About Fred

Saturday and Sunday

Yesterday was warm enough to sit out in the yard for a little while, reading Kaleidotrope submissions. So that’s what I did. I sometimes worry than I’m being a little too choosy, after I’ve rejected a dozen or so stories in a row, and then one comes along that I don’t want to reject and I think, “Nope. Just choosy enough.”

After dinner, I watched American Hustle, which I wish I could say I enjoyed more than I did. At this year’s Golden Globe Awards, Tina Fey joked that the movie’s original name was “Explosion at the Wig Factory,” which really isn’t far from the truth. There’s some good acting in the movie, but a lot more over-acting, and a lot of over-the-top hair and costume design, all in service of a fun but kind of thin story — a very loosely adapted version of the Abscam investigation. It’s not hard to see why the film was nominated for ten Oscars last year. But it’s also not hard to see why it didn’t win a single one.

After that, I watched Area 407, which I can’t even pretend was any good. It’s exceptionally terrible, even by the low standards of found-footage monster movies, apparently ad libbed over the course of five days, and man does that show! It so very, very bad…and for that reason, it was absolutely wonderful.

I watched it with friends over Twitter, which is something we do semi-regularly — Heather has a rundown of some of the comments we made — and it was kind of magical. Heaven knows I’ve seen my fair share of terrible movies, but every now and then one comes along that’s terrible in all the right ways. This was definitely one of those, and I had a blast live-tweeting it with everyone else.

This afternoon, I went to see Captain America: Winter Soldier with some in-person friends. I enjoyed the movie, which is fun and has some nice little moments from its leads interspersed with all the acting — I don’t Steve’s ever going to get to ask out Kristen from Statistics — but there’s not a whole lot to say about it, really. I mean it’s no Area 407.

Anyway, before the movie we had our weekly writing group, and this is what I did:

“You gotta write it down,” Trevor Kettleson said. “His speech recognition software isn’t working at the moment.”

“This is the robot?” Dean asked. “Your investigator?”

“He doesn’t like that word,” Kettleson said. “Either one. It would be more accurate to call him a…’cyborg consultant.’”

“From outer space?”

Kettleson sighed, sat forward in his chair. “While technically accurate, detective, pre-judgmental language like that will only make it more difficult for Roger — “

“The robot. Roger the robot.”

“ — our consulting cyborg to adequately assist you on this case. It’s true that Roger’s cybernetic components were outfitted on a space station orbiting an abandoned planetoid, but the fact that this all happens three hundred years in the future — “

“I’m not here to prosecute your cyborg, Mr. Kettleson,” Dean said, all smiles, “just trying to get a lay of the land. Everyone who came through the time vortex was granted immunity, that’s the law. How I feel about it doesn’t matter.”

“It might matter to Roger,” Kettleson said.

“I’ll try not to step on anyone’s toes,” Dean said. “Especially if they’re made out of titanium.”

“Our firm has the utmost respect for Roger’s investigative skills. I urge you to turn to him as an asset.”

“He just doesn’t talk.”

“Oh, he talks. He just can’t process speech presently. We’re doing everything in our power to remedy that, but…well, we are talking about technology three centuries more advanced than our own.”

“And was Paige Caldwell working on this remedy?”

“Was — ?”

“Dr. Caldwell. The victim. Was she spending a lot of time working directly with Roger?”

“Well…I — it was one of her projects, yes. It’s been a team effort. Certainly you don’t think that’s what got her killed, or that Roger — ?”

“You said yourself she didn’t have any enemies.”

“That I knew of, yes. But, detective, that’s a very wide leap to naming Roger as a suspect.”

“I’m just thinking out loud, Mr. Kettleson” Dean said. He stood up and moved towards the door. “If I start making allegations, believe me, I’ll put them in writing. I wouldn’t want Roger to miss them.”

Three hours later, with the cyborg’s pneumatic-powered hands at his throat, Dean Hendricks thought he might have made a mistake.

“Make it look good,” he croaked. “We need her to think you’re really trying to kill me.”

Silently he cursed himself, remembering Roger’s speech recognition problem. He just hoped the cyborg remembered the plan. Those steel-tipped fingers were pretty tight around his windpipe. But they weren’t going to flush Caldwell out of hiding if they didn’t put on a good show.

And that, pretty much, was my weekend.

Friday

And so began my morning at work today.

It turned out to be nothing, or at least nothing much to worry about, after about an hour of alarms and then announcements, then the arrival of the fire department to check out a smoke detector problem on the twentieth floor. We were allowed to throw open some of the windows — which I’m not sure I knew was a thing that could happen — to help dispel some of the smokey smell…which, from all accounts, was unrelated. (Does that make it better, or worse? It was apparently the smell of welding smoke that got in from construction up on the roof.)

So it turns out we didn’t have to evacuate, and I basically had to spend the day doing the work I thought I was going to doing. Which hardly seems fair, when you get right down to it.

I’m pleased as punch that it’s the weekend. There’s a tiny part of me that thinks I should maybe try to do some more work this weekend — the amount of collating I have to do, you would not believe — but I think the weekend will be better spent in reading Kaleidotrope submissions, writing a little, and watching movies and TV.

Though wasn’t it just last weekend? Time…it does that whole flying thing a lot, doesn’t it?

Random 10 4-11-14

Last week. This week:

  1. “That’s Not My Name” by the Ting Tings
    Four-letter word just to get me along
  2. “Black Betty” by Ram Jam, guessed by Clayton
    The damn thing gone wild
  3. “Expectations” by Belle and Sebastian
    Your obsessions get you known throughout the school for being strange
  4. “Brand New Sun” by Jason Lytle
    You’re like a tired child
  5. “Tramp the Dirt Down” by Elvis Costello
    You haven’t got the whole disease
  6. “A Pirate Looks at Forty” by Jimmy Buffett, guess by Clayton
    Occupational hazard be my occupation’s just not around
  7. “The District Sleeps Alone Tonight” by the Postal Service
    You seem so out of context in this gaudy apartment complex
  8. “Good Feeling” by Flo Rida
    Crabs in the bucket can’t have me
  9. “Skullcrusher Mountain” by Jonathan Coulton
    What’s with all the screaming?
  10. “It’s True that We Love One Another” by the White Stripes
    I got your phone number written in the back of my bible

This is how it goes. Good luck!

Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome

Third time really is the charm.

After unexpected snowfall in January, then unexpected illness last week, I finally went to see a Broadway musical last night.

I actually don’t go to the theater all that often, despite this being the third attempt in almost as many months — and the second in less than a week — but my parents had for whatever reason purchased tickets to see Cabaret, starring Alan Cumming and Michelle Williams. So they trekked into the city and I met them a couple of blocks from my office for dinner.

My father still isn’t always feeling well, so he unfortunately opted to head home before the show, walking over with us to the theater but then taking the subway and train back. It’s a shame, too, since he was feeling better not long after — I called him at intermission — and the show was really very good.

I had only a passing familiarity with the show, and then only with Joel Grey’s lead performance in the original. Cumming’s quite different in the role, less elfin and more dirty, and the musical definitely has a very risque edge. But Cumming and Williams were both terrific, as was all of the supporting cast, and I had a great time.

The rest of the week — is it really Thursday already? How? — has passed by very busily at work. I do a little bit of writing every day, even if yesterday proved the exception, and I watch a large amount of The Good Wife on streaming video. (Cumming’s in that, too, as it happens, but playing a very different character.) A night out at the theater notwithstanding, I lead a rather boring life.