I’m guest blogging at In the Pink Texas again today: Even More Ways to Save Public Education in Texas
by James Brush
Coyote Mercury Posts
It hadn’t happened since July, but we went to a theater…
Zodiac (David Fincher, 2007)
Zodiac tells the tale of the investigation into the identity of the Zodiac Killer who killed at least five people in northern California between 1968 and 1969. The killer wrote letters taunting police and reporters until 1974. His identity has never been confirmed.
The movie focuses on the investigators assigned the task of catching him and the reporters and staff at the newspapers to which he sent his coded letters. Ultimately, the film documents the toll the investigation takes on the people attempting to find Zodiac, particulary Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal), The San Franscisco Chronicle’s editorial cartoonist who becomes obsessed with discovering Zodiac’s identity.
Ultimately, Graysmith’s research led to the 1986 book, which is the source material for the film. My wife has been bugging me to read the book for years. It’s been updated to include Graysmith’s theoy about the killer’s identity, a man who died in 1992 without ever being charged. We ordered a copy.
Whatever the killer’s real identity, this is a captivating film about obsession, and in this case, it’s not the killer who is obsessed.
Sometimes the thrill of the hunt is all in the ears, especially Joey’s fabulous combover ear.
They’ve been pretty good nurses this week and by that I mean, they’ve been lounging around just like me.
[saveagrey]
I spent the early part of the week working in the yard trying to create something of a bird world. I love watching birds, and lately I’ve been wanting to increase the variety that come around as well as learn who they are.
We’ve had a bird feeder up for the past two years. I fill it up. Mr. Squirrel comes along and empties it onto the ground, and then he and the white-winged doves eat most of the seeds; therefore, the first step was to give Mr Squirrel his own feeder.
He seems to like it.
In addition to the (still vacant) owl house I hung, I put up a wren house. Two Carolina wrens moved in and built a nest of sticks and feathers, and as of yesterday, there were two eggs in the nest.
I also hung up a suet feeder to try to get woodpeckers and finches, and a bluebird nest box (that will probably house more wrens since I’ve never seen a bluebird around here) went up as well.
Here’s the birds I know I’ve seen so far in the past few weeks.
- Carolina wrens
- House finches
- Chipping sparrows
- Cardinals
- Blue jays
- Mockingbirds
- Turkey vultures
- Grackles
- Carolina chickadees
- White-winged doves
I love springtime.
And now I’m back with a post-operative Friday Random Ten and something for me to remember: Cimbing trees + Excessive workouts + Furniture moving = hernia repair surgery.
It’s been jazz and painkillers since Wednesday. I’m getting off the codeine, but jazz is a lasting addiction…
- “Betcha By Golly Wow” – Grant Green – Live at the Lighthouse
- “One Note Samba” – Charlie Byrd Trio with Ken Peplowski – The Bossa Nova Years
- “Rain, Rain Go Away” – Vince Guaraldi – Oh, Good Grief!
- “Walkin'” – Miles Davis – Miles in Tokyo (Live)
- “Fifty Years” – Bill Frisell – Blues Dream
- “You Are the World” – Donald Byrd – Stepping Into Tomorrow
- “Passionelle” – Acoustic Alchemy – Positive Thinking
- “Sanctuary” – Mahavishnu Orchestra – Birds of Fire
- “The Thumb” – Wes Montgomery – Tequila
- “Years of Yearning” – EST – Strange Place for Snow
“Los Borrachos” by Diego Velázquez via Wikipedia
Spring break has sprung. The weather is beautiful, mild Austin March. With SXSW, the Rodeo, high school basketball tournaments, the legislature, spring break and all the other Austin March Madness, it’s a great week for staying home.
To that end, I did some yardwork: the first mow, the last raking, some weeding. Suddenly, our yard is kind of nice again.
A couple of Carolina wrens finally moved into the wren house I hung a few weeks ago. So far, no one had moved into the wolery, but I probably hung it too late.
There are lots of blue jays around all of a sudden and a female cardinal comes to the dinner bell to share mealworms with Mr and Mrs Wren. The squirrels are back too. Joey is hoping that squirrel stew will be on the menu one of these days.
And, finally, Friday’s random ten, which I didn’t have time to post yesterday, and I know how the world hangs on what plays on my ipod each Friday…
- “Refusal” – Ennio Morricone – The Mission
- “Samba De Orfeu” – Ray Anthony – Ultra-Lounge, Volume 14: Bossanovaville
- “(When You Wake) You’re Still in a Dream” – My Bloody Valentine – Isn’t Anything
- “Feelin’ Good” – John Coltrane – The John Coltrane Quartet Plays
- “Silent in the Morning” – Phish – Rift
- “Towards Omega” – Astral Matrix – Global Underground 006: John Digweed, Sydney
- “Afrique” – Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers – The Witch Doctor
- “Crackity Jones” – Pixies – Doolittle
- “Sick of You” – Lou Reed – New York
- “Theoretical Chaos” – Sonic Youth – Dirty (Deluxe Edition)
I think it’s this way with many married folk: the spouse isn’t home for dinner and, well, that’s when you eat at the restaurant she hates or perhaps just have Cheerios for dinner. When feeling industrious, I sometimes invent and if it works out, then perhaps I’ll make it for my wife one day. Usually, though, I wind up microwaving some cheese on a couple of tortillas, rolling them up and eating them in between handfulls of peanuts.
I never said I was fancy.
Tonight, as my wife slogs through her MBA program as she does every Tuesday, I found myself feeling adventurous as I inspected the contents of the fridge looking for something different. I really wanted fish tacos, and as fate would have it there were a couple of filets of sole in there. Now, I know sole isn’t exactly a fish taco kind of fish and baking it wrapped in tin foil isn’t really the preferred fish taco cooking method, but it’s easy and that’s the point.
I started off by buttering a piece of foil and placing the filet inside. Next I thoroughly coated it with chili powder, cayenne pepper and cumin, touched off with a bit of sea salt. Whilst (see how fancy this is making me?) the sole baked, I chopped up some prepackaged baby salad greens, a tomato and some onion. I mixed all the veggies in a nice blue bowl and added some of the Whole Foods brand chipotle ranch dressing.
When the fish was nearly finished cooking (about 8 minutes at 400°F) I added some tortillas to warm. At about 8 minutes, the fish was done and I took it from the foil, placed it on the tortillas with the salad mixture and a few drops of Sgt. Pepper’s Tropical Tears mango habañero salsa.
Served on a yellow plate and paired with a glass of ice cold Austin tap water, it was surprisingly good. I even feel a bit guilty for not inventing it while my wife was at home.
Happening on Tuesday again. This time I blame the internets. They weren’t working yesterday.
Syriana (Stephen Gaghan, 2005)
I broke my pledge to watch nothing new other than Battlestar Galactica until I caught up with the series, but sometimes pledges don’t work.
Syriana is kind of the Traffic of the oil industry except that the plot is thicker (yes, just as oil is thicker than bongwater). Drug smuggling is pretty easy to figure out, but the intersections between Arab nations, energy analysts, Big Oil and the US government is a bit shadier and just as sleazy.
The film is surprisingly low-key considering that it involves a CIA spy, terrorist organizations including Hezbollah, predator drones, an electrified pool, and a fair number of explosions. Everything reeks of evil, double dealing, ethics and morals of convenience, and that peculiar form of “patriotism” that justifies all atrocities, and yet everything in the film is presented in such a routine manner that it all comes across looking banal, which is, I think, the point.
The most intriguing character is George Clooney’s CIA operative, the most ordinary and believable movie spy I’ve ever seen. He’s a tool of the governement, itself a tool of Big Oil, and he carries out his assignments with diligence and a shrug. Only towards the end of the film does he finally see the big picture, and he realizes, just as the audience has finally put together the scattered pieces of this film, what an ugly picture it is.
Phoebe takes a moment to survey the yard before she begins her day.
[saveagrey]