Random Film Critic Rant (truncated)

Though she sometimes gets away without sounding too laborious in her language, S. Zacharek at Salon is so into herself. Other film critics can have the same foible, but somehow their versions complement their overall style with a dash of panache or intrigue the way that an imperfect, but character-imbued nose can make a well-poised portrait even more winsome. In her case, however, because the foundations she's built are spotty and "'cause I said so, wah", they don't play as cute or "opinionated in an endearing" way. Rather, it's like someone who is a bit drunk with himself even as he is sober enough to check around the room to see if anyone else is charmed by the same.

In contrast, A.O. Scott and R. Ebert are soothing voices whose internal logic is convincing and well-reasoned, kind of like Dan Savage in his advice columns. It's very difficult to catch them at being obnoxiously arbitrary. Sometimes, the opinions change or are withdrawn, but not glibly. One has the feeling that under all that add-on work every week that increases the scale of their canon, there are some very sound foundations.

And no, this isn't some internalised misogyny or patriarch worship...

Well, with that off my mind, I can return to unofficial histories of the Song dynasty and Bandits of the Marsh.

Sighting

On my way to town for lunch, I was about to ring the precious steel bell mounted on my handbars for two men of middle age on the sidewalk I'd considered cruising down when their blue-grey robes tied at the side caught my attention. Surely it is not good karma to run over or compete for ground with holy men.

One wore a large Chinese fisherman-like hat and the other did not. His bald head and right leg stuck outwards from the loosely garbed body that was bent in close inspection of a heap of metal at the foot of a large bush. He gestured to the other one, whose hat shaded his face as he, too, inclined his bulk toward the find: a ruin of a bicycle whose front tire had been taken and whose frame was now ditched into the ground like a two-dimensional rickshaw with no puller. By the dullish appearance of the tubing, it appears to have lain there for some time, still chained fast to the bus stop sign. I sped past this vignette, having decided to use the macadam rather than halt the intrigued exchange between the men.

I wondered if they were the first to have wondered at the not uncommon sight in a long time. There is much waste, isn't there, that goes on? En route to picking up my bicycle this morning, I spotted a pair of strange-looking underwear on the ground: a black triangle trimmed with flourescent flourets. It made me think a little of my poor little lost sock.

Panic

Not only have I misplaced my credit card, but I've also realised that I am way behind on a number of pressing issues. I'm so stunned I can't scream. It's like that last moment before you squeeze the spring and the cow blinks because it somehow knows it, too, if not what comes after the explosive dark.

The optimists might say that look, there is a life raft just drifting by--the last one--if you're willing to throw out an arm, perhaps give it up, you might be able to catch it and be saved. In that, I have grim hope. A pittance of it, grim, yet extant.

Lost

My favourite light sock of grey with paper-punch sized yellow polka dots. Its mate now lies at the bottom of the winter pants drawer, perfect as the other one was, but useless. Somewhere between our last stop in Mexico and the building D dryer two days ago, it might be lying like Anderson's little toy soldier, waiting for the next sweep of misfortune to carry it to new adventure.

I will miss it--why couldn't it have been one of the others? "They took the wrong one!"

It is of course faintly ridiculous that I have been mourning so insistently the loss of a beloved sock. After all, it is only what it is and the sock drawer teems with alternatives, some nearly as treasured. However, it is rare in this world to find an object of use made by strangers that accords with one's aesthetic and pragmatic sensibilities so precisely. In Chinese, whoever designed and put those grey and yellow-dotted darlings into production was really my "zhi yin", someone who "knew and understood my sounding".

Rhetorical

Is there anything more unnecessarily delightful than Chinese cupcakes?

I think not. Especially not paperwork, filing chores, or wrestling with laundry, all of which have made a zombie of me today.

Familiar Cranks

Ah, the wushu pains are back. My ball and socket joints are threatening to tear off as Wang Laoshi made us do every single move 6-8 rounds, including the ever-popular squat punch and horse stance's inch forward. In comparison to those old bones, the muscles are doing quite well, with the slight exception of my arms, which feel as if they'd been boiled and laid to dry in the quick sun.

I thought I was going to spend the day reading about rebels and robber culture, but it looks like we're speeding to Chinatown in the city for some medicine and calligraphy supplies instead before delving into a minor feast at a favorite unassuming Chiyanees eatery in Sunset.

Rather curious about who "pm" was in the last comment, would it be "jpm"?

Have the Sunny Days

Finally arrived? I dearly hope so. All this dank and gloom (not to mention soggy bicycle seats) was becoming unbearable. Those years of such eternally wet blanketed existence by the Nord Zee--how did I ever put up with it?

If we are very lucky and/or have been very good, perhaps the first dip in the pool of the year is not far off... It's too bad I've preemptively finished my leisurely reading of the quarter--"Gaudy Night" was shot through with jolting prose. A detective novel (with no deaths), it is unrivaled in making Mooford sound so beautifully oppressive.

This will not be an unillustrated chronicle

So, Miss Prime Minister, there you are:



Tulum's own beach beneath the ruins (really ruined, compared to Chichenitza, Ek-Balam, and Copa, amongst others, but what a setting for the jewel), where I swam in the turbulent surf.

It wasn't the most relaxing dip, but how heartening to be immersed in this specific beauty... The white line shows the position of the reef where the breakers meet their match, and only the humbled ones push on to pull back from the shore. Still, the waters drew heavily from the beach and I was exalted as much by the loveliness of the place as by the gaugeable violence of it. What a salty dose the ocean is if one is not careful!

Apropos...

...that snide article in the New York "Times", the most striking Chinese character tattoo I've seen recently was "ji" for "chicken", unmistakably and disproportionately loud and proud on the scapula of a youngish, pinkish woman in a bathing top at a bano in Quintana Roo.

I may have written these lines, but still find the website referenced in the article a little too cutting. Sometimes a little fat is allowed to reside with the close meat kin to the bone.

more places to visit

*Belize (Mayan ruins)
*Guatamala (ditto)
*Honduras (ditto)
Costa Rica
Venezuela
*Peru (Macchu Picchu)
*Chile (le mondo de Neruda, Patagonia)
*Argentina (Ushuaia, Patagonia)
*Brasil (Brasilia's architecture, all of Brasil)
Paraguay

*Iceland (nowhere else like it)
Finland (new opera house)
Russia (trans-Siberian railroad!)
*Czech Republic (Praha)
*Hungary (Buda and Pest)
*Turkey (Constantinople, Marco Polo's fault)
*Uighur country (the horizon)

Jordan (red rocks)
*Egypt (nowhere else like it)
*Tunisia (how old is this dream now?)
Senegal
Cameroon
*Mali (vive la musique)
*South Africa (what's unspoilt)
*Mozambique (dhows amongst other things)
*Tanzania (what Kenya and Tanzania will soon used to be)
*Morocco (too many fashion editorials)
*Madagascar (unique everything)

*Tibet (how can one not?)
*Vietnam (Vietnam itself and unfortunately, also M. Duras' imprint)
*India (one day I'll make it over there, Dev)
*Malaysia (amongst all the other good things, great surfing)
*Cambodia (Angkor Wat to begin with)
*Laos (more serene than the rest)
*Sri Lanka (would be part of Buddhist pilgrimage)
*Bhutan (pristineness of which we'd all like a greedy bite)
Myanmar
*Mongolia (short-legged ponies and the limitless sky)
Uzbekistan
Indonesia

Antigua (thanks, Ms. Kincaid)
*Cuba (nowhere else like it)

...and finally...

Antarctica (one day I'll be thick-skinned enough)

While in Mexico

We didn't have watches and forgot about daylight savings' dissolving an hour of sleep into yapping dogs and buzzsaws in the garden. Luckily, the fish outside the reef didn't know about daylight savings, so we pretended it was still yesterday and went fishing.