Author: Roger

I'm a librarian. I hear music, even when it's not being played. I used to work at a comic book store, and it still informs my life. I won once on JEOPARDY! - ditto.

MOVIE REVIEW: Once


I don’t recall any recent movie that was as critically acclaimed as Once. Last I checked, it had a 97% positive rating on the movie site Rotten Tomatoes. It’s been billed, correctly, I think, as a musical for those who like music but hate musicals. I mean, there’s no Ewan McGregor from Moulin Rouge, merry murderers from Chicago or even Jennifer Hudson from Dreamgirls, all of which I’ve seen, by the way, breaking into song to advance the plot. All the music comes from their “real” situations, and works, perhaps, because musicians who could act were cast, rather than actors who could sing.

Carol and I got a babysitter and went to see Once last month at the Spectrum in Albany, when it was down to two shows a day, as it turns out the week before it closed. It’s the story of a Guy (Glen Hansard) in Ireland who is a busker with a guitar, an aspiring singer/songwriter and vacuum cleaner repairman who meets a Girl (Marketa Irglova), who’s also a singer/songwriter as well as a pianist. They end up making beautiful music together in an “organic” way. But it doesn’t play out exactly how you might think.

Incidentally, I capitalized Guy and Girl, because that’s how the characters are billed; likewise Guy’s Dad (Bill Hodnett) and Girl’s Mother (Danuse Ktrestova).

I really don’t know how to describe this any further without giving out key plot points, except to say that we too were charmed and captivated by Once. It has a running time of 85 minutes, and it’s rated R, almost certainly for the substantial use of the F-word. In fact, much of the scene before the credits even pop up is laced with that word; it lessens considerably after that, but you may want to watch this with other adults.
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Gay Prof says something snarky about the impeding departure of Karl Rove so I don’t have to.

ROG

ROG

Moving Is Easy, Unless It’s Your Stuff

movingA couple months ago, I helped someone move a harpsichord, a secretary (the furniture variety), and a couple other pieces. No big whoop; I’ve helped, conservatively, in over 100 moves, excluding the 30 or so moves of mine. But he was so appreciative that he sent me a card thanking me.

Let’s deal with mine first. “You say 30 moves, really?” Surely, I exaggerate; I do not. And all but one was since I was 18. But I’m getting more settled: 7 years in my current place. Before that 1 year in the house Carol had bought before we met, 4.5 years in an apartment. Before that, mucho moves for all sorts of reasons. Like this guy.

And like many folks, I hate moving my own stuff, for all sorts of psychological reasons that is why I rather use Keep On Moving Company to help out.

Moving other people’s stuff, however, I love. I love it for a number of reasons:
1) It’s good exercise
2) It becomes an interesting anthropological study
3) People are grateful that you’re moving their stuff
4) It’s not MY stuff

I’ve helped one guy move six times, so often that my accomplices, Allie and Tom, and I called ourselves RAT Moving (or ART Moving, or TAR Moving). I’ve helped people I’ve known two weeks.

But I have rules for moving other people’s stuff, having done so many times:
1) Pick a time. Stick to the time. I want to get there, do it, and leave.
2) The movee (or his/her designee) must be in charge of the move, especially the unloading. I don’t care if the movee picks up a single thing as long as that person can say: what goes and what stays when we’re in the old place; and where the things go when we’re in the new place. One good friend of mine was so distraught about her move, it fell upon a committee of the movers to decide what to do. Yuck.
3) Have extra boxes. Inevitably, the movee thinks he/she is done packing, but forgot the stuff behind a piece of furniture or in a closet or in the refrigerator. Seldom have I been in a situation with too many boxes.
4) Don’t pack your books, records and other dense items in large boxes. I may be, as one friend calls her roving moving crew, of “strong backs and small minds”, but we’re not looking to end up on the disabled list while doing one a favor.
5) Highly recommended: extra packing tape, and markers for labeling boxes (oh, PLEASE, label your boxes so that we don’t have to open the boxes and decide what’s in them). Bungee ropes can be useful. Once, I helped carry a sofa down a flight of stairs. It turned out to be a sleeper sofa, and the sleeper sofa came out. I kicked the sleeper part back into position, on my back, on the stairwell, and tied the sleeper part with my belt.
6) If possible, contact the authorities about blocking off the moving spaces so we can load and unload at the actual addresses rather than from a half a block away.

 

Monday pontificating

Via Jaquandor:

1. If there were no blogs, what would you be doing right now?

I found this question utterly fascinating, maybe because it hit a nerve. Before I was blogging, I was kvetching about the fact that I wasn’t writing or expressing my opinions and that I was missing out on recording stuff about Lydia, which, I knew, I would someday forget. So, if I weren’t blogging, I would be kvetching about the fact that I wasn’t writing or expressing my opinions…
On the other hand, I might be caught up on watching TV taped programs, and I’d certainly be more up-to-date with my weekly periodicals reading.

Incidentally, I cleaned up my blogroll this weekend, moving some links to my work blog, deleting a couple, and adding a couple, such as Anthony Velez’s The Dark Glass, mostly because I was tired of having to go there via Lefty. I’ve put a few folks under the uninterestingly-titled Other Interesting Folks. If you have suggestions for adds, or if you want to be added, moved, or deleted from the blogroll, you know where to find me.

2. If you had to spend one year living alone in a remote cabin, what would you spend your time doing?

OK, this depends heavily on what technologies are available. Will I have a computer? Internet connectivity? Assuming that, I would be catching up on reading those aforementioned magazines, then tackle the books. Alternating with writing two books, one a roman a clef about churches, choirs and ministers; choir people can be really strange folks. The other would be a history of the first 10 years of FantaCo.

Of course, listening to music and watching movies and stuff on DVD.

Now, if we’re talking really rustic, with no electricity, still doing the reading, maybe writing by hand. And slowly going: Stark. Raving. Bonkers.

3. If you could go back in time, what one piece advice would you give yourself?

Depends on the time frame:
Me at 16: you’re working in a library. You LIKE working in a library. Consider this as a career. You’re not cut out to be a lawyer.
Me at 24: no, you won’t be celibate forever.
There are plenty of others.

4. “If you really knew me you would know that…”

You should run away as quickly as possible.
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You Are 24% Weirdo

You’re a little weird, but you’d be even weirder if you didn’t have a few quirks.
You are just strange enough to know it, but nobody else seems to notice your weirdness.
That’s because, deep down, everyone is a little freaky!

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Merv Griffin died yesterday of prostate cancer, the disease that, as it happened, killed my father. Not only was Merv a popular talk show host, but he created both Wheel of Fortune and JEOPARDY! Most importantly, he wrote the JEOPARDY! theme:

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ADD’s dreams, one of which features, of all people, me. BTW, the Daredevil Chronicles had the greater print run, but that’ll all become clear later this month.
ROG

ROG

Rogered

We try to keep it a nice wholesome, family-orientated blog here at Ramblin’. But occasionally we fail. I’ve rediscovered that the words “roger” and “rogered” have an interesting, if scatological, slang definition. Thanks, Dorian for bringing this up. (I think.)

Long ago, I found the meaning of ROGER to mean Famous spear; English and French name of Germanic origin, composed of the elements hrod “fame” and gar/ger “spear”, thus “famous spear” and/or derived from Hroth-gar, meaning “spear-bearer”.

There was a black character in the M*A*S*H book, movie, and the first season of the television series called Spearchucker Jones. Spearchucker was considered a racial slur when I was growing up, tied to the notion of the “African savage”, and I suspect it’s more the reason the character got dropped than the fact there were actually no black doctors in Korea; the spear Jones used to chuck in college, BTW, was a javelin.

But I was surprised to find that Spearchucker actually HAD a name: Oliver Wendell Jones. I was going to posit the idea that his given name was Roger, based on the word’s entomology. Another theory shot to heck.
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Probably TMI: The husband of an ex-girlfriend of mine asked me this recently: “[His wife] once told me a story about taking you to visit her father. Your suitcase snapped open unexpectedly and your condom collection spilled on the ground. True story?”
Answer: Seriously, I have no recollection of such an occurrence. This is not to say that it didn’t happen and I had sensibly blocked it from my mind.
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Since we’re in the field of what some might consider inappropriate language, a headstone for a dog.

ROG

ROG

Domestic Bliss QUESTIONS


Dear Ramblin’:
We’ve had this invasion of ants in our kitchen. How do we get rid of them without using chemicals?
Bugged

Dear Bugged:
Our family has had some success with leaving the peelings from the skins of cucumbers in front of the back entrance. It does leave little ant corpses, though, and you need to replace the peels daily, lest they dry up and become ineffective. Oh, and when you’re picking up those deceased insects, you should sing that segment from the William Tell Overture best known as the Lone Ranger Theme, “dead ant, dead ant, dead ant ant ant.”
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Dear Ramblin’:
Our toilet is clogged up. What should I use that isn’t some dangerous chemical.
Not Going Down the Hole

Dear NGDTH:
Amazingly effective: a half cup of baking soda. Slowly pour in the cheapest white vinegar you can find until it stops bubbling.
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Dear Ramblin’:
Remember than Seinfeld commercial for American Express in which Jerry walks into a grocery store? His plastic bag comes right open, even as some schmo struggles. I’m like the schmo. Any ideas?
Frustrated

Dear Frustrated:
Water on your fingertips. My store is continually – excessively – washing the produce that I’m going to wash at home anyway. Steal a couple drops. Or, if necessary, lick your fingertips. Also helpful for those plastic garbage bags.
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Dear Ramblin’:
I hard-boiled eggs, and sometimes the shell sticks to the egg, requiring excessive time, AND I lose a lot of the egg white as a result. Any suggestions?
Eggsasperated

Dear Eggsasperated:
While running cold water on the egg, crack both ends of the egg. Last time I tried this, it worked 10 out of 11 times – the 12th was one I tried to peel the old way.
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Dear Ramblin’:
Occasionally, I drop a can or bottle of soda. Naturally, I’m afraid that I’ll take a bath when I open the container. Any suggestions?
Not Looking For A Soda Bath

Dear NLFASB:
Don’t know about the bottles, other than opening really slowly. But for cans, I’ve found tapping the top of the container with my index a dozen times is often effective.
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Dear Ramblin’:
When I make lasagna, my noodles end up sticking together, making putting on those layers of pasta a real chore. Should I just go out and buy that “no cook” lasagna, or is there another way?
Stuck

Dear Stuck:
Long before I ever heard of that “no cook” product, I used regular uncooked lasagna noodles, increasing the quantity sauce by about 20% and making sure the noodles are covered by sauce on both sides. The lasagna noodles get cooked with the lasagna and tastes great.

Have some helpful household hints? Pleaser leave them in the comments section or e-mail them to: Ramblin’s Household Hints
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As an Albany blogger, I guess I ought to note my fair city’s latest claim to fame.

ROG

ROG
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