Something is breathing, in the air
Something is moving, in the water
And the winds in you are blowing...
It's been an interesting weekend -- just about perfect, if only B. had been in town and not visiting her family in Connecticut.
Friday evening, after a long week, Pyrimyd and Chico and a few others of us went to see Grindhouse. Sure, I've seen better movies recently, but I can't remember the last time I had more fun in a movie theater. (Aside from the time I went to the movies with Alanis Morissette, but that's another story.) I'm guessing that the story meetings for this movie went something like this: Tarantino flies to Texas. He and Robert Rodriguez get together with a gigantic stack of DVDs and a case of tequila. A week later, the scripts are complete. They clearly looked at each other and said "we have x amount of money. What's the most entertainment we can put on the screen?" and then went out and did it. I don't want to give too much away, but you should see this soon, preferably in a big crowded theater. (At our showing, the audience burst into applause about ten different times and cheered at the end.) The faux trailers are pretty good, too -- for some reason only Canadian moviegoers saw one of them, "Hobo with a Shotgun." It's viewable here.
On Saturday, I got moving kind of late, but then my houseguest and I had a pretty good late brunch at Enid's. Bloody Marys + biscuits + collard greens = my kind of brunch. I then dropped off Manashi at the Brooklyn Brewery, where she was meeting friends, and headed out to Flushing to go to the inaugural edition of the Panorama Challenge.
The Panorama Challenge was an interesting trivia game, consisting of geography-based trivia questions and hosted by the tour guides of Levy's Unique New York to benefit the City Reliquary, a storefront museum (that I now am intrigued by and want to visit.) It was played on the Panorama of New York City, a mammoth (and truly wonderful) scale model of the entire city. Teams of ten split up, so each team would have some members on the south, east, and west sides of the model, and each of the questions called for us to identify a city landmark or location that was pointed out with a laser pointer and another clue. For instance: "Manhattan on the Mainland" was the clue for Marble Hill, a small parcel of the Bronx (on the continental mainland) that is nevertheless politically part of Manhattan. "In the Line of Fire" was the clue for Rodman's Neck in the Bronx, where the NYPD maintains a gun range for firearms training. "On Manhattan, but not in New York City" was the clue for the United Nations complex on the East Side. "Neither beer nor Dennis" was a clue for Miller Field on Staten Island. "The Knights play here" was the clue for Queens College, whose athletic teams are the Knights.
There were a few wrinkles -- sometimes the people wielding laser pointers pointed out the wrong places, and on a few occasions they pointed out two different places for the same clue -- and some organizational kerfuffles in the beginning of the game which could've been avoided if they'd succinctly explained how the teams and subteams would work before divvying everyone up -- but by and large, it ran pretty smoothly, and I was impressed by the difficulty and comprehensive scope of the questions.
Our team had a ringer -- Kevin Walsh, who literally wrote the book on New York landmarks and who writes the great website Forgotten NY -- which helped considerably in our tie for first place, with 83 questions correct out of 85. (My prize included a three-inch-tall Statue-of-Liberty-shaped bottle of bubbles.)
Sunday found me sleeping in, as I was logy and didn't quite feel 100%. (I rallied, however, after drinking several cups of coffee and reading about half the Times online.) I ran some errands, including a failed attempt to buy a lens. See, I was a klutz a little while back and dropped my 50mm prime lens about three feet, and it being a cheap lens, it broke into about three pieces. I've been getting by without it, but now I want to replace it -- and wouldn't you know it, the big NYC retail stores either don't have it in stock or are closed for a week for Passover. So, wanting to use that lens that night, I started wandering around the Times Square camera shops.
My goodness, there must be an unlimited supply of tourist rubes streaming through their doors for them to stay in business. (I mean, I know that there's an unlimited supply of tourist rubes in Times Square, but I figured they'd be buying laser-etched crystal sculptures of the Twin Towers or Statue of Liberty cigarette lighters or something, not Canon optics.) At reputable camera stores, the going rate for the 50mm f/1.8 lens (which is a phenomenal value, aside from the build quality) is about $75, give or take $10. The first place I visited was selling it for $100. The next place didn't have it in stock. The next place after that seemed to lose interest in me at an odd time -- perhaps it was because I sounded like I knew at least a very little bit about photography?
Clerk: Can I help you?
Me: Do you have Canon lenses?
Clerk: We have three kinds of lenses for your camera. The first are called wide-angle lenses, and they have a big wide field of view. The second are called zoom lenses, because you can zoom back and forth from wide to narrow. And the third --
Me: Actually, I'm looking for the 50mm prime f/1.8, please.
Clerk: [walks away, humming to himself]
Me, following after: Excuse me, do you have the 50mm?
Clerk, staring about a foot over my head: What? Um, no. [Turns on his heel, walks away.]
Weird. At any rate, the next place took the cake. At 44th and 7th, I went into a camera store that seemed pretty well-equipped for the neighborhood. An affable guy took me over to the case of Canon lenses, pulled out the lens I want, and pushed it across the counter to me. (So energetically, in fact, that he nearly pushed it all the way off the counter, and we both lunged to keep it from going over the side.) He retrieved it and put the box in my hands. One thing stood out: the price tag reading "$299.99." I smiled and said "I know that isn't the correct price." He quickly said "Of course not. There is a special price -- $189." I slid the box back across the counter to him, said "Really? That seems a little high."
Clerk: No, that's a good price.
Me: Actually, it's about a hundred and ten dollars too much. At B&H, at Adorama, at J&R --
Clerk: Please, sir. Keep your voice down. This is a store. Don't be talking about B&H and those other places.
Me, still using my normal indoor voice: I know it's a store...but at all those other places, the going rate's about eighty bucks.
Clerk: SIR! Please keep your voice down. This is a store!
Me: And given your prices, I'm wondering how it stays one.
So I left and temporarily gave up on my quest for a lens. (I think I'll just order from Amazon.)
There’s something singing in the ice
In the deepest part of the world
and a film across my eyes,
as I’m watching all the waves turn white.
I wanted the lens because Sunday night, B. and I went to see one of my very favorite bands, Shearwater, play the Bowery Ballroom. Casiotone for the Painfully Alone opened, and I didn't know a thing about them. (We were hoping they'd be good, because B. fell in love with one of their T-shirts before the show, and she didn't want to buy a T-shirt from a crappy band.) This tall nerdy-looking guy in a sweater with glasses and a beard was twiddling gear onstage, and then the lights went down and I realized the show had begun. He hunched over as if he was afraid to be seen and sang about loneliness and small-size dreams and disappointments, all over washes of keyboard chords and drum-machine beats. Kind of Postal-Service-ish, if you took away some of the melody and self-confidence. Halfway through the first song, B. and I looked at each other and said "I'm getting the T-shirt" and "We're buying a CD" respectively.
Shearwater played next, and were spectacular, as always. I know I'm a fanboy, but damn it's so nice to have a friend in a band and have that band be really, staggeringly good. They've recently signed with Matador (great news!) and today, the label is re-releasing Palo Santo, their well-regarded album from last year, in an expanded and partially re-recorded version -- the record "as the band intended it." It's really good, and it's interesting to hear slightly different takes on songs I already know pretty well. This new version is wider, and crisper, and richer and more expansive, with a bit more punch and presence to it. You should go out and buy it. Thirty copies. (I'm keeping my old copy of last year's version, too, in case I want a change of pace.)
Shearwater played a new song (or two? I wasn't sure) and despite some equipment problems and maybe a teeny bit of last-show-of-the-tour drag (and the Mighty Thor putting a hole in the head of his bass drum) they were as passionate and moving as ever.
What a letdown, then, to go from the transcendent noise to the over-the-top skronk of Xiu Xiu, the evening's headliner. Overwrought without bothering with much song structure, it made me wish I were home listening to late-period Coltrane or going by ABC No Rio to see what was going on there. So we left, and called it a night.
