I know I’m not in any imminent threat of death, but it’s a little unheimlich/eerie when you note an acquaintance and someone of your age having died. I had been involved in enough queer activism to have met Heather McAllister a number of times over the years when she lived in Michigan. I knew that she had worked at Triangle Foundation. She had a sharp intellect and a positively wicked pair of cat-eye specs that I thought were her trademark long before Lisa Loeb. She also had a HUGE bottom. It never bothered her. In fact, what always touched me about Heather was her conscious choice to make it YOUR issue rather than hers. She left Michigan to capitalize on her radical view and created a big-girl burlesque revue in California. And as has happened for so many Michigan emigres, I thought she would go on to a fabulous life in San Francisco and be happy.
While casually listening to my NPR commie-pinko feed, I heard Leonard Nimoy speak of his new Full Body Project. I didn’t know that he gone on to become a photographer, good for him. He talked of the daunting task of taking pictures of very heavy women, good for him. He spoke of meeting Heather and being inspired by her performance work as both a political and artistic effort, fine, fine, nice to see a Michiganian find some success. He then said that she had died. My eyes bugged out. I stopped the feed and started searching for her frantically online. How could she be dead? She was vital, smart, beautiful and motivated to make real change in American culture. She was in California living the good, queer American dream. And she was young! Rather, she was my age! That didn’t make sense at all! She had so much to do! She had died of ovarian cancer this past February. I hadn’t heard anything here back home. And I had felt no sign of her passing as I imagined great ladies might, silly git. For me, it was the divine whispering, so softly, I will cut all threads–even yours–without your assent.
So, I’ve got a busy day, but I’m not freakin’ out about it, which is a switch. I’ve been doing a lot more reading on Buddhist mythology and thought lately. I guess that as I try to stay focused on what brings me peace (Ah, Oprah, always my muse). Tree guy’s workin’ on the yard. I’m gettin’ some writin’ done. Finally.
This might be a long-winded post, this might be really short. I’ve been really thinking of writing but then I’ve also been really work-busy and then I got sick-busy. And I’m in that delicate stage where I went to work yesterday which turned into a 5 hr appt. This doesn’t include the 1+ driving and I was amazed at how wiped I was when I got home. Was supposed to celebrate the in-law parents with a dinner and so, natch, I took a pass. Wasn’t hungry but ate some lemongrass-flavored chicken hors doeurves anyway and watched Monster House (mini-review, below):
Monster House
The Bad:
The Uncanny: I have not seen Polar Express, mostly because I thought that its lack of facial expression in the trailers was creepy. This, in turn, reminded me of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within and first reading of Dr. Masahiro Mori’s theory of the Uncanny Valley. In 1970, he suggested that as a simulation of a human being’s appearance and/or motion becomes increasingly accurate, there is very suddenly a point at which humans’ interest in the creation turns into utter repulsion. There is still some of that dissonance in Monster House. They couldn’t get the faces to register emotion enough. Even though the production had something like 70 points of detection on everyone’s faces, they still wound up looking like they had just gotten a Botox treatment.
Kathleen Turner as Constance/The House: Mind you, she was fine, but the notion of taking such a role… I thought that Turner had a lot of cajones to take a part as a circus freak/possessed house. I hope she got a nice check for her troubles.
The Plot: I know this is a kids’ movie but it seemed a bit too simple at times.
The Good:
The characters: Their acting was just fine. Verbally, everything was perfect.
The animation: Despite the Uncanny Valley, you have to be amazed at what Sony accomplished. A good deal of this film is very, very beautiful to look at.
It came to me one day in a way similar to my musings on heterosexual relations: How does one actually make them? Since BF is Jewish and LOVES them, I thought I would crank out the old breadmaker and see if it’s even possible…
Um, it was. Like not really hard at all. Basically, throw in the ingredients to the breadmaker (liquids first, then dry ingredients). Wait an hour-and-a-half for the machine to do its job and let the dough rise. Cut up the dough and make bagel shapes. Boil some water and then boil the bagel shapes for about a minute per side. Cook in the oven for 20mins. Done. Mystery solved. Were they good? Yeah, in the fresh way, but I’m a big fan of the Panera pseudo-cake-snack-bar bagels. I want bagels with raspberries and chocolate and cream cheese seeping from them. I’m totally gonna hack their sh-t!
And I have some engineering and tweaking to do, but I think I have some definite idears totally kill the competition. I will be Bagel King!
Apple
So, it’s been a while. I probably should be doing something productive, but rather than cry about it or castigate the effort as paltry and insufficient, I thought, why not? Everybody else is writing their tedious lives. Why can’t I? Enough with the cynicism, I just read this article exhibiting Apple’s complete product line. It made me a little sad. Turns out I used Apple right from the start and then somehow it fell apart for us after 1990. Even though I went to a university that long been affiliated with Mac, after freshmen year, I just stopped using them. The memory of my FORTRAN classes programming on a Macintosh Classic still makes me shiver. Work pulled me into the Borg consciousness of Unix and all small biz lives on Microsquish. It’s only the iPod that drew me back and that was only recently. I have very strong reservations about the iPhone and its innovations. I’m not easily enamored by form if it is mostly functionless. End-Of-Thought