The Weekend, etc.

"So much on my mind, I just can't recline..."

Q: What happens when you have a weekend of no social obligations?

A:
Movies Seen
Nacho Libre
The Village
She Hate Me
Friends With Money
United 93

Field Trips
Diane Arbus exhibit at Walker
Twins vs. Cubs 6.25.06

Good Eatin'
Barbette
Hell's Kitchen

Etc.
Hours languidly reading the newspaper, drinking coffee;
Cooking dinner with The Woman;
Ice cold beer on a nice warm couch (THAT should be the alternative title of this blog);
a little more Saul Bellow;
Afro-Cuban jazz;
Nowhere to be!!!

Random Thoughts
1) Will have to soon provide capsule reviews on stuff I saw, etc...However, you really need to see the Arbus exhibit. It's amazing.

2) Yes, part of the reason I went to Barbette for a late lunch Saturday was to give them a little love after their recent food poisoning scare. I hope you all realize that all restaurants, no matter how excellent and amazing they are, inevitably have some kind of problem like this at some point in their history. It really is The Law of Averages for a restaurant, and you just have to give them the courtesy benefit of the doubt, especially if you love the place. And I love Barbette.

There's my Good PR Deed of the Day.

3) How much does it really, really suck to be a Cubs fan?

I mean, their popular national image as the "Lovable Losers" is calcified into some sort of baseball orthodoxy, and yes, they do play in a holy cathedral of a ballpark, but oh my Harry Carry, these guys are just awful. I watched them commit 3 official errors and a handful more that didn't count only because their incompetence prevented them from even touching the baseball.

I've been a more than a slightly casual Cubs fan ("above average observer" is a more operative term) since a) my Dad spent a bit of his childhood living in Chicagoland and informed us that the Cubs were "our National League team" and b) because of hundreds of childhood hours were wasted watching WGN broadcasts. But the Cubbies have never been My Team, and thank the everloving Christ for that.

Watching Sunday afternoon's game in the Dome finally brought home to me the grave reality that being a real, true-blue Cubs fan is not endearing. It's not cute. It's not fun. This is what it is:

Being a Cubs fan is consigning oneself to a life of ritual disembowelment every baseball season, for all of eternity.

Now, how fucking awful is that? To love, to really, truly give your heart and soul to a team like the Cubs takes such masochistic patience. I can't imagine having to live and die by a team like that.

I pity the fool.

PUSHed to the brink

I spent the past two days at the PUSH conference at the Walker Art Center and was treated to lectures from some brilliant--utterly, staggeringly brilliant--minds from around the country, discussing everything from gaming to philosophy to film to trends to physics to alleviating systemic poverty via architectual design.

As well as, uh, a million other cool things.

I am completely dizzy; my head is spinning from the blitzkrieg of information (It's like receiving a semester's worth of education in the span of two days). Anyway, I'll be writing the play-by-play soon. In the meantime, be sure to check this site out:

www.pushthefuture.org

ursprache

Q: What is the etymology?
A: That would be Klingon.

Hacienda

Alright, it's high time for King Fun to dig out his velcro-clad blue fabric triptych wallet (circa 1988) and flash his nerd credentials: The National Spelling Bee is currently broadcasting its early rounds LIVE on ESPN, and outside my office I can hear those English language cruelties foisted upon the kiddies, along with their accompanying appeals for pronunciation, definitions, parts-of-speech clarifications, etc. etc., before plunging headlong into awful public silence as the flotsam of letters stream through their prepubescent brains like falling, acid green Matrix code and the desparate prayers of everyone that somehow it all works out fine on the other end of things and they live to see another ten-dollar word. The Triumph of Victory! The Agony of Defeat (signaled by, no less, the awful mincing *ping* of a hotel reception desk bell)!

It's high drama indeed (No wonder it's being broadcast in primetime tonight on ABC. Holla!), and I am HOOKED. The celebration of competition, of poignant memories of our own gawky youth, of the indelible effect that misspelled words have on us in that nerve-shredding moment--it's all there and more.

Why do you think I'll remember "hacienda" for the rest of my life? Why do you think there's that one word that haunts you in your sleep?