Big Trouble; Little China

Just got done watching Big Trouble in Little China for the first time. Verdict: it is extremely good and awesome. I like how the cartoonish ethnic stereotypes cut both ways, too, with all of the "black Chinese magic" and kung foo on the one hand and Kurt Russel's ridiculous John Wayne drawl and trucker's ethos on the other. And as far as one-liners go, I don't think you can get much better than "...and if we're not back by dawn--[wink]--call the President." Struck me as a very Zaphod thing to do.

New Roommate

Yesterday the ranks of 171 Albion swelled to a grand total of four with the acquisition of Ann, a self-described "international" who hails, originally, from that great emeraldine kingdom where Papa Guinness and Big Mama Cathlo run the show (with occasional visits from Uncle Religious-Strife and Aunt Leprechaun). Ann is one of those traveling types, who just aren't satisfied with themselves unless they can regale you with tales of close shaves and derring do in distant and exotic lands, such as Mississippi, where in one episode she narrowly escaped from the company of a Baptist who had become nonplussed* at the existence of non-Baptists. In short, she appears to be a good and perfectly well-formed egg.

When she arrived she was a bit harried because she was in the IKEA-induced vortex of having to put together a bed. I told her that I would help her out because, I reasoned, in the same way that fighting in the trenches shoulder-to-shoulder will forge a bond between soldiers that lasts a lifetime, so will putting together IKEA furniture forge an unshakable bond between roommates. Come what may, we would always be able to hark back to those missing divots and stripped screws and be reassured of each other's roommately commitments.

Before we began she took a moment to list all of the daunting tasks still ahead of her. Standing in the middle of her near-empty room, she pointed unhappily to a pile of IKEA-grade wood, plastic bags of bolts, and satisfyingly large instruction booklets, and said, "I have to put together my bed." Then, equally unhappily, she pointed to her bike's low-set seat and said, "And then I have to raise my seat." At first I was puzzled by the apparent incongruity of the two tasks, the first one being difficult and involved and the second one being easy and trivial. But then I realized that the second task would require an Allen wrench, an object so rare and fleeting that it might surface in an apartment only once or twice a season.

I nodded gravely.

Construction went about as well as can be expected. I forget the IKEA-given name of the bed, but, interestingly, one of its crucial components had a name of its own: HAMAR. The HAMAR is a long, sturdy, metal rod that forms the structural backbone of the bed. It contains telescoped within it a secondary metal rod that can slide outwards, making the HAMAR a formidable weapon in the hands of an experienced warrior. God help the army that tries to take our apartment by force.

After the construction project was completed, we headed down to Delerium for a celebratory beer (or "pint", as Ann would say). While in there, I made an important discovery, which is that during the day on weekends, Delerium gives out free barbecue. I had always known that they had a barbecue going, but I never realized it was free. So, we ate and drank and passed the time merrily away.

Part of the merriment came from a group of bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked Arizonians who had road-tripped out to San Francisco so that they could see both nights of Arcade Fire at the Greek in Berkeley. In fact, the reason we started talking in the first place was that they noticed my Arcade Fire teeshirt that I had gotten at the concert the night before. They were very nice kids, but for whatever reason (alcohol?) they talked entirely too much, and so Ann and I saved ourselves from boredom by lying excessively. Ann told them she worked in the pharmaceutical industry as a designer of new drugs, and I told them that I was a materials scientist who specialized in industrial grade vinyls (used, of course, for mounting superconductors). Eventually we developed the story that we were working on a joint conference that involved the development of a pill that, when taken, would enable the subject to learn a new language within 24 hours. Our audience was amazed by this.

After one celebratory pint had turned into four, the Arizonians' infectious enthusiasm for the Arcade Fire show started to have its effect. Ann and I decided that the best course of action would be to see if we could somehow crash the show (even though I had been to the one the night before). After some hemming and hawing, we hopped aboard a Berkeley-bound train, but our plans got derailed because Ann got invited to a dinner by the people she had been staying with before she moved in. I continued on to Berkeley with the intention of crashing the concert with Carlos, who was in the area, but I got there too late, and so we ended up bussing it to the Pub, where we could relax with a few quick games of RISK and a goblet of mead (it is worth adding that mead is freaking disgusting--I don't know why I keep buying it).

I close with a bullet-list of highlights from Berkeley:

• When I got in, I ended up stopping at Top Dog for a lemon-chicken and potato salad. When I asked the guy if they had a restroom, he said yeah, but it was for employees only. I accepted this stoically and had almost forgot about it a few minutes later when, given that the place was empty, he decided he could bend the rules and let me run back for a quick pee. I did so, and felt oddly privileged at the behind-the-scenes access I had been given. It was like peeing in Howard Roarke's bathroom--one that he doesn't normally let anybody pee in.
• On my trudge to I-House (where I was to meet Carlos), I ran into a funny girl who was rolling a gigantic suitcase up Bancroft street. I offered to help her carry it, and as I did so she explained that she was participating in a conference about calculating carbon footprints, or something like that. I asked her what that involved, exactly, and she said that, surprisingly, since the conference was so long and demanding, she ended up giving a whole bunch of massages to the attendees. At the mention of this my eyes must have glazed slightly, because I was undergoing the twin strains of carrying her heavy-ass suitcase and of furiously working out the complex social calculus involved in determining if I could somehow wrangle a massage out of the situation, if I could affect this without being seen as creepy, and whether or not such an occurrence could be adequately explained to my girlfriend. Before I could come to any conclusion, however, we cheerfully parted ways--but not before she had given me a full box of power bars. YES!!!
• Carlos and I played RISK with some rules variations that made the game go quickly. We ended up starting a second game, but had to cut it short so that I could catch the last BART. It was a pretty good game--when it ended, our forces were evenly matched in South America, poised for a battle royale.
• I ended up missing the last BART, so Carlos good-naturedly drove me all the way to my doorstep in SF. Thanks, Carlos!
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

* Here I am using the non-standard--i.e. wrong--sense of "nonplussed", where it means something like "unimpressed". Personally, I've always felt that "nonplussed" refers to the sort of flat-mouthed, uncomprehending disdain that cats seem to have about everything at all times. Reader beware.

Pipes

The other day found Jani and me commiserating with KC, whose mode these days can be adequately described as "woebegone". We did so over food and beers down at Malai Thai Restaurant on 16th and Guerrero.

The trouble was two-fold. On the one hand, KC was upset because of some girl or something. On the other hand, and more pressingly, Jani and I were upset because we both knew that if KC didn't shut up about it before the check came, he would have to be murdered.

I eased backward into my chair to give my GI tract some room to operate, and blinked. Generally speaking, I was in no condition. My manner was cowlike: satiated, lazy. A passing author might have called it "languorous". Drastic action was required, and yet all I could do was digest and pat my stomach.

Abruptly, the check was settled and as if by teleportation the three of us stood outside the restaurant in an agitated state of silence. The conversation had gapped, and if Jani and I did not introduce some kind of jarring stimulus in the next few seconds, KC's river of tears would once more flood the plains of chit-chat with its life-depriving salt. Desperate, I blurted the first word that came out of my mouth: "Pipes!"

It is unfortunate, dear readers, that we are at this point in human history only at the beginning of a true understanding of the brain. Were it not so, and were it possible to convey to you the neuro-coordinates responsible for that genius outburst, I would cheerfully hand them over, that you might some day blurt "pipes". But alas, none of this is yet possible, and so I will merely detail the effects of the event, and leave it to future generations to suss out which neuron deserves the medal.

Effects:

1. We were moved to investigate the smoke shop across the street, to see if pipes could be bought and smoked out of.
2. After a long and careful inspection of the pipe selection there, we each chose one for ourselves. I bought an understated wooden one with a straight stem; Jani and KC opted for the curvy-stemmed kind. It is worth noting that they also had a selection of corn-cob pipes that were entirely ridiculous on account of the size of the cob: it was like, half an ear. It honestly looked like someone had jammed a chopstick into a compost heap and come up with someone's corn from yesterday.
3. We purchased our goods and made our way to the street just outside the smoke shop.
4. We loitered and puffed with a very self-satisfied air.
5. As a direct result, KC's spirits were restored. 

After that, all was well.

***

Since then I've been wanting to get into pipes. Apparently, if you buy a really high quality one it can last you your whole life. I like the idea of buying a pipe in my mid-twenties and having it until I'm old and wizened. Also, the habit is far preferable to smoking cigarettes, because you don't inhale the smoke--you just puff it in your mouth, which, though somewhat risky, is nowhere near as actuarially foolish as breathing cigarette smoke for decades on end. And since you don't take in much nicotine, you are much less likely to get addicted. Indeed, pipes:cigarettes :: coke:crack.

At a nifty place called The Pub in Berkeley, they have a wide selection of quality pipes and pipe tobaccos. Some of them are intricately carved meerschaum pipes, so that it looks like you're smoking out of Odin's head. After years of being handled, the oils from your hand tint the smooth, white meerschaum a rusty brownish-red, lending it a sort of organic patina.

Boy. If  "supple" is a breast word, and "quaint" is a village word, then "patina" is definitely an Antiques Roadshow word. 

Street Wars: Shot like a dog while sick as one

(Note: This post, concerning my ultimate fate in Street Wars, was originally written sometime in Feburary.) 

After carefully locking up my bike outside of Delerium and double-checking that my trusty pistol was in place and ready to be drawn at a moment's notice, I walked east. No. It would be better to be coming at the situation from the west. I turned on my heel and headed for the crosswalk. A fateful decision.

 Time slowed down. Everything was in black and white. Some opera singer could be heard in the background. I noticed some sort of bustling at the entrance to Delerium, and saw some spazzy hipster tripping over people and apologizing to them. He looked at me and for a blank moment or two we stared. I turned my head forward, and continued walking.

 "Daaavvviiidd!" I heard, in slow motion. I hesitated. Footage of a longstem rose falling on the sidewalk. Footage of a flock of pigeons taking flight. Footage of a flower blossoming with the clouds flitting by rapidly over head.

 Footage of a monkey washing a cat.

Unable to help myself, I turned around. The spazzy hipster had his arm outstretched, gun in hand. It was a jazzy little number, small enough to conceal but big enough to pack a wallop. My brainstem, sensing that it was now or never, seized command of my brain and I started to run down 16th street.

 My chances were grim. I was weighed down by a heavy laptop bag and a jacket. I couldn't draw my weapon while running. What was the closest bar? Kilowatt. But it was on the other side of the street. Would I get hit by a car? I'd have to cross that bridge when I came to it.

I cut right, in between two cars. But just as I was about to make the hail mary leap into traffic, I felt it: I was hit. I turned to see the triumphant glee of my assailant.

I was all wet.

***

Unlike most times when you're assassinated, this time I was able to go have a quiet drink in the apartment with my assassin after he did the deed. No small amount of luck had figured into our encounter on the corner of 16th and Albion outside of Delerium.

He and his lowly friend had been hanging around outside of my apartment all day, waiting for me to emerge from inside. He was a little trigger happy, too: he kept shooting innocent civilians as they came out of the building. Eventually someone got pissed off and called the cops; he and his friend decided to hoof it to Delerium to lay low for awhile. Apparently they were so paranoid that they thought they heard the bartender talking on the phone with police, and so they high-tailed it out of there--right as I happened to pass by.

What is interesting is that I had actually identified this guy the day before. I had already at that point fallen pretty ill, what with all of the cold-weather stalking I had been doing while loaded to the gills with leaky weaponry. So that day I stayed home from work, and didn't emerge until around dinnertime. Cautious as always, I poked my head out of the top stairwell window of my building, which overlooks the street below. The only people that I could see were a couple of lads washing a hearse next door (the neighboring building is Duggan's Funeral Home). One of them was wearing a peacoat. Cocking an eyebrow and frowning--and gripping my trusty water pistol--I proceeded out of my building and down toward 16th, keeping a backwards eye on the peacoated hearse washman.

 I knew I couldn't rest easy until I knew for sure whether he was my assassin, so I decided to duck into Delerium and see if he tried to follow me. Bars, you see, are safe zones in the game. Shrewdly, I ordered a gingerale.

 Sure enough, a couple of minutes later the peacoated hearse washman sauntered into the bar. Ha! This was near-proof, in my mind, that this guy was indeed stalking me. The probability that this guy just happened to be washing hearses right outside my building, and just happened to duck into the same exact bar I ducked into right after I ducked into it...the odds were too staggering. It had to be him.

Rolling my eyes horizontally to the left without moving my head, I waited for him to order something. Sure enough, he did--a whiskey sour. The moment cash exchanged hands from patron to bartender, I leaped out of my seat and exited the bar. My assassin, helpless and in the grips of a transaction, had no choice but to watch me go. 

I would find out later during the post-assassination bracer that my assassin--codenamed Dr. Monkey--had ingratiated himself with the Duggan's crew, and that they allowed him to help them load bodies into the hearse and wash the vehicle.

***

All in all, I didn't do too well in the game. First of all, I was never able to track down my target, let alone off him. Part of the reason for this was because, embarrassingly, it turned out that I had misread his address and staked out not his house but a different one, several doors down. The other reason was because I was out sick for three days, and so lost critical stalking time. Those who know me may not be very surprised to hear any of this, but I had harbored at least a little bit of a hope that somehow, in the context of the hunt, my "absent-minded professor" switch would move to the "off" position, revealing some kind of hidden killer instinct.

Oh well.

One of yours, Jeeves?

I was reading an article by Michael Currie Schaffer in the New Republic where he talks about the fact that Barack Obama smokes cigarrettes. Listen to what he says:

Actuarially foolish and hopelessly out of fashion, it is a behavior that, at least in an overachiever like Mr. Obama, seems to assuage our national discomfort with overt ambition. How much of a striver can he be if he's also a smoker?

Ha! "Actuarially foolish". I think that's genius. I hereby declare my theft of this phrase and my intention to make use of it whenever I can.