Visual Accompaniment Thursday, October 23, 2003

@ 6:00:00 PM, ,

Hajra Magyarok!

Shame on me for not remembering this date: On Oct. 23, 1956, marked the start of the Hungarian uprising against Communist rule. It was a popular movement that made its leaders world-wide heroes. But, as ever, it ended with tanks.

The last radio station in Budapest spent its last hours before the fall "broadcasting the Gettysburg address, in seven languages, followed by S.O.S.," one blogger recalls. The last message before it went silent: "We request the free nations of the world to assert what moral influence they can." We didn't listen, and Hungary fell. The first of many dominoes.

I started the gag about being Hungarian in high school mainly because it was so nondescript. Everybody hung onto being Irish, or Italian, even though all of us were at least two generations away from Ellis Island. So I figured I'd hoist a flag for my own little nothing background, and try to show them how ridiculous it all was.

Growing older, and getting a little less flip about this stuff, I can see lots of Hungarian strains in my own character. Pessimism, self-righteousness, the nursing of hurts past all reason...but also, I think, a certain tenacity and focus (when I'm not too pessimistic, self-righteous or aggrieved to act on it). And I can see what an astounding history that nation has had. From a tribe of lunatic horsemen to a Christian outpost under King (later Saint) Stephen to a bulwark against the Turks, led by the fierce general Janos Hunyadi, to a cradle of greatness--from Edward Teller to Bela Lugosi, whom my aunt once met at a church dance.

And, of course, the Freedom Fighters, who went down fighting and woke up the West--just like Johnny Hunyadi and his legions. If you listen closely, you can still hear the S.O.S. they sounded. But it's not just coming from Budapest anymore.

@ 1:04:00 PM, ,

By the Way...

How could I resist? Harry, Harry, Harry...

Thursday's such a crazy lazy day
Thursday has its own peculiar way of saying hey
Sometimes Thursday almost makes you want to run away
Thursday's such a crazy lazy day
Yeah Thursday's such a crazy lazy day
Let's go have a picnic
Thursday's such a crazy lazy day
I hope it doesn't rain
When I'm feeling Thursday I go and have a drink
If Thursday was a boat I bet it'd sink
I did it on Monday
I tried it on Tuesday
Wednesday's simply not my cup of tea
Thank heaven it's Friday...Thank the lord for the weekend
But Thursday. Now I that's such a crazy lazy day
They say Monday's child is full of grace
Tuesday's child is fair of face
Thursday's child has far to go.
And it's no wonder but when the week becomes a rat race
You can bet. Win. Show or place
But never bet on Thursday 'cause God's not on its case
Thursday's such a crazy lazy day
Don't get me wrong
It's just that Thursday's twice as long as it should be
It's twice as long
Mondays, Tuesdays. Weekends. Fridays
Don't get in my way
But Thursday's such a crazy lazy day
Monday is a blues day. That goes for Tuesday...

@ 8:16:00 AM, ,

Here's Why I Did Not Go to Work Today

Purple clouds over Brooklyn, U-Boats in Baltimore: reading up for Secret Thing #2. Secret Thing #1, meanwhile, is clomping the ground in the starting gate. Whoa there, big fella. Just wait for the gun to go off.

Today is cutting day. Two big, dangly stories, like salamis in a deli window, have to get trimmed down to size. Like all Thursday kids, I have far to go. (Mrs. WTJ, on the other hand, is "fair and wise, and good and gay." Go figure. But we're both choleric Capricorns, so it evens everything out.) To riff a minute, I was never really conscious of that rhyme ("Wednesday's child is full of woe/Thursday's child has far to go" etc.) until a couple years ago, when my mother mentioned I was born on a Thursday; then she remarked that she was a Thursday child also. For just a moment, it seemed like we were sharing something deeper than a name or blood or thirty-odd years of history.

I wrote at length about my dad at one point, and owe my mother the same. But maybe that's the difference between them: My father is happy where he is, and my mother has far to go. I may look like dad, we may share a handful of talents and a wheelbarrow of woes, but goddamn if where I want to be isn't a ways off.

Speaking of which: edit time. See you down the road.

@ 8:01:00 AM, ,

Peace in Our Time! Wednesday, October 22, 2003

Apology accepted and story nearly finished! All's right with the world. Love to the friend who accepted it, ambivalence to the reporters keeping me in limbo.

@ 8:17:00 PM, ,

Blues on the Ceiling

I'd call it a wine-dark sky this morning if that wasn't pretentious. Last night, my second anniversary, which I spaced my way through: I left the office with work undone and an apology unaccepted. The story's still not done, and my "please forgive me" is still hanging in space, waiting to get grabbed and answered, like a trapezer at the height of a swing.

But wonderful to spend time with Mrs. WTJ, even foggy time. A nice dinner, and a great drive home, wherein we discovered a new favorite song, Noel Coward's "I've Been to a Marvelous Party." Impossible to describe, overwhelmingly gay (in both senses) and uncoverable. It's Noel Coward distilled, it's champange in a slipper. Come on over; I'll play it for you.

To wildly juxtapose, another new favorite is Ben Vaughn's record "Mono USA." Vaughn's an amiable low-fi rockabilly loner (his web site describes him as a "free-lance bum") who's probably most famous for writing the theme to "Third Rock From the Sun." I knew his stuff from a couple of wonderful solo albums, uneven but interesting, lots of surf-y stuff with woodpecker guitars, froggy blues, bomp-da-bomp choruses. He recorded one album in the back seat of his Chevy, if that gives you any better idea. Anyway, "Mono USA" is his covers record: A range of stuff, from classic surf tunes to Fred Neil to Nancy Sinatra to Lobo (!). And it's one of the most gorgeous things I've ever heard. Completely unpretentious, wholly listenable, tough to get tired of. It's like finding a diner that you can go back to every day. Out of print but easy to find. Recommended without reservation.

His web site also contains one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

@ 8:09:00 AM, ,

The Face of the Tiger Sunday, October 19, 2003

"Spoilers" here, so read at your own risk.

On the plus side of "Kill Bill," the movie coaxes a fabulous performance out of Lucy Liu, a native of my hometown. But even that gets dragged through the shit. Her big scene is a funny/terrifying speech to a roomful of mob bosses, and she pulls it off perfectly, starting off demure and going apeshit on a dime.

The spark for the scene, though, is La Luce getting pissed at one of the mob bosses for slandering her background and chopping off his head. Blood sprays out of his neck, comically, like a lawn sprinkler, and Lucy caps her harangue by holding up the guy's head--again, to comic effect. See how over-the-top it all is?

But I kept thinking of another over-the-top movie, one that's been a blockbuster in bazaars in Pakistan, among others, one that even got a unique distribution deal online; it also featured rage over somebody's background (only this time the victim) and used a severed head to great effect. Only there's not going to be a "Volume 2" in five months. Not unless the producers find themselves another star.

I don't mind violence in movies. I don't even mind slick, aestheticized violence that makes you forget the horrible things being done to human bodies--for Chrissakes, a month ago I stood on a half-hour line to see Bruce Campbell at a movie premiere. But there's a line between soaking yourself and your audience in blood (Sam Raimi, Peter Jackson) and drinking it (Tarantino).

Damned if I know where to draw that line. But part of it runs through 9/11.

@ 8:45:00 AM, ,