Duly Noted And Marked

I've been busy trying to clean a house out before settlement that is part of an estate. Did I get the price I wanted? No. Far less. Am I glad it is almost out of my hair? Yes. I want my life back. In the meantime, I've been contending with collapsed garden sheds (snow,) and shoveling snow (snow,) and making alien snow people (snow,) and oh yeah...I fell...a bad one. Nothing broken, but I was limping for a few days at a time when I need all of my wits about me. I'll be back over at house central this week hauling out an 1890's treadle sewing machine that has to be shipped to Oregon and crawling in decades old filth in an attic and other fun things.

Right in front of me is a pile of things "to blog" about. I gave up on the subject of desire. See above. Wait a minute. I would still like to write about desire someday. The strange paths it can take and who is to say what driving passion fuels you is wrong. Did you know that rubber fetishes have diminished as an aging population are the only ones who remember childhood rubber pants? It's true. I have charts. I have tables. And, I would add, just in time to get back into them. Full circle, as it were.

But still, I want to write, but between answering emails and doing sales on Amazon and eBay and writing Phil of The Playaz (God love you Phil for checking on me,) it's been unholy. Yesterday I went to a Starbucks to hook up with a former neighbor who moved way out to Eldersburg, and I caught her at the end of her work day at her chosen destination point before she headed to the netherlands. I am so Starbucks naive, I had to look on line to see what I would order and how to order it. I got a Tazo Shaken Iced Passion Tea Tall. OH...sweetened. What a litany. I feel like I need to go into more coffee shops just to learn the language of latte. Did I mention I'm fussy about coffee and think Starbucks is crap? No? Well. I do.

While I was out, I ran by my local library to pick up some books, but also to return those due and see if I could nab them another round, which I did. When I got home, I don't know what triggered this, but I decided to make bookmarks for them on photo paper, and using craft scissors I deckled the edges to make them look like old-timey photographs. The idea being, when I return the books, I will leave the bookmarks in as a surprise for the next reader.

The first bookmark I made was for a book called L.A. Noir by John Buntin. I thought, without checking, that it was part of a noir series I had been reading that features major cities, then has crime-mystery writers from those cities and their short stories. D.C. Noir has George Pelecanos, of course. There is a Baltimore Noir, a New York Noir, even a Dublin Noir. This book, however, is about mob activity in Los Angeles in the 30's-50's and the city's police captain and his involvement with Jack Webb who based the television show Dragnet on real police work.

I also learned that Jack Webb's overvoice "This is the city. Los Angeles" was a direct rip from a movie where he played a forensic specialist (Lee) called He Walked By Night (1948.) He also ripped off his "ching ching" hammer music from the same film. So I found a noir shot of Los Angeles. I also discovered while google goofing that there's a software game called L.A. Noir. Why that could be right up my... ALLEY.

I've been trying to finish up Orhan Pamuk's The Museum of Innocence. If you've never heard of him, he's a Nobel Prize writer. He's Turkish. He's political and he's pissed off. I still love his writing. His sentences could be filagree in the Hagia Sophia. Much like travel writer Paul Theroux, Pamuk just put himself into his own latest novel: his family attending a wedding reception. Nice way to control getting the waiter over to your table with the tiny kebap.



Yeah...he looks pissed off here, too. He's one of those guys you can jokingly let loose a "trigger" word and watch him blast off. When he goes out in public, citizens of Turkey are either cheering him and treating him like a rock star-guru, or they are hanging him in effigy. Guess it depends on which side of the Bosporus your freak flag flies.

Another book (in a stack) I picked up is a new release called Baby Let's Play House: Elvis Presley and the Women Who Loved Him by Alanna Nash. It's already deep into good and white trashy, and I haven't even gotten his mother married yet. I know this one is going to be a pissah. I was flipping through, looking for a bookmark image and bingo. One I've never seen before. I couldn't even believe it was Elvis, but 'tis and just months before he died:



The girl on the back is a dancer named Mary Kathleen Selph. She died in a car accident a month after this picture was taken. I showed this photograph to a friend today, and they said, "THAT is NOT Elvis...that is some ole black woman pretending to be Elvis." He immediately amended himself after looking again and said, "Actually, I think Elvis is trying to look like his mother, Gladys. " I agree. Also, if you can see? The little boy in the car next to him has his mouth open, and it almost seems like he's screaming "ELVIS!"

Can you imagine the things that are going to come out in this book? The author interviewed a lot of his former loves, going all the way back to childhood. I mean, I knew about the white cotton panty fetish. (Note to Self: Add that to desire article and fetishes.) This same friend and I were discussing how a certain level of talent walks off the planet, and it's never seen again.

I got into a weird frame of mind (as if I ever leave it,) the other day, and I started You Tubing Andy Williams and Sammy Davis, Jr. and these variety shows. What really triggered this was me wanting to see and hear Jobim and Elis Regina singing Águas de Março (Waters of March) cause well...it was the first of March, only March in Brazil comes after summer (go figure,) but still...great song.

The next thing you know I'm watching Jobim singing Girl From Ipanema with Andy Williams which led to Tony Bennett singing with Andy and people You commenting "Why don't they have shows like this on t.v. anymore? Such talent!" and me thinking Yah! Why not? Somehow that led me to Michael Jackson singing at Sammy's 60th birthday celebration and Sammy doing "Bad."

Don't even ask me about Billy Wilder and Menschen am Sonntag (People on Sunday) and that wild You Tube ride I took on Sunday. (Note to Self: Write about the German Film School, Berlin 1930, the onset of Nazism and this new Nazi zombie film with Norwegians called...uh... DEAD SNOW!!!) More snow!!! Full circle. I'll stop. Cyndy? Watch and enjoy.



I'm riffing! Patrick. Do you miss me? :)