child Prodigy Midget Accordion.
I'm in love.
My neighbors hate me.
maybe someday I'll learn to play something recognizable...
but with instructions like this, no matter how sexy they are, I'm not sure how soon I'll be managing "I wanna be evil" or even a polka of any kind.

"Put the leather strap on shoulder when playing, In playing, the righthand, are employed in manipulating the keys, Pushing, and pulling are effected, by the left wrist during the performance, and the palm is engaged in supporting the bottom of the instrument. In the course of pushing and pulling, the bellows should assume the shape of a fan and move inward and outward quite naturally following the force of motion. The Pulling should not be over done [you're telling me], and in the case of playing certain melodies requiring excessive pulling and pushing and conequently causing insuffi ciency of air in the bellows, press the lowest butoon on the bass side and thenpush orpull rapidly with the left hand to adjust the air Refrain from pulling the bellows roughly when no keyys are pressed, since the bellows might be damaged and leakage would result."

parts of it are as if e.e cummings had written a sloppy technical manual.
wheee!

c'mon, it's a sing-a-long

Daphne had some excellent rain-themed brain radio going on yesterday morning, and now I can't get "Singin' in the Rain" out of my head.

We're having some stormy weather here. I'm holed up with food and movies, and the only thing I might run out for is the paper.
The movie selections are Topsy-Turvy (Mike Leigh), Live Flesh (Almodovar), Wings of Desire (Wenders), and Glorious, which is a filmed Eddie Izzard show.

so, if anyone's looking for me, this is where I'll be.

triple blargh!!!

Blogger just ate a really long post with a bunch of stupid links in it, and then it also ate my complaint post, so now you'll never know.
of course, now it's working again.

it's Friday the 13th, and I've opened at least three umbrellas indoors today.
good thing I'm not superstitious.
I also dropped a bottle of wine in the store. I froze and closed my eyes, expecting to be standing in a puddle of glass shards and wine, but it didn't break; instead it did some weird fizzing thing- the top got all frothy, and suddenly it looked more like lemonade than fume blanc. I went and picked out a nice chardonnay instead.

for a limited time only, you, the reader, may send a tiny yodel to my mobile phone.
isn't that exciting.

my computer is a consumerist pig

the list of things I need, want, crave or could use for my ibook is growing.

need: a new battery. mine seems to only last for a half hour now. what the hell? I've just read about this happening to other people, too.

want: 10.2.
don't reeeeaally need it, but you know, I like to be up to speed. even if I don't completely know what I'm doing.

crave: an airport thingie.
pant, pant.

could use: more hard drive space. what happened? and why, oh, why, didn't I get an ibook with a bigger hard drive to begin with?
silly.

Heinz Stege, 1915-2002

my grandfather, mein Opa, died yesterday. He would have turned 87 on December 23rd. He was my last living grandparent.
He had some kind of knee replacement surgery; his heart was weak, and it gave out.
He lived in Germany, along with the rest of my mother's family.
He was a forester by profession, at least after WWII. I hadn't seen him since 1998, and before that, not since 1989. I knew him best when I was a kid, when we went for long walks in the northern German forests; he taught me the German names of all the trees in his forest, and how to identify all different kinds of evergreens.
I have many things I could write about him, and someday I will.
but not today.
I'm not going to be able to go to the funeral, for a variety of reasons, none of which seem very good in my current state of mind.
(timing with work, thousand dollar plane tickets, the fact that I have another trip already planned for the holidays, and 24 hours each way?)

I feel incredibly small.

Yesterday's Daily Oliver should cure all that ails you.

Keith Knight:
"We've got no choice!"

I'm having this kind of day.
but I'm not so sure that's a bad thing.

thanks Eli, I've had my breakfast

"...tens of millions of spiders running frantically back and forth..."

Somewhere over on the left there's a very dusty list of books I've read in recent past. I can't ever seem to remember to update it, and I should just take it down altogether.
Somewhere else on this site there's an appallingly embarrassing page, also pretending to list my recent reading material, that I prefer not to think about.

Right now I happy to say that I'm re-reading "The Groucho Letters," a collection of correspondence from, and to, Groucho Marx.
It makes me ashamed of my own dull writing style, my lack of wit, and my pitiful attempts at correspondence with friends and others, and it almost makes me ashamed of yours, too.
(well, not yours.)

It's not a Marx Brothers thing- I like the movies, I find them clever, entertaining, etc., but I've never been a huge fan. I'd really like to see some of Groucho's old quiz shows, and hear some of the radio stuff.

It's impossible to give you enough examples of why this collection is so great. Some of the best letters are long, as are the most entertaining exchanges (for example, the one with T.S. Eliot, whom he didn't even end up meeting until a few months before Eliot's death).

I'll try not to get carried away...

from a letter to Peter Lorre (1961):
You disappeared rather mysteriously the other night, but I attribute this to your life of crime in the movies.

to Elaine Dundy (1959):
Dear Mrs. Tynan:
I don't make a practice of writing to married women, especially if the husband is a dramatic critic, but I had to tell someone (and it might as well be you since you're the author) how much I enjoyed "The Dud Avocado." It made me laugh, scream, and guffaw (which, incidentally, is a great name for a law firm).
If this was actually your life, I don't see how you ever got through it.

to Abel Green (1951):
Dear Abel:
I believe the emphasis on popcorn and other noise-making foods has helped to drive many people away from the movies, and I think the commercial pounding that the television listeners are subjected to will eventually drive many of them away from their sets.
Where they will go I don't know. Perhaps they will take up fox hunting or glass blowing, or maybe they will just roam the streets at night searching for peace and quiet.
My comments are necessarily brief and cautious, for in my profession it is extremely hazardous for a comedian to outrage the sponsor, for without the commercial he hasn't got a job and without a job he is hardly a comedian.
Sincerely,
Groucho

and my favorite, to E.B. White (1954):
Dear Mr. White:
I received your note. I am now willing to concede that you are a fairly migratory gent. When I arrived in New York I was told you were in Florida. When I called you again they said you were in Maine.
I went to New York ostensibly to do the Rodgers and Hammerstein festival. Actually I came to New York to cut up some touches with the author of "Charlotte's Web."
Some years ago I had a dinner date with you and Ross. He showed up but you failed to appear. it's strange- I have no difficulty meeting Nick Kenny, Toots Shor, and other minor luminaries in New York, but you have adopted the mantle of Garbo and to me you are just a wraithlike figure who lives suspended in a spirit world.
Sincerely,
Groucho Marx

and the response from E.B. White:
Dear Mr. Marx:
Before our correspondence attains the intensity of the Shaw-Terry letters, I want to explain my suspension in the spirit world- which is sometimes misinterpreted. Ross had a theory that if he could throw me with a better class of people, I might be more productive. (Ross entertained some incredibly unsound ideas and at great cost to himself.)
At any rate, once in a while he would pry me loose, and on the whole they were miserable experiences for the persons who got me involved. I think of an evening when he attempted to throw me with Ginger Rogers and we all went down to Chinatown for a debauch that should live forever in Miss Rogers' memory as an example of midnight stagnation. (Another Ross illusion was that he understood Chinese food.)
It is nice here in the spirit world and if you get here I would like to buy you a drink. Garbo is here. We maintain separate residences, for appearances' sake.
Sincerely,
E.B. White

wheee!

I'm sure this makes somebody's day:
Powell's has an English/German Dictionary of Washing Agents.

Some 5,000 English/German and 5,000 German/English entries comprise this dictionary of detergents, textiles and washing machines. All terms used have been checked against international standardization.

man, you could hear a pin drop in this place.

if you haven't already, go read about my sister Erika's adventures in Kyrgyzstan.
there'll be more soon, I hope.

today's selections from the IHT:

the russians are eager to put crap on the moon...

and Mighty Mouse is on his way...

the last week or so of Doonesbury- making fun of reporters training for the combat field- has been pretty hilarious.