Rhythm and Gravy

Try as they might, the airlines couldn’t spoil our Christmas… Though they cancelled my flights and made me spend fourteen hours on a detour through Houston, sent my clothes to Maui and failed to call me when they arrived in Seattle, and cancelled my sister and nephew’s flight (their eight-hour detour took them through San Francisco), we nonetheless managed to visit grandma, destroy some presents, and stuff ourselves with food and booze.

So far, despite the odds, James turns out to be a sweet, well-behaved, intelligent kid. Also, he’s ridiculously cute — I challenge anyone to show me the nephew who can out-cute mine. He’s too young to appreciate expensive gifts (his favorite this year? A tossup between the piggy bank with the disembodied hand that snatches the deposit and blowing bubbles.) but not too young to appreciate lots of them. But he’s also excited to see other people open their gifts, which was nice to see.

Mom went beyond the call of duty, as she always does. Her Fontanini nativity set is growing boundlessly, her home was immaculately decorated, and she put hot water bottles in our beds every night.

Scored me a nice zip-up sweater from Eddie Bauer, a Montana Highway Patrol hoodie, and a sweet pair of slippers. Also got some nice Reidel scotch glasses from Anne (good call, girl).

Their trick is, they have their computer call your cellphone and tell you that your flight was cancelled, and you’ve been rebooked through Houston, overnight, and you won’t get home until late tomorrow night. Then, when you go to yell at them and they tell you that they found a flight through Houston that gets in today — well, that seems wonderful by comparison.

But seriously, both flights from Detroit to Seattle were cancelled because their crews called in sick? I don’t know if I buy that….

At least they put me in first class from Detroit to Houston. My plan is to drink myself blind so they have to put me in a comfy handicapped seat from Houston to Seattle.

Anyway, if you’re down with the JC, Merry Christmas (historical theologians are fairly confident that he was actually born in June, but the pagans just threw better parties, so I say go for it!), and if not, let’s be glad that we can get on with the business of enjoying winter in peace. Mom, Amy, Booperman, and I will be getting up early, eatin’ some cinnamon rolls, and puttin’ the brakes on some nice wrapping jobs Thursday morning. Hope yours was a good one.

After two months of dealing with the worst TV repair place ever (All Brand Electronics, Greenfield, PA), the beast is dead. So if you need parts for a Hitachi 51UWX20B projection TV let me know. Click the photos for bigger pictures…

	Front speaker grill. Make me an offer.
	Rear projection mirror. Make me an offer.
	Front screen. Make me an offer.
	DP2X sensor board. Free.

For some odd reason, both Blockbuster and West Coast Video moved out of Squirrel Hill in the last year, leaving my with no convenient movie rental place in walking distance, which is a bummer for me this weekend since all the folk are off visiting family this pre-holiday weekend and I’m here until Monday morning. In addition, it seems like it never occurs to us to borrow DVDs from each other; instead, we pay four or more bucks to see something that our neighbor might lend us for free, with no late fees. Towards that end, I intend to list the movies I own on this site (see Movies, in the sidebar), with reviews. If you want to borrow any of them, let me know, maybe we can swap some movies..

I’ll start with Roman Coppala’s CQ.

It’s the story of Jeremy Davis, an American guy in Paris in 1969 who is brought in as director of a struggling pulp sci-fi film in order to finish off the problematic ending. The film beautifully captures his earnestness as he works on his own personal film project, titled ‘69-70′, and the way it transfers to his work on moon base, communist rebel leader, and beautiful astronaut/spy code-named Dragonfly. His struggle to finish the film is paralleled by his struggle to finish his auto-documentary, in which he must resolve his feelings for his temperamental French girlfriend and his fantasies involving Dragonly, and later the actress playing her. We also get a great perspective on the 1960’s Franco-American futuristic design aesthetic exemplified by movies like Barbarella.

I’ve always fancied in myself an ability to engage in the fantastic while staying firmly rooted in reality, which is exactly what this movie does, and is why I appreciate it so much. This movies leaves me with a great appreciation of the people in my life who seem blinded by their own imagination, but manage to walk determinedly where they want.

I’m the host of Guest Deejay Thursdays on Yehoodi Radio for the month of December.

If you know anyone who has a room for rent in Seattle for a few months, let me know, as that’s where I’m a-headed. A few months off are about to do me a world of good, and I’m very much looking forward to experiencing the Emerald City.

A number of my favorite tunes have an AABA structure, for example “T’ain’t what you do,” by Jimmy Lunceford and his Orchestra:

When I was a kid, ’bout half past three,
My daddy said ‘Son, come here to me.’
He said ‘Things may come, and things may go,
but this is one thing you ought to know.
T’ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it,
T’ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it,
T’ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it,
That’s what gets results.
Bridge:
You can try hard, don’t mean a thing,
Take it easy, breezy, then your jive will swing.
Oh, it ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it,
T’ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it,
T’ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it,
That’s what gets results.’

So, if you’ll grant that working with my first advisor and finishing my thesis proposal under my current advisor were the first two sections of grad school, then I’m just taking it to the bridge before I finish up. Hey, I never said my metaphors weren’t demanding of the reader.

What will I do in Seattle? Well, I’m still puzzling that one out. I intend to keep my research on the back burner, but I have a few other programming projects I want to sift through. I might look for some manual labor, or take some one-off consulting gigs. I might learn to paint, or read a ton of good books. We’ll see.