Barkerburgh

I’ve basically used the same password on all my accounts for years. It’s clever, idiosyncratic and medium strength, according to the analysts.

I recently went using from ****** to using *********, which is good and strong. But I haven’t remembered to change it on all my accounts yet, and I forget which ones I’ve changed and which ones I haven’t.

So I keep having to ask the system to email me my forgotten password, and then I forget which email account I used as an alternative address, or even what my secret question was. Did my mother have a dog when she still had her maiden name? Or was it the one about the angles on the head of a pin. (I get too clever for my own good sometimes, and I suspect you already know that and are just too good a friend to actually tell me.¹)

I have to resort to the absolute wrong thing to do to remember my passwords, which I can’t mention in this post, obviously, for security reasons.  I wouldn’t want my life hacked by people even more clever for my own good than I am, now would I?

Avoid the film ‘Cradle Will Rock’!

The well-known radical leftist Tim Robbins wrote and directed this sensationalistic and overblown paean to Communism, anti-Fascism and creeping Trade-Unionism. Only somewhat fictionalized, it is inspired by a particular period in 1937, when the House Committee on Un-American Activities was young, and when labour unrest was rising, the former being demonized while the latter is praised. One does not expect objectivity in films like this, from people like this, and one is never disappointed.

Set in the lead up to WWII, among the actors and artists, magnates and industrialists of New York City, populated by the rich and the poor, the wicked and the kind, the clever and the canny, the story is based around the character of Marc Blitzstein, a left-wing composer, and the production of his pro-union musical, ‘The Cradle Will Rock.’

He is played by Hank Azaria, who, curiously, only ever uses one voice – although I am certain I heard Moe Szyslak in one crowd scene.

The producers managed to reconstruct Diego Rivera’s fresco commissioned for the RCA Building at Rockefeller Center in New York. Then, appropriately, on camera, as in real life, they destroyed it as part of the movie’s action, of course, but also as a subtle warning to Communists and trade-unionists. Fictionally, the destruction was moved from 1933 to 1937, and the scenes of its destruction were intercut with scenes of the impromptu opening night of Blitzstein’s play.

I will admit the casting was quite fine, even including Susan Sarandon’s bad Italian accent. John Turturro, Vanessa Redgrave, Bill Murray, John Cusack, Cary Elwes, Emily Watson, many others, all did a fine job, while revealing their left-wing sympathies, and making sure their names go on secrets lists in Washington and under Cheyenne Mountain (a wholly owned subsidiary of the Dupont Corporation.)

All in all, very enjoyable, for a left-wing, subversive, anti-establishment, hippy, yippy, People’s Republic, beatnik, Tommy Douglas in Ho Chi Minh City out on a Saturday night, kind of movie.

But don’t let it sway you.

Here’s the thing. And it’s the same thing that bogged me down last year. I spend way too much time tweaking, massaging, improving and otherwise editing what I’ve already written, rather than just writing the story, then coming back later to fix things up, and otherwise edit.

Here’s your task: keep me hoppin’. I’m a little bummed on this, so you be my Jacob Marley (and three spirits). Text, email or comment me to remind that, as in all things, time is short, life is shorter, 2006 was over a long time ago, and I’m on the downhill slide to who gets to pawn my bed-hangings and candlesticks. It’s all up to you now. And me. More me than you, really, I suppose. You’re like maybe 30%, 35 at best. But 30% of a success is certainly better than 30% of something less succcesful, isn’t it? So you hang in there. I’m counting on that 30%. Maybe 35.

(I suppose you could be my Clarence, too. But that’s a whole ‘nother life.)

And y’all keep wishing me luck, now, just like y’all have been!  If you do, I promise I’ll stick my head out the window on November 30 at midnight to shout “You there, boy, what day is this?!”

I didn’t even know this guy and I just got this email!

So who needs a new house? Whose kids need to go to university abroad? Who needs exotic surgery in foreign climes?

(Italics mine.)

“MANAGING PARTNER
GRAPEVINE & ASSOCIATES LAW FIRM
LONDON - UK.
NOTIFICATION OF BEQUEST

Hello,
On behalf of the Trustees and Executor of the estate of Late Engr.Huish Shearmur;I again try to notify you as my first letter was returned undelivered yet i tried still to reach you again by this same email address stated on the WILL.He left the sum of Seven Million One Hundred Thousand Dollars(USD$7,100.000.00 ) to you in the codicil and last testament of his WILL.
Late Engr. Huish Shearmur died on the 13th day of march, 2006 at the age of 80 years, and his WILL is now ready for execution.Please endeavor to get back to me as soon as possible at grapevinelawfirm@hotmail.co.uk to enable me conclude my job and give you more detailed information about his WILL.

yours in Service,

BARRISTER ANDREW MARTIN ESQ”

The lineup starts now.

Am I impressed? Not so much. (more…)

Wow, it sure is ugly. What a mess.

It’s more than a little appalling that there’s artistic types all over the city patting each other on the ass and telling themselves the ROMperor’s new clothes are haute cuisine.

Either Firefox, WordPress or Youtube are screwing up my post on the Darby ‘You Suck’ Prank.

So sorry.

The other night on CITY there was an hour long documentary on Forrest J Ackerman, the creator and longtime purveyor of Famous Monsters of Filmland, one of my favourite magazines when I was a teen.

I came across the show by accident while surfing. I saw this old Ramses of a living man looking quite chipper and lively all things considered, and thought “I should know who that is…”, and then they id’d him.

Well, I spent the next hour having great flashbacks about the magazine itself, the movies I learned about from it - and often eventually saw, sometimes decades later - and the great ads for movie monster stuff, like rubber masks and costumes, posters, memorabilia and so on, et cetera.

Lotsa fun.

FJA: Did you hear about the new cafe on the Moon? No atmosphere.

1. Make a longhand list entitled “Ten Things To Do During A Power Failure While You’re House-sitting.”
2. Read an entire book. (”X-Treme Latin! Unleash Your Inner Gladiator”; it’s basically a phrase book. From the Country Music Favourites page - ‘Sine Te Tam Miser Sum Ut Videaris Etiamnunc Adesse‘, which translates as ‘I’m So Miserable Without You, It’s Like Having You Here‘.)
3. Read Monday’s Globe and Mail, front to back, even Sports.
4. Ingenuously ask the neighbours if their power’s back on.
5. Disingenuously ask the other neighbours if their power’s back on.
6. Worry about the old lady across the street who seems okay but you’d feel bad if you found out something happened to her when you didn’t check.
7. Stare longingly at the blind TV. It can’t see you, so it’s not fulfilling its destiny. (Me! It can’t see me!)
8. Believe Reality when the power comes back on for about 3 minutes but then, haha, goes off again.
9. Try to teach yourself piano but give up when you realize that while you may never be the new Keith Jarrett, you just might be the new Charles Ives and that’s dissonantly disturbing.
10. Clean out the freezer. By eating.
11. Add some items to the list after #10.
12. Phone some local friends to ask their voice-mail, in all seriousness, “Is your refrigerator running?” But use a funny voice and an accent.
13. Read an entire Mad magazine. (March, 2007)
14. Make anagrams in fridge magnet letters out of “Squarebob Spongepants” (”Barges Squab Opponents”, “Abbess Pang Toque Porns”, etc) and “You talking to me?” (”Image Look Nutty”, ” Teat Ugly Kimono”, etc).
15. Return from the Stone Age when the power comes back on after almost exactly 3 hours.

I’m doing a regular house-sitting gig for friends right now who have three cats; two late middle-aged lady cats who are set in their ways, and one young tom. I’ve known the ladies for years and respect them, and they know and exploit me. The boy is about a year and half old and knows where the catnip is, but not how to get to it. And I also get to look after wee Simon every so often, but haven’t for a bit.

Here’s the connection. I’m trying to remember to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ to Simon when it’s appropriate so that, hopefully, he will pick up on it later. (The kid’s a wildman so I don’t have any predictions, but it couldn’t hurt.) This particular house-sitting episode I find myself telling young Soda Pop, when he’s sharpening his claws on the sofa by the front door, ‘Please don’t do that, Soda Pop.’ And then ‘Thank you’ when he stops.

But in my universe, if it works, it works. It ain’t Hogwarts or Yoknapatawpha County (Word Press spel-chacker just flagged Hogwarts but not Yoknapatawpha.)

Then, after thinking the 25th anniversary edition of William Goldman’s ‘The Princess Bride’ was the last word, I come across the 30th anniversary edition here where I’m house-sitting. Which exploitative escapade I guess I shoulda seen comin’ from Goldman, considering. It’s got afterwords and study guides and interviews with the characters.

The 25th anniversary edition had it that Stephen King was part Florinese

Now, while you’re reading the book, you can talk to the characters if you have the right bifocals.

You know what, WTF, I’m part Florinese, with a dash of belligerent Guilderian.

My ancestor was Sir Real.

‘Being chased by Columbo is like being nibbled to death by a duck.’