9:51 am - Mon 7/07/03
Random Thoughts

Saw a photo of young Sylvia Plath recently that looked remarkably like Jane's daughter Emily, so much so that I wanted to write Emily and warn her against turning to a life of poetry, just to be safe.

But fortunately, it was just that particular picture; Any resemblance all but disappeared when I looked at photos in the Ted Hughes biography of Plath.

I don't give much thought to the Kennedy clan, as a rule, but I find the recent "revelations" over John Jr. and Carolyn Bessette very depressing. I want to believe in the fantasy of "storybook romance", so there's that, but there's also just a wave of disgust at the society I live in, which sadly, I'm feeling more and more often these days (It's no longer enough to hound famous people to their graves; Now we have to dig them up and take a couple more whacks at them, like some kind of macabre pinata).

Celebrities are dropping like flies these days. Gregory Peck, David Brinkley, Hume Cronyn, Buddy Hackett, Barry White, Katherine Hepburn, Buddy Ebsen (And just to make the list more impressive, let's throw in Strom Thurmond--and how sad, not to mention cowardly, that only a handful of his supposed peers showed up for his funeral--and Robert McClosky, author of Make Way For Ducklings and the "Homer Price" books, which I liked when I was a kid).

Seems like every day there's a new dead celebrity...

I have to admit--In the past, I've sometimes gotten frustrated with "diplomacy", and have fantasized about our Commander-In-Chief taking a tough, "Dirty Harry"-ish line with these little pissant countries who give us a hard time.

But when I heard about Dubya's recent response to Iraqi terrorist strikes at our troops--"Bring it on"--I was stunned by the outrageous stupidity and insensitivity.

And I thought Reagan had been delusional (At least he had a medical excuse)...

"Bring it on"? What are you saying, George? You're ready to strap on some guns and go kick Iraqi ass?

Somehow, I don't think so...

You may wish you were "Dirty Harry", George, but you look more like "Barney Fife" to me.

I have no idea who Luc de Clapiers de Vauvenargues(sp)is (With a name like that, I'm assuming some sort of French nobility), but this is a great quote: "We discover in ourselves what others hide from us, and we recognize in others what we hide from ourselves."

I think that's a good thing to always keep in mind.

Is this the last word in "ostentatious" or what--A couple times now, usually as I've been riding home from work, I've seen a "Hummer" limousine tooling around town.

I guess it's for people who just feel too confined in the cramped quarters of a garden-variety stretch limo.

Speaking of limos, I recently saw something I'd never seen before--An old limo (It was being ticketed by a member of the parking gestapo). And I don't mean some beautiful, vintage machine, but a beat-to-shit vehicle that had obviously seen better days.

I imagine someone just drives it around now, to the grocery store or the laundromat or whatnot, like "Claire" with her old green hearse on Six Feet Under.

Starting when I get home from work tonite, I'll be dogsitting for a neighbor in my building.

The neighbor is Remerro, an African-American artist who's visiting his Aunt in New York, the one who's apparently paying his bills while he goes to grad school(I think he's coming back on the 18th). And the dog is Max (Short for "Maxine"), an old pit bull--I think. That's what she looks like anyway--that I'm on very good terms with.

Remerro's apartment is just up on the 4th floor, he has a computer and a television, and it sounds like the only difficulty I'll have with Maxine might be getting her enthused about walking (Unlike Nero, Brad's dog, who practically broke the door down whenever he saw me going for his leash).

Remerro's paying me $15 a day, which I'm earmarking for new pants (A while back, I bought two pairs of dress pants and two pairs of jeans, but now the rest of my wardrobe is going to pieces).

Had a non-fiction phase there for awhile, in both the movies I was seeing (Spellbound, Capturing The Friedmans), and the books I was reading (Reefer Madness, Seabiscuit, And Now A Few Words From Me).

But with the summer movie season in full swing, we're back to the world of fantasy (The Hulk, Terminator III, and more likely than not, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen coming up).

Just finished reading Life of Pi, which I enjoyed a great deal, and Atonement is warming up in the bullpen.

With reading, I feel like I want to both recapture the voraciousness of my youth, and also not be caught so flat-footed when a customer at the bookstore asks me if I've read anything good lately ("Well, the last thing I read was a 'Batman' comic book, and that was pretty good...").

Feeling the need to "feed my head" a little more.

Well, I can't remember the last time I closed an entry feeling like I said everything I wanted to say, but I've already eaten up the entire morning with this, so I'm going to have to cease and desist, in spite of having a wealth of other things I wanted to address.

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