Dark Knight, Redux

Damn. I forgot that our software-install guy had a miniscule speaking part. Ergo, I forgot to pay attention for him. This must have been what it was like for my mother, when she missed my two-word singing solo in the Music Man freshman year of high school.

I'm So White

This box set is all kinds of awesome. I'm listening to it for about the third time in two days. And in my head, I'm dancing like this:

Oh For God's Sake

The high-maintenance, highly medicated, chin-washing, tooth-extracted cat has a bald spot forming on her stomach. Yesterday it was thinning. Today it is bald. Alopecia? OCD? Delayed stress syndrome? Will she soon be hairless as a chihuahua?

I give up. I'm weary. I'm over it. I'm ready to stuff her in a box and ship her back to the goddamned humane society whence she came.

This is the offending behavior:

I Decoupage!

This is a teeny cabinet I found at Goodwill ages ago that I'm turning into a wine rack/shelf for my kitchen (when I get the rest of it done, I'll show you the whole finished product). I painted it and took the doors off; the idea is that I can get some sort of single-row short metal wine rack to stabilize the bottles in there (although it's not tragic if I can't find anything; the bottles don't really roll around). I X-acto-knifed a retro-style cookbook for the pictures. Cool, no?

This is where you end up when you attempt to paint your dining room table. Option A: Small, manageable task with concrete results that, if things go horribly awry, can be pitched with no lost investment? Option B: Probable days-long endeavor with potential hideous results ("nutmeg?" what was I thinking?)? Yeah, I came to the same conclusion.

Speaking of the Jack Bauer Way of Doing Things

Jesus:

This fictional counterterrorism agent—a man never at a loss for something to do with an electrode—has his fingerprints all over U.S. interrogation policy. As Sands and Mayer tell it, the lawyers designing interrogation techniques cited Bauer more frequently than the Constitution.

According to British lawyer and writer Sands, Jack Bauer—played by Kiefer Sutherland—was an inspiration at early "brainstorming meetings" of military officials at Guantánamo in September 2002. Diane Beaver, the staff judge advocate general who gave legal approval to 18 controversial interrogation techniques including waterboarding, sexual humiliation and terrorizing prisoners with dogs, told Sands that Bauer "gave people lots of ideas." Michael Chertoff, the Homeland Security chief, gushed in a panel discussion on "24" organized by the Heritage Foundation that the show"reflects real life."

Hmmm. Yes, it does have that element of truthiness to it. But the real question is: how did we collect so many sadist/morons in one place?

Hey, How About That, I Saw Another Movie

A movie in the theater, that is. Twice in one year: I'm on a real roll.

Because I am a sheep, I went to see the Dark Knight. I didn't see Batman Begins, so I'm not being religious about the franchise. But I do sometimes like adaptations of comic books, and I do love the humanness of Batman and the possibilities that creates for a character. He's got no superpowers, no superior moral compass. He's just a broken man with a large R&D budget, initially propelled on his mission by vengeance. And as in my favorite sci-fi Whedon-verses, the line between the good guys and the bad guys is fluid, and the heroes are just a decision away from crossing it, regardless of intentions.

The cast was superb. Heath Ledger deserves all the praise that he's getting for his turn as the Joker. He's absolutely terrifying as a tool of pure anarchy. He has no boundaries, so every scene he's in is transfixing. The suspense is agonizing while you're waiting for the unexpected, violent, yet whimsical twist.

And overall, the movie was well done (if very, very violent). It poses some interesting, and timely, questions about the limits of power in a time of perceived siege and terror. Does Jack Bauer have it right, and are we reliant on the goodness of (one) man to save us? Or are we all too corruptible? Is there a system that can work, or is it forever destined to be manipulated by the people inside of it?

As a side note, the movie was filmed on location in Chicago, and they didn't do much at all to disguise the obvious recognizability of the city. I found this amusing ("hey, I had jury duty there!") and a bit distracting. And as a further side note, way back, I got a flier from some dude in the el to be an extra, I think for this movie. But the appropriate weary-of-it-all metropolitan-denizen response is to roll one's eyes and toss the flier into the recycling bin, while muttering about the inconvenience of the goddamned filming crews and equipment shutting down streets. Heh.

LATER. Slideshow here of location filming.

Like This One Too

Creepy graphics aside, good cover.

Hmmmmm.

I'm liking this song. Never mind I got the CD months ago. Why bother doing anything so dull as listening to a CD from beginning to end in this internet age? A passive, let-it-turn-up-randomly approach increases suspense.

With a Slight Nod to Upcoming Lollapalooza

1. no time soon, gnarls barkley
2. the right profile, the clash
3. sonic reducer, dead boys
4. when i was a young girl, feist
5. don't change horses (in the middle of the stream), tower of power
6. isn't life strange, the clientele
7 into the sea, the album leaf
8. success, iggy pop
9. david watts, the jam
10. i remember nothing, joy division

I seem to be feeling a little bit punk. Enjoy your summer weekend. Barbecue, or something.

Well. Operation "Skill-Building Short-Term Phase" in My Rudderless Career Plan Drops into Place

My 36-hour-marketing-class-in-a-book appears to have worked better than expected. I arrived at my 10 a.m. meeting with the uber-boss sounding like a professional, spouting out terms like "strategic message" and "initiatives." We had one of those giddy brainstorming sessions where my ideas fed into her concepts and vice versa, and we came up with a structural plan that was actually pretty clever and coherent, if I do say so myself. The kids are gonna love it. (I should note, I had the Dummies book in tow, so she's under no illusions I know what I'm talking about.)

The real proof, however, seems to be evidenced in the speed with which my immediate boss chased me down afterward to follow up on my job description/promotion proposal submitted to him in February. (Yes, February. I've been agitating at intervals since, with nary a response. It's the usual management black hole. I am alleged to have been put in for a raise, the proof of which might show up by September.)

So I gave a laundry list of what I want to be in charge of; ergo, I appear to now be in charge of pubs and marketing and membership development, and the uber boss later introduced me to a development big wig with whom I'm apparently going to be working. That's a bit unnerving, in that I hope that these people don't think I'm an experienced professional rather than someone with a Dummies book. Experience for resume: good. Failing spectacularly due to being in over my head: bad.

Anyway, I'm angling for an assistant director-type position, and I'm thinking that it might be a real possibility. It's unfortunate that this place was (is) so mismanaged and populated by loonies. The uber boss has a good open style that jibes really well with my approach, and she seems to have good instincts about a lot of things. She also adores my propensity to bullet point stuff.

So, the plan: get more money, get better title, build skills. Keep ear to the ground for other jobs. (Network for me, people!) Soon, I'll be able to sell myself as a communications/publications/development professional.

Thus Begins Day Three of Slinking Behind Closed Doors: A Study in Human Psychology

I think I'm going to conduct a sociological experiment on this nonsense. For the "comfort" level one one person, doors remain closed and scotch-taped with construction paper. Needless to say, it's quite the professional display, sure to be appreciated by the guests milling about the suite.

It's amazing how we all behave accordingly (path of least resistance, I guess) and one person can enforce her arbitrary will. It's also amazing how infuriating it is.

Cloak of Invisibility: On the Fritz

I had an exceedingly odd week last week. Normally, my special combination of obliviousness and invisibility, along with the fact that I'm no longer 22, allows me to carry on about my day-to-day business without too much hassle. Last week, however, dudes were coming out of the woodwork, staring at, honking at, and hitting on me. Unfortunately, as a result of this unbalanced flow in the universe, an overzealous person I chatted with briefly on the train has taken it upon himself--in spite of my not giving him my name and declining to give him my e-mail--to track me down as though (1) he were casually continuing a conversation, as requested, and (2) there were no question at all that the e-mail he dug up was indeed for the same person. He hasn't called me, to my knowledge (or e-mailed me again), and I believe he's from out of town, so I'm sure it's just one of those things to make you shrug at other peoples' cluelessness and move on.

Nonetheless, it's unsettling in the extreme to find yourself unwittingly exposed and to realize the extent to which your life, habits, and movements are readily available to anyone interested. This guy, for instance, knows where I work, where I live (or he can look it up), where I board the train, what stop I get off, which train I take in the morning, and all manner of information readily available via google.

Apart from that, though, conversations with colleagues and friends on all of this brought up some other interesting angles and perspectives. And the views split often along gender lines, because, generally speaking, this situation is more particular to women than to men. Nearly all the women had a story of an overzealous suitor to tell.

For everyone, particularly the security experts, the immediate takeaway message was that women should not make small talk with anyone to whom they don't want to give a wrong impression of interest. Maddening as it is to have to conduct one's interactions with all men in the universe on the binary of "I either want to sleep with them or I don't," that's fair enough advice, as far as it goes, I guess. We live in the world we live in. But, especially among women, certain social conditioning makes it really difficult to cut off people who are trying to talk to us. We don't want to be rude. We don't want to cause a scene. In short, we want to be nice, and once subtle cues are disregarded, we're left with saying something mean. And of course this mean response is met, often, by anger ("who do you think you are?" "why are you such a bitch?" "I was just being friendly!"). I'm someone less inclined than most to be "nice" to complete strangers demanding my attention, and even I get into this tangle. The ones who ignore the subtle cues are the ones who tend to get offended.

Beyond this, I tended to find that the women generally either put themselves in my place and reached worst-case stalker scenarios and declared I should call the police. (Whether or not someone is a physical danger to us, we all understand the dynamics of harassment and the feeling of helplessness it triggers.) Alternatively, the women tended to be very level-headed and matter-of-fact about the realities of navigating overenthusiastic men. It happens sometimes, and you learn to deal with it. What's the fuss?

The men, interestingly, tended to interpret the situation in terms of whether the person constituted an actual physical threat. Thus, the solution to the problem would be to round up the posse and pay the dude a visit. Apart from the hilarious vigilante picture conjured by this proposal (especially as carried out by librarians), the concept that stalking is so simply averted by a firm talking-to and a threat of violence seems a bit simplistic. People who stalk, after all, are not actually operating in the world of logical reason, consequence, and abstract things like what other people want.

So what's the upshot to all of this? I guess there really isn't one. I by no means want to imply that I think all men are like this (in fact, I'd say most aren't). The trick, for women, is knowing which is which. For all the decent dudes, the trick is understanding that navigating about your life as a woman can sometimes make you feel really vulnerable, and this makes us more defensive that perhaps seems necessary (and I'm personally sorry about that if it causes offense). Everybody, though, can develop reasonable shells and try to form better instantaneous judgments of other people. If we happen to make misjudgments, we can also try to avoid blaming ourselves for our own stupidity.

The Really Maddening Thing about Working with Crazy People

You'd think it would be the feeling that you are, yourself, going a bit crazy as you're surrounded daily by behaviors that are confusing your internal sense of what constitutes "normal." It's not quite that. It's also not the constant waft of bleach, nor the endless banging of filing-cabinet drawers in rhythmic patterns.

No, for my money, the really maddening thing about working with crazy people is the things you have to do to accommodate and/or work around the crazy person. Such as: inadvertently encountering undisposed personal hygiene products when one innocently heads to the loo; eating frozen carrots; putting personal belongings, trash cans, and other office paraphernalia into someone's else's precise yet arbitrary idea of just so; scurrying about behind partially closed doors because the person in question saw a stinging insect in a hallway (never mind that cracked doors allow flying insects, as do the louvered transoms above the doors).

That last one is just today, and we are all going about our day gingerly closing doors. Me, I can't so much as get anyone to make my deadlines, so I'm thinking I'm obviously going about things the wrong way.

My Weekend Plan

1. To avoid--as much as possible--being oppressed by the humidity
2. Completing a 36-hour marketing-course-in-a-book, in order to
3. Develop a marketing plan to increase targeted aspects of our membership.
4. Ponder this cd.

Fun

Craving a follow-up to the Buffy musical? Requiring a Joss Whedon fix?

Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-Long Blog.

Haven't Done This in a While

Hope you have a good weekend in the works.

1. three is a magic number, bob dorough
2. no woman no cry, bob marley
3. tennessee waltz, sam cooke
4. ballet for a rainy day, xtc
5. i spy, pulp
6. thirteen, big star
7. rung by rung, the mystery meat
8. judy and the dream of horses, belle & sebastian
9. california sun, the ramones
10. psyche, nouvelle vague

A Typical Thursday Night in the Bungalow

Today's Astute Observation

Observed friend A after seeing the aftermath of my latest battle with my office plant, Eggberth's, scale infestation (plant soap is a bit messy and requires paper towels, drop cloths, and sundry): "Jesus, M [friend who gets marriage proposals from homeless and insane people] may attract all the weirdos, but you're a magnet for the high-maintenance plants and animals."

So true. They seek me out with pitiful mewlings at my back door. Then they die in my basement.

Pact With the Devil, Indeed

Helen Mirren, goddess-like, and A-number-one example of how I want to age. Sign me up for looking this good in a bikini when I'm 63.

Hope this kind of preservation doesn't involve bathing in the blood of virgins, though.

Oh, and When In Flint

Pull up your pants:

The police chief is warning residents of Flint, Mich., to pull up their trousers ... or else.

"Some people call it a fad," Chief David Dicks tells the Detroit Free Press, a fellow Gannett newspaper. "But I believe it's a national nuisance. It is indecent and thus it is indecent exposure, which has been on the books for years."