I’ll be in Florida for a short winter vacation starting early tomorrow, coming back Monday. I may be posting while I’m gone, but more likely I won’t. See you in a few days.

“We have named all the stars and all the planets, even though they might already have had names of their own.”

Just finished reading “Solaris,” on loan from John. I wanted to finish it before I saw the Soderbergh/Clooney movie. It was more an experience than a book – I’m still turning it around in my head. It’s a little too easy to get bogged down in the detailed scientific sections that describe the strange planet where the book is set, but the human relationship that is the real story here is fascinatingly ambiguous and worth a few bumps. The writing has flashes of brilliance, even in translation; apparently the book was translated into French from the original Polish, and then from French into English. That alone fascinates me.

After reading the book and some advance word on the movie, I agree with John that the movie is being marketed under false pretenses. Sci-fi! Space station! Love story! George Clooney and his butt! When what they’ll get is an introspective art film about the nature of existence. Still, that’s OK with me. One less Hollywood blockbuster in the world (Ocean’s Eleven, anybody?) is a good thing.

Today was Winter Coat Day. And the world mourns.

“Touched by an Angel” continues to smack me in the face like a giant halibut on “Monty Python.” For some reason, I found myself watching an episode last week where a geek who was picked on in high school became a Bill-Gates-like figure 10 years later. He was looking forward to humiliating the jock who made fun of him, and winning over the head cheerleader he always had a crush on (who just happened to be the wife of the jock, now a pro football player). Gates-lite was excited because the cheerleader hadn’t been to a lot of the jock’s games, so he was sure they were having marital problems. All this was taking place at their 10-year high school reunion, where Gates-lite was going to buy the jock’s team and fire him.

Well, of course, in the TBAA universe, the jock apologized, he and the cheerleader are still in love, and – wait for it – she has cancer. So it didn’t take much prodding from Valerie Bertinelli to make Gates-lite “do the right thing.”

The thing is, if this was a show where people made difficult choices despite obstacles (and without an angel hitting them over the head), I would be the first one to applaud it. Why not, for example, have the jock still be a jerk, and the wife vulnerable to Gates-lite’s advances? It would still be wrong for him to exact revenge on slights committed in high school. But they make it so easy on everyone.

To me being a good person means doing the right thing when it’s not the easy choice, just the right one. How about making a show about that?

Thanks to a mention on Xkot’s forum about the Sci-Fi Channel’s production of “Children of Dune,” I’m irritated all over again that they have chosen to portray the “children” as twentysomethings, rather than the nine-year-old twins they are in the story. I’m sure they thought precocious twins with adult intellect would be a hard sell, but that’s the story, folks. Dramatic license is fine, but not when it sells out the main strength of the underlying work.

Overheard at a “Lord of the Rings” development meeting
“Those hobbits are small, hairy people. And not particularly attractive either. They don’t even wear shoes! That’s not gonna sell. Love the magic, love the whole ‘saving the world’ angle. Great stuff. But those hobbits have got to go. Wait – how about this? We’ll have all the hobbits portrayed by supermodels! It’s brilliant!”

Cooking for myself always seems a little disheartening. And I don’t feel confident enough to cook for other people very often. But when I do, I really enjoy it – it’s a strange blend of chemistry, craft and philosophy.

I must say, the food was pretty gosh-darn good yesterday, and seemingly justified all the work. Alton Brown’s turkey directions, which I followed slavishly to the letter, turned out to be totally worth it. Some may call me obsessive, but the turkey came out of the oven the most beautiful Norman Rockwell creation, and tasted fantastic. I love using the temperature probe that stays in the oven – you don’t have to keep checking the turkey, trying to judge when it’s done, etc. You just set the temp you need to reach, and that’s it. And the infamous brining really seemed to lock the juices into the turkey.

Anyone want leftovers?

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

The menu for tomorrow

Cream cheese, cocktail sauce and crab appetizer
Cheese plate
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Brined (!) fresh turkey
Roasted Yukon Gold potatoes with garlic
Green beans with almonds
Cornbread and sausage stuffing
Rolls
Cranberry chutney
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Apple crisp and cinnamon ice cream

I missed most of “The West Wing” tonight, since Jesse and I were watching the aggressively incomprehensible “Ring 0” and I forgot to set the VCR. But I watched the end, and I gathered that Toby Ziegler and the new speechwriter, Will Bailey, were talking about Bartlet’s second inaugural address. Toby made a point that there’s a great tradition of memorable second inaugural speeches.

People have all kinds of dreams. I don’t necessarily dream of writing a presidential inaugural address. But I would love, one day, to have the talent necessary to write one.

People who know me know I’m extremely picky about movie theaters. The slightly-out-of-focus thing (Hi Melissa!) makes me want to spray the projection booth with bullets. I can’t stand the poorly-named “UltraScreen” because the 35mm negative can’t survive being blown up that big, and it ends up looking like grainy 8mm home movies. I don’t like the seats at Star Theater because they remind me of a Disneyland ride. Stuff like that.

Well I’ve always disliked the Orpheum downtown, even though it’s a fantastic old-style theater. The sound is epically poor, and now they have a cafe in the lobby and at night you can often hear patrons and music from the back of the theater.

Well, John and Matt and Sparky and I went to see “Punch-Drunk Love” there tonight. The dialogue was so muffled it nearly drove me insane, and the print looked like it had been dragged across a concrete floor by monkeys. And to top it off, Sparky had some kind of maintenance porthole right at his feet (above a broken seat, no less). While it wasn’t a portal into another dimension – that I would have supported – it revealed some sort of nasty subfloor covered in trash. A moviegoing experience to treasure.