Dueling inscriptions

Bought a copy of The Movie That Changed My Life: Great Writers on Their Favorite Films at Horizon Books on 15th Avenue East, partly for the content -- Joyce Carol Oates on Dracula! -- and partly for the fantastic inscription and counter-inscription. On a page that's a bit shorter than the others, and thus seems to have been inserted, is the following, handwritten in red pen:

D.

One might be a good bus book. The other, an interesting curiosity by one of our favorite authors.

V.

P.S. Don't leave the rat poison lying about in the garage.

This alone might have merited buying the book for a paltry $7, but wait -- there's more. "D." wrote back with a vengeance -- in fact, he or she (I have some strange intuition that it's a she) typed a response below the handwritten note from "V." And here it is:

I couldn't get into this one either. Sorry. I guess I'm just not interested in the opinions of people I don't know on movies I haven't seen. I've only seen 2 or 3 of these. I started "Bambi" but couldn't get into it, and I browsed a couple of pages in others, but didn't get anywhere. Thanks anyway.

In more than a year and a half of living on 15th, I'd never wandered into Horizon, always waiting for some excuse. Today, the friend I'd had brunch with at 22 Doors wanted to venture in, so we did. And I think it's safe to say the back-and-forth inscriptions made my day, and possibly even my week. I also picked up a 1984 Roger Ebert book, A Kiss Is Still a Kiss, that I'd previously borrowed from Michael but really wanted to own. Among the gems it contains: an interview with Woody Allen in which he, Woody, explains why women are "closer to what life's supposed to be about" than men, and a piece wherein Ebert accompanies Muhammad Ali to a screening of Rocky 2, which the legendary boxer picks apart both thoughtfully and hilariously, as is his way. Though I still love Ebert's writing, it's nice to look back at his golden years and recall how on fire he was back then.

Saw Margaret Cho at the Paramount last night and enjoyed her performance -- amazing that she can talk about sex for what feels like more than half the show and always find new angles and new absurdities. Her bits about recent political scandals, including Eliot Spitzer and Larry Craig, were also great, as was a joke about Iran. I'd try to recreate some of the best moments here, but Cho is so much about inflection, body language, and facial expressions that it'd be pointless, and probably offensive. Her delivery is what lets her get away with as much as she does; in that way she's like Sarah Silverman, though Cho's humor is more consistent, albeit with fewer big laughs. (She gets a lot of smaller ones and misses less often than Silverman, who can be positively flat or absolutely incandescent within the same minute.)

Breezed by the "Roman Art from the Louvre" exhibit at SAM last night, which I realize is heresy, but it was after 12:30 a.m. and I was tired, and the statues just looked liked... statues. I also checked out Molly Moon's Homemade Ice Cream yesterday afternoon, and realized a few things:

1. Molly Moon's is as hip as Wallingford is ever going to get, outside Babalu
2. Cardamom ice cream is excellent
3. A little salted caramel ice cream goes a long way
4. Lemon is not to be passed over; despite its ordinariness, it's probably one of the best flavors
5. Owner Molly Moon Neitzel's dog, Parker Posey (who appears in the shop's logo, which I've posted above), is very cute
6. Kids with chocolate ice cream smeared all over their faces are always entertaining
7. Wallingford -- the neighborhood I lived in when I first moved to Seattle, way back in January of 2002 -- can be pretty wonderful

They better keep that caprese sandwich on the menu

Victrola has been sold.

Potluck was fun tonight -- and, as luck would have it, here's Sheela, a potluck regular, in the news. Also, my friend Ginger turned 26 tonight and celebrated at Havana. And Sunday's meeting of the writing workshop -- our second -- went well. And the sunshine appears to be never-ending. And I'm shopping for new clothes this weekend. (Wish me luck.) And Hillary's looking predictably desperate.

And all is right with the world.

Snow!

Here's a random snow poem by Robert Frost (thanks, Google):

DUST OF SNOW

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

And here's the playlist iTunes gave me when I used "snow" as a search term:

1. "Angel in the Snow" -- Elliott Smith
2. "Snow Camping" -- Laura Veirs
3. "Snow Lion" -- Readymade FC featuring Feist
4. "20 Years of Snow" -- Regina Spektor
5. "Snow on the Sahara" -- Anggun
6. "Snow" -- Loreena McKennitt
7. "Snow is Gone" -- Josh Ritter
8. "Snowflake Music" -- Mark Mothersbaugh

My street: Capitol Hill's new crime center

Apparently.

Pugoween: A video retrospective

In other news, today I stopped into the highly controversial Red Balloon Co. store on 15th for the second time. And this time, my friends, I was a customer. I bought a pound of Jelly Belly jellybeans for my friend Maria's birthday, and I have to say, the guys working the place were pretty damn nice, and an incident wherein a little girl picked out a purple balloon and a purple ribbon/string for it, as her parents and baby brother watched in love and admiration, was something out of Norman Rockwell.

Party on 15th!

Just got back from a random party in the apartments above the QFC on 15th. Amazing. Every apartment was open, decorated, and decked out with tasty snacks, including homemade cupcakes in one and goldfish crackers in another. And the costumes were incredible. I wore last year's book costume ("Gone with the Wind") and had a very nice time, though it was hard to maneuver through the narrow, packed hallway, and in the apartments themselves. I was really impressed that the people who live in the building all seem to know and like each other, and that when you move in you kind of agree, tacitly or explicitly, to be okay with massive all-building parties that draw all kinds of strangers. (I was invited by a man dressed as Kenny Loggins and his girlfriend, who was dressed as Persephone from Greek myth -- and was handing out pomegranate seeds to prove it.)

Oh, and despite what Kenneth Turan says, "Dan in Real Life" sucks. But Emily Blunt is still my movie girlfriend.

This is not a test post

According to Kate, blogging etiquette demands that the first post on a new blog not be a test post. So here's an actual post, with a link and everything. (I'll even insert a photo if I figure out how.) What I really should be doing, though, is going back to bed and watching one of the movies I rented, because I have the early-fall cold that's going around: runny nose, sneezing, and general crappiness. My rental choices reflect a mind balanced between optimism (Frank Capra's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, with Jimmy Stewart -- thanks, On 15th Video's directors section!), relative pessimism (The TV Set, starring David Duchovny's well-maintained, pre-Californication facial hair), and a sneaking suspicion that romantic love inspires more lunacy than anything else (Crazy Love). Of course, this last isn't really how I feel, but I'm really eager to see the movie. And, of course, eat more macaroni and cheese. And appreciate the new peace and quiet, and relative tidiness, that's come to my house.

Speaking of which, time to go. Test posts may be uncool, but test images surely aren't. So I'll unearth an old portrait of a dog facing the limitation of his situation. (If you want more where this came from -- thematically, if not geographically -- check out San Francisco's venerable Dogblog.)