Weekend Work

Well, yesterday was much like last weekend: hauling water to the cedar tree and weeding the traffic circle -- in the HOT sun -- watering wilted plants around the yard, picking raspberries, cleaning the bathroom, and working on wedding words. The neighbor loaned me a useful book in the latter cause: Sacred Threshold - Rituals and Readings for a Wedding with Spirit by Gertrud Mueller Nelson & Christopher Witt. Helped me get a sense of the traditional structure of the ritual. In the evening, carl and Scott stopped by on the way to Vanguard, and carl and I went over the latest proof of Chunga. I watched a couple of episodes of FLCL after they left, and then to bed, weary from the more than usual physical labor for me.

Today I'm seeing the Technicolor noir Desert Fury at the Noir City festival at the SIFF Theater with Craig and AP. One of the commenters on IMDb describes the film this way: 'Back in the forties, when movies touched on matters not yet admissible in "polite" society, they resorted to codes which supposedly floated over the heads of most of the audience while alerting those in the know to just what was up. Probably no film of the decade was so freighted with innuendo as the oddly obscure Desert Fury, set in a small gambling oasis called Chuckawalla somewhere in the California desert. Proprietress of the Purple Sage saloon and casino is the astonishing Mary Astor, in slacks and sporting a cigarette holder; into town drives her handful-of-a-daughter, Lizabeth Scott, looking, in Technicolor, like 20-million bucks. But listen to the dialogue between them, which suggests an older Lesbian and her young, restless companion (one can only wonder if A.I. Bezzerides' original script made this relationship explicit). Even more blatant are John Hodiak as a gangster and Wendell Corey as his insanely jealous torpedo. Add Burt Lancaster as the town sheriff, stir, and sit back. Both Lancaster and (surprisingly) Hodiak fall for Scott. It seems, however, that Hodiak not only has a past with Astor, but had a wife who died under suspicious circumstances. The desert sun heats these ingredients up to a hard boil, with face-slappings aplenty and empurpled exchanges. Don't pass up this hothouse melodrama, chock full of creepily exotic blooms, if it comes your way; it's a remarkable movie.'

Wheeeee! After that, the pubmeet, Fans with Bheers.

The power of the Internet (baseball edition)

I'm a regular reader of the blog U.S.S. Mariner, which is dedicated to the Seattle Mariners major league baseball team. They have been harping on the poor pitch selection of Felix Hernandez, the Mariners' best pitcher (potentially their greatest ever), as the reason he'd been getting hit hard since two dominating games at the beginning of the season. A couple of weeks ago, the best writer on the blog, Dave, posted "An Open Letter to Rafael Chaves," the Mariners pitching coach, laying out the case that Hernandez' pitch selection in the first couple of innings was predictable. Basically fastball fastball fastball and then another fastball.

Yesterday, Hernandez pitched his best game since those two great performances to start the season, holding the Oakland Athletics to two hits over eight innings. Today's Seattle Times, in an article with the headline "M's fans lend Felix helping hand in victory," says that Chaves gave a copy of the blog post to Hernandez and that Felix took the advice to heart and changed his pitch selection at the beginning of the game. Chaves is quick to assert that it's the same advice he's been giving Hernandez all along, but that the blog helped it sink in.

All hail Dave at U.S.S. Mariner! Now let's see if they heed his "An Appeal for Action" regarding the designated hitter position. Maybe the Mariners can create a new coaching position called the Blog Coach.