Category: play

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books

A Feast for Crows

I’m not sure what George R. R. Martin was thinking during this, the fourth book in the series. Well, check that, he explains himself at the end. Basically, this thing is getting so huge and unruly that he had to break the beast up into separate books. Which means we haven’t heard a thing from some pivotal characters in 1000 pages.

Let me make sure I understand this: The whole other half of the story was happening in parallel, at the same time, and we’ll get that half in the next book. Do I have that right?

I found myself bored and confused for the whole time. Yet, yet, I’m still fired up about the next book and I’ll start it soon. This may not make sense, but I have too much invested to stop now. As mentioned during the book three post, there is some magic to a trilogy and we’re beyond that point, so we’re treading on thin ice. I don’t want this to be a repeat of the Dune series, which I eventually shut off in the middle of book five if I recall correctly.

Besides holding off on one half of the story, Martin also deviated from the first three books by loosening his method of naming each chapter after a defined set of main characters, resulting in new perspectives from characters we haven’t heard from before. This threw me a bit of a curve ball. At a certain point I just tuned out a lot of the detail. I’m kind of concerned that my confusion may be starting to ruin the story for me.

If I recall, I shut off Dune because it deviated too much in both style and content from the first book of the original trilogy, which I loved. Martin hasn’t deviated to that extent, not even close in my mind. But I’m much more patient now so maybe some day I’ll re-read the rest of the Dune series. I’m no stranger to falling in love today with books I didn’t like decades ago.

Martin has been especially artful in easing into the magical/supernatural side of things. I like my fantasy/sci-fi to be light on the magic and Martin has a near-perfect mix. In the end, the story is too awesome and the characters too interesting to deaden my interest and anticipation. I’m on to the next one soon.

Categories
screen

Jim Gaffigan Mr. Universe

I’m purchasing more of this comedy stuff and really starting to enjoy it. Twitter seems to be the main portal for alerting me to new, DRM-free, independently produced comedy, but I wonder if there’s some other method of discovery that I’m missing out on. Twitter is so powerful in the areas of sports and comedy, which remain my primary uses of the app, but I haven’t seen anything new despite following a pack of comedians.

So, to Mr. Universe – Gaffigan is hilarious. Much like Louis C.K., Gaffigan preys on human shame. He’s ashamed because he didn’t like Disney World, ashamed when he looks at Facebook, and especially ashamed when he goes to McDonald’s instead of working out. The McDonald’s stuff is really cool. He says:

It’s all McDonald’s!

By that he means that we all have our fast, simple, dirty pleasures. That person the other day who told you they don’t go to McDonald’s, probably just spent the whole weekend in bed watching five seasons of Lost on Netflix. The dude who turned his nose up at the Big Mac the other day probably just spent all day Sunday horizontal on the couch eating a huge bag of Lay’s potato chips and watching twelve hours of football.

It’s all McDonald’s!

Do you eat Subway, stay in hotels, or make fun of whales? Then you’ll like this.

The whale stuff had me laughing so hard in the Charlotte airport that the people in my bank of chairs were getting visibly annoyed. I’m only a little bit self-conscious about laughing in public. It’s cool to see strangers laughing. I always want to ask them, “What’s so funny?” but I never do. I guess that’d be weird huh?

Gaffigan uses the repeat tactic pretty effectively. I’m not sure what the official comedy term is, but he’ll be in a piece and keep repeating a phrase or sound during natural breaks in the comedic action. It works for me. I’ve already mentioned the “It’s all McDonalds” repeat example, which I loved and find myself using occasionally. He does the same with “What room are you in?” and with a whale sound. I’m smiling just thinking about it.

I’ll buy more of this comedy stuff for $5 if I can find it. Send tips to me via Twitter if you’re so inclined.

Categories
food

M Burger

Untitled

I’ve been on a burger binge lately. I think it’s one of the comfort foods that really isn’t all that evil if you do it right. Of course, it can get evil fast, with mayo and cheese and grilled onions, but a burger with just lettuce, tomato, pickle, and raw onion can fit into a pretty healthy diet. It’s just ground beef, with vegetables, on a bun. Not great for you, with all the saturated fats and such, but things could do a lot worse to your body.

That’s the health angle. From a pleasure standpoint the burger is king. Mark it down, I would rather have a burger than pizza. There, I said it. I don’t seek out new-to-me pizza places as much as I seek out new-to-me burger places because burgers provide more satisfaction.

High pleasure value and may not kill you that quickly – that ain’t bad.

So it’s nothing for me to descend to the depths of a food court for a burger experience. And descend I did for M Burger – to the subterranean Thompson Center food court. It’s perhaps the worst atmosphere I’ve ever consumed a gourmet burger in, which affected the experience a little bit, but the burger came through it okay.

M Burger is the creation of Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises. There are a handful in Chicago right now and they’re trying to capitalize on this real or perceived market for reasonably priced gourmet fast food that’s fresh and sourced locally. They get it right, but they aren’t destination burger joints that you would take a date to. My expectations were a little askew; M Burger is no Edzo’s, but it’s a great fast food lunch.

I had the double with lettuce, onions, pickle, and special sauce. That’s their standard condiment stack. I always go with the house condiment stack no matter what. Sure, if I’m building it myself, I do lettuce, tomato, pickle. That’s all. Mayo, mustard, ketchup, and special sauce don’t do much for me, unless the burger is really dry.

But who am I to say what’s best on a burger. I’m not a chef. I don’t know. I’m open to suggestions and if they want to toss some special sauce on, that’s cool with me. My stock answer when asked by the counter person is, “Everything that’s free.” That usually excludes things like bacon, cheese, and grilled onions, which don’t add any value for me.

It was good. The patty is a quarter pounder fried on a griddle. It’s pretty lean, there’s no grease dripping or glistening pools visible on the burger. The special sauce seems In-n-Out-ish in its nature and adds some good flavor and texture.

M Burger is one of the rare burger places who don’t use tomato as a standard topping. I’m okay with that (I think you can get it, I didn’t ask). The tomato is the single biggest perpetrator of the broken burger: the one that falls apart in your hands from too many toppings and too much juice. In this case, with the double stacked quarter pounders, a tomato slice would have killed the center of gravity. I appreciated the clean experience because it was the work day, I was with another human, and I had a collared shirt on. I have an image to keep up.

It all fit together nicely and tasted great. I paired it with an order of fries, which are thin cut with some skin on. The burger was $3.99 and the fries $1.99, so it’s more expensive than fast-food but not out of line.

I’ll be back. You should go. Let’s meet for lunch some day.

Categories
screen

Luther – Season Two

This is a creepy show man. It’s just creepy stuff. Yes, I’m talking about a BBC cop show, and I think I’m about ready to lose Gail on this show if it gets much more intense. The nail through the hand in episode two may have put her over the edge.

Luther is cool, but there are plenty other cool characters. That Alice Morgan woman is strange and her relationship with Luther even stranger, but still cool. London has the creepiest serial killers ever and it’s nice to have a smart, creepy nutcase on your side (like Selina Kyle, actually, in relation to the Dark Knight).

So Luther has a new boss – it’s the internal affairs dude from season one. He’s also got a new civilian partner – his ex-wife’s boyfriend from season one. Former adversaries turn into friends/supporters because Luther usually gets things right. There’s also a new detective who’s struggling with Luther’s morality and a young civilian woman in a spot of trouble who Luther is trying to save.

There’s just a lot of plot stuff going on, almost too much.

Additionally, there’s a lot of manipulation going on. I’m talking about people doing dumb, implausible things for the sake of tension and anxiety. It’s only four episodes and two big crimes, each spanning two episodes, so they have to develop this stuff quickly.

It’s warped. Just warped. And sick at times. But it’s also slick, with big, intense, climactic scenes that make you go, “Wow.”

It’s a miniseries. They are supposedly doing a season three that will be another four or so episodes. Who knows. These BBC people don’t seem to conform to TV norms. They seem to take the type of liberties that HBO does with schedules and release dates an such.

Elba really rocks Luther. And the music kicks also. Much like The Wire though, it’s not for the feint of heart.

Categories
screen

Magic and Bird

My bro-in-law cracked out this hoops documentary from HBO Sports during a family vacation one night. It’s a tearjerker; I didn’t expect that man. I outlasted everybody and thankfully I was alone when the HIV portion of the story came on. It made me sad. I remember where I was when Magic made the HIV announcement, that’s how big he was in my life.

Magic and Bird were influential because they reigned from 1979–1992, my formative years, when I was between 12 and 25 (when the male species is at the peak of his sports fandom). I never liked either the Lakers or the Celtics, hated them in fact, but I couldn’t help but notice them. These guys cast a huge shadow over the NBA and over my beloved Cleveland Cavaliers (only to be surpassed by the shadow Jordan cast over the Cavs).

Basketball, the NBA, Bird and Magic, Dr. J and Moses Malone, and the Cavs comprise the root structure of my love for sports. The joy I felt this Saturday morning watching the Men’s Bicycle Road Race in the Olympics may not have been so joyful had Magic and Bird not clashed in the NCAA final in 1979. Had these two men been born decades apart, I may have been reading the newspaper or working instead of watching sports.

This love of sports; it’s their fault. They are to blame.

We have some real sports issues in this country. Our athletes, and coaches, and managers, and owners, and administrators, mostly just lie, cheat, and steal. That I continue to consume this crap in such massive quantities is such a horrible statement on my life that I’m kind of embarrassed. I can’t help myself though. You can understand why I do it when you consider Earvin and Larry. They did things right.

Did Magic and Bird lie? Yeah, probably. Did they cheat and steal? Never. Never.

The fans were the biggest winners from the Bird/Magic years. These guys had a love for the game and respect for competition that is unheard of in this day and age. Don’t get me wrong, I love the NBA now and I think it’s in great hands, but there is nothing like Bird and Magic – no rivalry as big, no interviews as honest, no stories as compelling.

Were they the best ever? No. Jordan was better than both for sure. LeBron could certainly shut both of them down. Who cares. The greatness of Magic and Bird transcended speed, agility, court savvy, and skill. This documentary captured that beautifully.

Bryant Gumbel, Arsenio Hall, Cedric Maxwell, and a pack of newspaper columnists discuss this rivalry and its impact on basketball and on American culture. The story was uplifting at times and gut-wrenching at others. Mostly uplifting. Magic is just an unstoppable positive force of nature. He’s like this huge tornado of optimism and good cheer that squashes anything negative or salty in its path. Bird is the complete opposite; private, quiet, surly.

The most emotional aspects of the show were when Bird was talking about Magic. The interview with Bird shortly after the HIV announcement was one of the most honest and heartfelt interviews I’ve ever heard. And near the end, during the Dream Team segment, when Larry talked about how different he is from Earvin, and how sometimes he’d like to be more like Magic, it was genuine and sincere. If you don’t get a little choked up you aren’t human.

Dammit, Larry Bird had to shorten his career because he hurt his back shoveling gravel while putting in a driveway at his mother’s house. Earvin Johnson had to shorten his career to concentrate on beating the AIDS virus. But that wasn’t the end. These guys are still killing it.

This was almost as compelling as The Fab Five. Damn close.

Categories
books

Eats, Shoots & Leaves

I’m trying to improve my writing. Really, I am. It’s fun and I want to get better at it. Contrast this to my feelings about golf, something else that’s a lot of fun, which I don’t feel a compunction to improve. I just love to play; I don’t practice and I don’t get too discouraged on bad days or too high on good days. It’s golf. Whatever happens, happens.

Right now I’m thinking: “What’s the proper punctuation for that last sentence?” Should it be?:

Whatever happens; happens.

Or should it be?:

Whatever happens – happens.

Good lord. Are all those question marks in the right place? I’m stressed. I hate this.

I don’t have this same level of concern in golf. I replay shots in my head just because they’re fun to think about, not because I want to change them and certainly not because I want to guard against making the same mistake again. I don’t really feel like I’m battling a golf course, but I always feel like I’m battling words.

I’m self-conscious and insecure about the words here. I don’t publicize it because this is all just practice, man. It’s like when you first start playing golf and you aren’t comfortable playing golf with strangers; you don’t seek it out, but you have to do it. If someone joins up with you, so be it. So I’m doing it. Writing in kind of a public manner but not really telling anyone about it. People may occasionally stumble across this site and think I’m a dumbass. It’s stressful, but that’s okay. Hopefully I’ll get better.

I’m practicing for some time down the road when I really want to devote time to amateur journalism. A time when anyone who wants to have a voice can have a voice. We’re gonna get there. Heck, we’re almost there. I can’t imagine what this is going to be like in ten years, but I do know that I want to be ready with a basic set of writing and analytical skills so that I can churn out quality content in a timely manner.

So that’s that.

Enter Lynne Truss and her book about punctuation. It’s a whole book devoted to explaining the usage of commas, periods, apostrophes, etc … It’s bigger than that though. It’s also devoted to wry, English wit and the power of preserving something that seems part of a bygone era. It’s an impassioned piece of work. I like Truss.

Here’s what you get, from the colon and semicolon chapter:

But colons and semicolons – well, they are in a different league, my dear! They give such a lift! Assuming a sentence rises into the air with the initial capital letter and lands with a soft-ish bump at the full stop, the humble comma can keep the sentence aloft all right, like this, UP, for hours if necessary, UP, like this, UP, sort-of bouncing, and then falling down, and then UP it goes again, assuming you have enough additional things to say, although in the end you may run out of ideas and then you have to roll along the ground with no commas at all until some sort of surface resistance takes over and you run out of steam anyway and then eventually with the help of three dots … you stop. But the thermals that benignly waft our sentences to new altitudes – that allow us to coast on air, and loop-the-loop, suspending the laws of gravity – well, they are the colons, and semicolons. … (pg 106)

Nerdy, funny, inventive for sure. It’s a short book, but gives Truss enough time to dig into the history of punctuation while remaining highly applicable to what you’re writing today. She has plenty of everyday examples augmented by lists of rules that clarify and illuminate. I’m not quite sure how I’ll use it. Whenever I finish a good reference book I always tell myself I’ll come back to it and review the rules, maybe type them into little lists in Evernote that I can refer to, but I never do.

It will probably have to wait until that magical time, when I’m retired and have some expendable hours, at about 90 maybe, at which point I’ll be able to partake in some amateur journalism of a serious nature.

Categories
screen

Prometheus

I wanted to see this thing straight away but didn’t get around to it until the weekend after July 4th. That’s about a month in so it was relegated to a very small theatre in the AMC 21 in Chicago, which resulted in me sitting closer to the screen than I have in years. I think it added to the effect.

This is horror sci-fi. Star Wars is sci-fi. The Shining is horror. Prometheus is both, with a somewhat shallow back story on the origins of life and failings of human beings. Screw the back story. This is an awesome futuristic action flick with tons of monsters, space ships, and evil humans.

The star is Noomi Rapace, from TGWTDT fame (Swedish version). She’s turned in to a must-see actor for me; anything she’s in from now on, I’ll see. Period. She plays scientist Elizabeth Shaw, who’s trying to find the origin of human life.

** PLOT KILLERS FOLLOW **

Rapace thrives in jarring, intense, uncomfortable scenes. The rape scene(s) in TGWTDT are such, but she went above and beyond in this movie for what I’ll call the semi-automated alien C-section. Yeah man, she had had to do some light programming via a touch interface to have an operating machine cut an eight inch incision in her abdomen, pull out a slimy, wriggling alien thing, and staple her back up.

** REALLY SERIOUS PLOT KILLERS FOLLOW **

This was difficult for her for various physical and emotional reasons. First of all, she couldn’t just pull up “C-section” from the menu because the machine was built for a man. Even in the future, I guess there are system constraints that prohibit having the whole surgical catalog in one app. It appears the current trend of declining memory chip pricing stops (or regresses) some time before 2080, making it cost-prohibitive to dump both male and female medical procedures on the same chip.

So there’s that. Then there’s the fact that Shaw was infertile up to this point in her life, so the joy of finally having a baby was quickly squelched by figuring out that it was an alien thing. That takes some emotional toll, which Shaw focuses on saving humanity.

Great stuff. I loved it.

It’s foreshadowed and hinted at, but you don’t really verify that this is an Alien prequel. It kind of slaps you in the face, though, when the man-squid creature rises out of a dead pre-human right before they roll the credits. Assuming it is a prequel, I’m not sure where Sigourney Weaver’s character Ripley comes in. It would have made it too easy to give Rapace’s character the name Ripley, but Ridley Scott didn’t go there.

I’m torn. Part of me wants to re-watch the Alien franchise, but that kind of puts things out of order huh? I’m going to sit tight until I find out what they are going to do with the sequel to Prometheus.

Categories
books

Devil In A Blue Dress

I love American crime novels. I especially love American crime novels set in Southern California. It’s a whole sub-genre with giants like Raymond Chandler, Ross MacDonald, and Sue Grafton as examples. I recently added Walter Mosley and his character Easy Rawlins to my mix. I just finished the first of five (or so) and it’s stellar stuff.

Rawlins is different from Philip Marlowe, Lew Archer, and Kinsey Milhone because he didn’t start out in law enforcement. He’s just a man building airplanes at a Los Angeles manufacturing plant in 1948 who gets fired and takes an odd job for a gangster so he can pay his mortgage. One thing leads to another and he starts embracing this investigator stuff.

The back story is that he’s a WWII vet from Houston who came to LA to avoid a spot of trouble. It’s not that he committed a crime in Houston per se, but his crowd was getting a little rough so he came to LA to start fresh. It was looking like a great call too: decent job, small house, plenty of places to party. But then his boss pushes him a little too hard and he stands his ground and gets canned.

The plot twists and turns through a stack of LA bad guys and crooked politicians. Good action, intrigue, and character development. Oh, and the woman, in the blue dress – she’s a devil from a few different angles.

Rawlins is a great character: humorless, straightforward, and insightful. There are some deep explorations of race and class from Rawlins, like this:

Talking with Mr. Todd Carter was a strange experience. I mean, there I was, a Negro in a rich white man’s office, talking to him like we were best friends – even closer. I could tell that he didn’t have the fear or contempt that most white people showed when they dealt with me.

It was a strange experience but I had seen it before. Mr. Todd Carter was so rich that he didn’t even consider me in human terms. He could tell me anything. I could have been a prized dog that he knelt to and hugged when he felt low.

It was the worst kind of racism. The fact that he didn’t even recognize our difference showed that he didn’t care one damn about me. But I didn’t have the time to worry about it. I just watched him move his lips about lost love until, finally, I began to see him as some strange being. Like a baby who grows to man-size and terrorizes his poor parents with his strength and stupidity.

Man that was cool. See what I’m saying; humorless, straightforward, and insightful.

** PLOT KILLERS FOLLOW **

Rawlins also has a somewhat non-standard sense of private investigator morality that I found refreshing (finally, someone kept some dirty money!). I can’t wait to see where Mosley takes this guy. The problem is, I’m generating quite a backlog with all of this serialized stuff, so I may not get to Rawlins again until the end of the year. That’s a good problem to have though, I think.

Categories
food

Edzo’s

Edzo's Burger

Alright folks, we got us some burger stuff to cover. There’s a good chance that the burger pictured above could be one of the top ten food items ever to touch my lips. Certainly a top two burger, but I’m also ready to group this with all-time great things like Lou Malnati’s sausage pizza, G’s mussels, Don Pan’s pandebono, mom’s Mrs. Field’s knockoff cookies, and my sister’s frosting… You get my drift? This is the real thing folks. I’m not messing round.

It’s from Edzo’s in Evanston and it was a joyous experience. The only other burger in town I would even include in the same tier is the one from Tavish, but it’s been a few years since I’ve tasted it so it’s a difficult comparison to make. We aren’t going there.

About a month ago my buddy saw Edzo’s on Check Please! and he immediately started planning a visit. Yeah, we go on burger dates every so often, is that weird? So one Saturday morning after playing golf at Winnetka we made a quick detour to downtown Evanston for a burger. It was a huge sensory experience packed in to about five hours: great golf and a great burger, all behind me by 11:30am. Wow. Just wow.

I had the eight ounce Char Burger, medium, “with everything” and a shake. I was positively giddy waiting for it and it didn’t disappoint. “Everything” is mustard, ketchup, lettuce, tomato, pickle, and onion (I don’t customize anyone’s condiment stack, I usually just say “everything”). I don’t think there are any exotic meats like brisket or short rib in the burger, it just seemed like a secret combo of ground beef and spices. I love simple.

You can certainly tell it was hand-packed, plenty of nooks, crannies, and randomness. And there was virtually no lower bun saturation yet it was juicy. I think they achieved this by using the condiment stack as a juice barrier. The bun is soft and compresses perfectly without losing any of it’s bunness, allowing even small-mouthed people to shovel in the thick burger and a full condiment stack with very little mess. They may have went slightly past medium on mine but not much. It tasted great, near perfect.

The menu is simply awesome. Behold the solid food portion of the menu. Just behold it.

Edzo's Menu

It’s a burger-lover’s dream because they clearly define the two types available. You can get it fried on a flat piece of steel, griddled; or you can get it heated on a grate over a flame, charred. It’s a rarity to be given this many options in a burger shop, and it’s certainly never so succinctly explained.

What a great place for a date also. My wife can’t eat a whole eight ounce burger but she could certainly find something on the menu. I’m betting the four ounce griddled version would remind her of a classic burger joint she visited as a kid which served a quarter pounder fried in it’s own juices (probably better at Edzo’s, actually). Or she could get the grilled chicken if she was in a healthy mood. The shake was killer also and the fries looked great (thin-cut with skin-on). Maybe I’ll take her to Edzo’s for our anniversary.

They’re opening one in Lincoln Park soon that will be a little different because they may not be able to offer the Char Burger. Good, that means I’ll be forced to try something new.

Categories
books

The Drowning Pool

Thanks to authors like Ross MacDonald, I think I’ll always read American detective novels. It’s just what I do. MacDonald’s character Lew Archer is quickly becoming one of my favorite fictional characters because of his keen observations, sense of humor, and taste in alcohol.

Archer seems to spend a lot of time in bars looking for information and MacDonald loves to add a little color by describing the place and the inhabitants (pg 76):

The place was built on two levels, so that the bar commanded a view of the dining-room. It was nearly two o’clock. The bar was doing a rush-hour business before the curfew knelled. I found an empty stool, ordered a Guinness stout for energy, and looked around me.

I love Guinness. MacDonald followed this with the introduction to some of the key characters. I didn’t recognize how important this character survey was at the time, but I learned my lesson.

Archer’s humor tends to the wry side. Here’s him recounting a trip to an opulent mansion looking for a black limousine (pg 99):

I climbed into my car, closing the door very gently so as not to start an avalanche of money. The loop in the drive took me past the garages. They contained an Austin, a jeep, and a white roadster, but no black limousine.

Hah, “an avalanche of money,” that’s funny stuff. I cracked a smile.

Or what about when he snuck up on a guy from a clump of trees (pg 109).

Reavis glanced at me, the color mounting floridly in his face. “Archer?”

I said: “The name is Leatherstocking.”

I’m rolling on the floor at this point. Not only does MacDonald toss in humor, but he pays tribute to one of America’s greatest writers. It’s really inventive.

The villains aren’t funny though.

** PLOT KILLERS FOLLOW **

This book contained a somewhat out-of-place scene with an evil doctor who uses high pressure water torture on his subjects (plenty of “drowning pool” references). Sue Grafton was highly influenced by MacDonald but I don’t think she’s ever created a villain so bizarre. If memory serves, neither has Burke or Hillerman, two of my other favorite authors. I’ll start paying more attention. Archer ends up escaping from this water torture chamber by filling it up until the door bursts open from the pressure. Then he gets washed out and kills the doctor. It was kind of James Bond-like. Interesting tactic by MacDonald. I’m okay with it.

This is book two with Archer and I’m ready to stay with it for the whole series. Both books were made into movies with Paul Newman, although they changed Archer’s name to Harper. I need to check those out. I’m reading almost all serialized fiction right now. I’m starting the Easy Rawlins series and have a Smiley and Samson novel queued up. Then there’s Game of Thrones book four and probably another Robicheaux adventure. I just don’t feel like branching out. I’m busy at work and throwing in some occasional non-fiction, so I’m not going to be adventurous with my fiction.