Boo!

Happy Halloween everybody! I'm playing it very low key this year since we had our party last weekend and that's all the holiday I need. I was a pirate.

So I'm home, Suzan's out. I've just listened to Saint-Saens's Dans Macabre, a wonderful 19th century piece that my elementary school music teacher, Ms. Stafford used to play for us at Halloween and we got to dance around like skeletons. Dans Macabre means "Dance of the Dead" and the piece is all about the one day a year (that would be Oct. 31) when the dead get to stand up and dance like the living. Death accompanies it all on his violin.

Ms. Stafford would play the song on a record player, one kid would be Death (usually a little blond girl. I never asked why) and the rest of us would be the skeletons.

So I turned off all the lights in my apartment, put the song on the stereo and flung myself about the room like a pile of bones caught up by the wind.

"Oh, that's what it's called!"

In my newest review for Film Critic.com, one reader wrote in to tell me I was talking about "Character-driven" films in my first paragraph. In retrospect, I probably should have known that.

Moving While Standing Still:

See, the thing that sucks about new friends is that just as ya start to get to know each other, they leave. I know it's not personal. It's just that good-bye always makes me so sad.

I hate to see people leave this place that I've grown to love so much and some irrational part of me wants to keep it under glass, the same unsmudged jewel-like city I moved to nearly 3 years ago. But San Francisco, from the outragous cost of living to the frenetic pace of life, to the earth rumbling beneath our feet, is not an easy place to lay down roots. I'm going to try but seeing people I know leave makes me, even for a silly moment, question that decision.

It's so beautiful here today. I really can't imagine wanting to be anywhere else. And thank God for a while at least, I don't have to.

You out there..#64!

Apparently, someone has voted me one of their three Desert Island Bloggers, which is way nice of them. I was positive I knew everyone who visited here (hell, I could fit them all in my garage), but sometime a few months ago, my number of daily visitors jumped from about 27 to about 64. Yes, I pick over these things. That only makes me pathetic, not a bad person.

I have no explanation for this sudden spike in interest. I think the quality of my blogging has remained nice and faintly amusing and irrelevant and unlinked by anyone of pull. But here we are, at a lecturn, with 64 of you in the audience. And there we begin.

*clearing throat*

Hi, I'm Kevin and this is my blog.

Dated and Loving it:

So our "Different Decade" Pre-Halloween party was a blast, a houseful of wonderfully tacky costumes worn by a fabulous group of folk (Wendy, Jane, Bryan, Maggie, Lane & Courtney and Apollo to name but a few). Susan was gussied up as Dorothy Parker. I was a pirate.

You didn't hear it from me but Evan Williams (yes, that Evan Williams, Mr. Blogger) is a dancin' fool. He was dressed as either Starsky or Hutch (WARNING: Link is noisy). Probably both.

Someone has pictures of this event, right? Please let me know.

Begin the year with Bankruptcy:

Students at the University of Ottawa have set up their own campus bookstore in direct competition to the University's with the express goal of putting them out of business. Anyone who has attended a major university in the last decade knows this is an action long overdue. My own Johns Hopkins University did business through a Barnes and Noble-owned store which held students effectively in indentured servitude. You needed books, the store charged outragous prices and most of the neighborhood shops didn't stock political treatises of ancient Sumerians or Developmental Biology texts. And this was before Amazon.

Bravo Ottawa.

Hometown Bash-ing:

My friend Amy pointed me to an online diary creatively titled Ann Arbor Sucks, a broadside of my beloved hometown. It's pretty opaque and not just because of the black background. The diarist merely identifies his/herself as a "grad student at the University of Michigan" no major, no age, not even mention of a gender. They do however like Stereolab.

I grew up in Ann Arbor and naturally think it's the greatest place in the world. But if I was graduate student age (and still as bitter and misanthropic as I was when I was a graduate student) I'd probably be knocking Ann Arbor about the ears too. It's a beautiful little university town in which to be an elementary school student, a retired professor or hell, even a college student. But to be in your mid-twenties, looking for underground polka music, alternative puppetry performances or to just to culturally spread your wings, Ann Arbor feels pretty damn provincial.

I don't live there anymore, if that's an indication.

Imtermission:

Sick. Very sick. Heeling slowly but surely. Must not blog today. Until I return, please enjoy these virtual studios of artists I stumbled across during this year's San Francisco Open Studios.

Superhero Designs: Funky Jewelry and portraits done in highly-saturated paints.

Mark Faigenbaum: Prints and collage boxes using architectural blueprints, maps, engineering graphs and other geometric patterns.

Tofu: Paintings and mixed media collages in bright, vivid colors. Reminds me of the film Waking Life.

Hark...

My friend Lars Kongshem is an education journalist by day and an amateur composer by night. He wrote this instrumental called Calla Rain in honor of the birth of his friend's new baby and gives a moving little explanation of how it came together. Check it out (real audio format).

What I'd Like to Hear at my Funeral:

"Kevin Smokler was my great friend. But I don't ever remember telling him that. The words that are spoken at a funeral are spoken too late for the man who is dead. What a wonderful thing it would be to visit your own funeral. To sit at the front and hear what was said, maybe say a few things yourself. Kevin and I grew old together. But at times, when we laughed, we grew young. If he was here now, if he could hear what I say, I'd congratulate him on being a great man, and thank him for being a friend."

--Inspired by Waking Ned Devine

The Second Coming of Satan:

The Encyclopedia Satanica is an "unofficial" sequel to writer Ambrose Bierce's 1911 classic The Devil's Dictionary, a collection of forked tongue-in-cheeck definitions of common words. Example...

Happiness, n. An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another.

A guy named Matt Schutt has put this thing together, two definitions per letter of the alphabet, with an essay following each. I give the dude credit. He's got a fleet-footed sense of humor and a lot more ambition than me.

Taste?

LowBrow Art World is a great little site dedicated well, low brow art, which I can best describe hyper-colorful paintings and prints inspired by comic books, horror movies, muscle cars and graffiti. But I'd look for yourself (via Metafilter).

What I Do:

Everybody probably gets asked this question a lot and, until recently, I've a hard time saying I'm a writer. I got paid to write something when I was 16, nearly 15 years ago and have contributed to a number of newspapers, magazines and journals since. But it was usually a hobby activity, a quiet talent I pulled out when I had to that also helped me in the jobs I found myself in.

For the last four years, I ran a non-profit online community for book lovers called Central Booking. I retired from doing CB in February of 2003, because the pull of greater opportunities was too strong to resist. Strongest of al was the chance to write professionally in a way that I defined for myself, to call my self a writer and like the sound of it.

Below is a list of my current projects...

Dial Tone:

Twentieth Century Fox has delayed the November 15th release of the movie Phone Booth because of its vague resemblance to the recent sniper attacks in Washington D.C.

I'm pretty disappointed since the Phone Booth trailer rocked (and like a bunch of cowards, Apple Trailers seemed to have pulled it) and reminded me more of Miracle Mile, an overlooked Cold War gem in which Anthony Edwards (post-Top Gun, pre-Northern Exposure) idly picks up a ringing pay phone and hears that Russia has launched a nuclear missile that's heading right for Los Angeles.

I suppose this makes sense from a financial standpoint. After all, who wants their film blacklisted by the headlines? But if Fox or any other studio had a wit of marketing creativity, they'd use Phone Booth's sudden relevance (Colin Farrell plays a New York wheeler-dealer who answers a phone booth call. On the other end is Kiefer Sutherland, a sniper who will kill Farrell if he tells anyone what's going on) to their advantage. How about news stories about the psychological profile of a sniper, a tie-in with America's Most Wanted?

Alas, no. Fox is only saying the movie will be released at some point but doesn't say when (via DT).

Two Hit Wonders:

A pretty hilarious list from McSweeney's about the second hit from your favorite One Hit Wonder bands. I'd love to hear your addition to this list, if you're feeling clever (thanks DT!).

Off the Richter Scale:

Litquake rocked. It's hard to tell when you're on the ground floor of the operation, making sure everyone arrives on time, the chip bowls are filled and the sound system turned on. But about three hours in, which my feet aching from trotting between authors, volunteers and staff, I did stop and say "Man, I hope this is how we all pictured it would go."

Apparently it was. Nearly 70 Bay Area authors read at three venues throughout the day. The author party had them all in one room, including several who couldn't read but came by to show their support. The closing party at the Edinburgh Castle, had lines snaking around the block. One of our PR mavens, who knows a lot more about these things than I do, called it one of the biggest cultural events in San Francisco this year.

Somewhere they had room for lil' ole me. My official role was keeping track of sponsor accounts and alliances with community literary groups. But on the day of, we're all common laborers. There were several times over the last three months that I cursed myself for getting involved in something like event planning which I clearly knew nothing about, several times I hated having to say "after Litquake" to friends, family and exciting career opportunities. But somewhere around hour 11, tired beyond the point of reason, I was wedged somewhere between Amy Tan and Rabih Alameddine in pleasent conversation. Earlier I had received an invitation to speak at a class at Stanford. My Litquake boss Jane had just told me that she was "blown away" by the work I put in. Suzan and her sister were coming by the closing party for a drink. And my whole being was lit up like a firefly with possibility.

So now I'm back. I missed my blog and writing each day. Sorry I was gone but I'd say it was probably worth it.

The 'Rules' according to Kevin

My review of Rules of Attraction is up at Filmcritic.com. I worried after the screening that I was just grouchy and everyone else would love it. At least Roger Ebert agrees with me.

It's an ok review. It's been years since I wrote film reviews (thank you, Chris Null, for overlooking that) and I think I'm tentative and prissy with the format. I found myself using the word "artistic" at least four times in the last piece with makes me sound like a third-rate Clement Greenberg instead of, well, me. Hopefully, I'll grow into it. And forgive myself before then. Hopefully.

AWOL?

Hey sorry folks I haven't been around to post the last few days. I'm on the organizing committee of Litquake and it's kicking my ass. But it's all over Saturday night so then I can be a postin' fool. Incidentally, if you're in San Francisco this weekend and dig books, come by Litquake. 65 authors in one room, reading in 10 minute segments. And it's free.

If it's possible...

My friend Maggie Barry just a series of articles on etiquette that are bright and funny rather than fussy New England. Way to go!

R.I.P AL Daily:

Arts & Letters Daily is gone, a victim of too little money and the inevitable end to the good will of their contributors. I will miss it terribly and shiver at the ever widening void of weblogs for humanities geeks. Or maybe I just haven't found them yet. Well, one of the editors at AL Daily has started Philosophy & Literature which looks like a good start.

State of Fear:

Waiting for me in my inbox this morning: The Al-Queda Telemarketing Scam (via Justin).

Lookie Here...

DVD Easter Eggs lists (pretty comprehensively) hidden features on your favorite movies, "Easter Egg" being slang for a feature that only reveals itself when you run your mouse over it.

Did you know that oddly placed owl on the main menu of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone will lead you to a whole other menu of options in you click on it? I found that out yesterday.

Respect due...

To everyone who wrote in and made suggestions in response to my last post. While I'm an avid reader of both Caterina.net and Bookslut, but are a bit too narrowly focused (or personal, dependind on your point of view) for what I'm looking for, a Boing Boing focused on culture and the arts.

The search continues...

Seeking...

A weblog focused on the arts, culture, literature that sort of thing, preferably written by a really smart person. Kinda like what Lemon Yellow was.

Please pass on your suggestions. I don't want to have to put it together myself.

"Here's my Story, Doc"

Across the country, medical schools are requiring doctors and medical students to take writing classes in an effort to produce clean case histories and see their patients as human beings rather than statistics. The thinking goes that if you have the language to tell a patients' story ("Jane Doe had a ruptured spleen" rather than "The spleen was ruptured"), you can imagine them as a real person. Bellevue, the psychiatric hospital in New York even has its own literary journal.

Reading this reminded me of my undergraduate days at Johns Hopkins as a rare humanities major in a sea of pre-meds, a bit like being the assistant chaplain at West Point. The two science geeks I lived with would alternate between making fun of my inactive career goals ("Ohhh Writing Seminars. You want fries with that?") and begging me for counsol on their term papers ("Uhhh, Kev. What's a passive verb?).

We didn't stay friends but now I know what a Hippocampus is and hopefully they can string two sentences together. If not, I say send 'em' to Bellevue!