Sushiesque

Rubrication

A belated but sincere thank you to those who traipsed out to Kendall Square for barleywine and for the shambolic billiards that ensued.

Iceman cometh

Iceman has been surreptitiously added to the giant mural along the pedestrian walkway at Central Square. Right next to the entrance to Central Kitchen, under the gutter (such that he gets a major shower every time it rains).

And now he's under a hollow, dripping icicle.

Sorry, I thought you knew!

(Thank you, Aili!)

See also: Green Mega Man (Central Square, R.I.P.), orange (Weeks Foot Bridge), blue (Mass. Ave. & Trowbridge), and all their colleagues in the Greater Boston area.

Bonus! Tetrice: the Tetris block ice cube tray. (Thanks, Garrett!)

Prefixation

Amongst the many calls for papers to be presented at this year's Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion, one such call from the Feminist Theory and Religious Reflection Group stands out, because it requests proposals about a prefix:

Feminists theorizing ritual as a significant site for imagining/performing trans_______ (i.e., tranformation, transgression, transgender, transnational, transcultural, etc.)

I have three proposals, in one ghastly powerpoint slide:

On a somewhat related note:

Dear grad students in my life,

Here is some artwork of unclear provenance that illustrates how our situations differ.

I am the green dinosaur who is not dissertating at all.

Film still: Wikipedia. Drawing: Why, That's Delightful, via Academic Productivity.

Blue Mega Man of the Furniture Ghetto

Walking down Mass. Ave. after work today—walking quickly, keen on Guitar Hero—I encountered Mega Man, handsome in his traditional blue ensemble.

He's apparently been there, outside my least favorite Crate & Barrel, in the heart of the Modernist Furniture Ghetto between Central Square and Harvard, since June, visible mostly from the crosswalk (and Google Maps, and Flickr). How many times had I overlooked him, hurrying past impractical light fixtures, minimalist flower arrangements, Eames-y non-polka dots, one-piece acrylic chairs, and couches the color of overcooked peas?

See also: Green Mega Man (Central Square, R.I.P.), and orange (Weeks Foot Bridge).

A short video about the anti-Darwinist implications of peanut butter

Choosy moms choose Jif, and creationism.

As a public service, Gwynne has selected five such morsels in "The Best of GodTube: Evolution Videos" on God Spam.

Double bill, red rooms

I've been on a David Lynch kick since December 3rd, the one-year anniversary of 2006's officially-declared David Lynch Day in Cambridge, when he screened Inland Empire at the Brattle.

A couple Tuesdays ago, I saw Wong Kar-Wai's In the Mood For Love (again) at the Harvard Film Archive (again). (Last night they screened the sequel, 2046, but I skipped that, and I skipped press night at the Achilles Project, and I joined soon-to-be-professor Jason and his linguist friend Bridget in the basement of the Harvard Square Uno's, where we attempted to consume a pie-sized cookie with ice cream piled on top. I stand by this decision.) The first time I watched In the Mood For Love, this is what I saw:

It was a film about:

...Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung passing like (elegantly-coiffed) ships in the (grungy-staircased, plucked-stringed) night, and until they (very slowly) fall in love over martial arts serials and sesame syrup and Nat King Cole records in Spanish.

I saw, and coveted, "Maggie Cheung's dresses with their tall collars and their intensely-patterned fabrics." And,

As much as I want them, though, and as much as I want her stockings with the seams up the back, and her red trenchcoat, what I want more is the way she wears them, and the way she climbs the stairs, and the sway of the turquoise thermos she carries around Hong Kong. Ditto for Tony Leung's suits, and more so, the way they get soaked in slow-motion rainstorms, and the way he leans against a wall.

This time around, I saw:

The cigarettes and skinny ties and perfectly-fitted dresses and sighs are still there, of course, but now I know that movies are about rooms and corridors and drapes and staircases and lamps. Mostly lamps.

Top: Inland Empire, Inland Empire, Twins Peaks. Everything else: In the Mood For Love.

I now own a refrigerator magnet that says sustainability

Hampshire College Alumni magnetic poetry (above, with blue text) came in the mail today. They join, on my fridge, Low's magnetic lyrics (black text), Devanagari alphabet magnets (from Shalimar in Central Square), and a counterfeit hundred dollar bill, found in the Johnson Library stacks in 2002. (I still don't what Al Gore's face is doing on the latter, or how it involves Jesus.)

See larger image on Flickr for legible text.

Thumb Piano Hero

A couple years ago at TT's, I bought red star electric thumb piano no. 31 from Warn Defever. Brayden, in his capacity as warrior-poet Harsch, has since churned my legally tone-deaf improvisations into five minutes of turbulent listenableness.

Harsch: "Due Fucking Diligence"

And then I bought the tiniest amp in the world.

Not applicable

Dear Central Square Starbucks,

I like you. You're next to my office, and you're not Soytopia—which means you're efficient, and you smile, and I don't care if you're faking it when you smile.

Please don't uplift me. I like our relationship the way it is.

Short personal cappuccino,
Christine

Context: larger image.

New words from old art

Vorticism. n. A British art movement of the early twentieth century, characterized by abstractionism and machine-like forms. Term coined by Ezra Pound.

Dazzle ships. pl. n. Ships painted with a camouflage pattern of contrasting stripes, also known as Razzle Dazzle. Used in World War I. (Also, an Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark album.)

See my review of "Rhythms of Modern Life: British Prints 1914-1939" at the MFA: "Oh, the places you (plural) will go."

Pronubial. adj. Presiding over or promoting marriage.

"Thy aid, Pronubial Juno, Athamas implores" in William Congreve's libretto for Semele. Unfortunately for Athamas, his fiancée has been doing ho activities with ho tendencies.

See my review of Handel's "secular oratorio" as performed by Opera Boston and Boston Baroque: "Women ended up on tables, a lot."