Creepy Pedro Reviews "District 9"

It should not surprise you that, when I accidentally touched the grease of a Hollywood Scriptwriter's typewriter, I began to transform into a Hollywood Scriptwriter myself.

This first manifested as a paunchy sadness. My doctor, instead of giving me Milk of Magnesia and a poultice for my bedsores, hit me on the head and wrapped me in a bag, and the next thing I knew I was in Peter Jackson's torture chamber, screaming.

"I have an idea for a blockbuster movie, but I'm unable to to nail it down, you see," said Mr. Jackson, reclining on a settee with his hairy feet sticking out. "I have stolen a disused Hollywood Scriptwriter's Typewriter from George Lucas' secret museum, but neither my Faceless Spouse nor I can make it operate." And there I saw the Faceless Spouse herself, gnashing and twisting.

"WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?" I cried. "WHERE IS MY WIFE?"

Mr. Jackson applauded. "That's excellent! Your transformation into a Hollywood Scriptwriter is almost complete! We need you to operate the Hollywood Scriptwriter's Typewriter in order to ensure the success of our new movie. We want it to be about rampaging aliens that get all shot up. Other than this we do not know."

"I WILL NOT COOPERATE!" I shouted, but when Peter Jackson shocked me with an energy weapon attached to his belly, I told him that he needed to write a socially-relevant story with a strong character arc.

"Social commentary can be complicated and taxing to the audience," said Peter Jackson.

"Not if there are enough guns," I explained patiently, and both Peter and his Faceless Spouse applauded.

"We'll say it's all very maverick and visionary, and not a Hollywood action film at all!" said Peter, laughing. "If anybody gets bored, we'll say it's simply entertainment and not a social commentary!" His Faceless Spouse seemed to enjoy Peter's joke, and as a reward she shambled forth to push gruel into his wet, questing maw. This, I saw, was the source of their twisted bond: the gruel with flecks of meat, the laughing faces, the cynical horror.

Suddenly contemplative, Mr. Jackson stopped eating and pushed his Faceless Spouse aside. "But wait. I can't think of a single socially-relevant topic that hasn't been explored ad-nauseum."

"Xenophobic discrimination," I said.

"Is that good or bad?" asked Peter, and after a few additional shocks due to my predictable non-compliance, I typed out the first draft of a movie which would explain to viewers that xenophobic discrimination is both bad and pervasive. After reading it, Peter put down the script and said "That's really enlightening," and his Faceless Spouse gibbered mindlessly as though hungry for sex.

"But..." said Peter, turning over slightly like a sleek and largely immobile seal, revealing the engorged suckers which hung from his buttocks. "But...if we're going to convince the audience of such an audacious moral idea, we need to make them CARE about the goopy aliens. They must feel EMPATHY. Here's my guy from Weta Digital," and for the next three hours I endured a featurette about the design and implementation of the alien creatures. "After we film the man in the green suit, we digitally erase the wires and begin the sound design," said the guy from Weta Digital.

"STOP IT!" I screamed. "DETACH ME FROM THIS MACHINE! SHUT HIM UP!"

"Not until you give us a hook to hang the audience's sympathy on."

"LET ME GO! YOU CANNOT DO THIS! THERE ARE LAWS!"

"Not in Middle Earth," he snarled, and he barraged me with electrical zaps from his bellygun. "Give us what we want or I'll blast your stinking willawalla to the billabong!"

"DESIGN A CUTE ALIEN BABY WITH WET EYES!" I screamed, and then everybody exploded, and now Peter Jackson is rich, and I'm just sitting around and folding these fucking flowers.

"Homophobia"

Last week a Grade 12 student asked me to write a mini-essay about "homophobia," so she could read it to her class as part of a project. Here's what I came up with:

I'm wary about telling homophobia-related anecdotes because I don't want to become negative and sensationalistic; my days of sulky victimization are over! We all know that terrible things can happen, but over the years I've become more interested in solutions than retelling my rare moments of drag-related misery.

But even though I feel more at peace with the world than I used to, I don't think it's easy for other people to understand WHY I feel that way. And you can't tackle the roots of homophobia -- let alone discover the ways of combating it -- without looking at specific incidents and coming to some basic conclusions.

So I'll tell you two of my more interesting horror stories, and then I'll share the lessons that those situations taught me.

One way that homophobia manifests itself is a simple "group versus outsider" dynamic. There is something about humanity that feels most confident and secure when it's part of a group, and the simplest way to assert "groupness" is to exclude everybody else. This doesn't always come down to violence -- you can see it happen everywhere, in workplaces or book clubs or patriotic speeches -- but when it involves violence it becomes much more noticeable.

Usually I only have "outsider" dealings with three or four drunk men at a time, but in 2003 I actually faced a mob. It was during the midnight show of the Waterloo Busker Festival. I was wearing a flashy showgirl outfit and watching the buskers with some friends, and about fifteen people in the crowd started to toss pennies at us. When they realized that nobody was going to defend us they got increasingly bold, throwing the coins with full force and finally starting to chant: "Get the fag!" No kidding.

This happened at the edge of a huge crowd of able-bodied, reasonable, and intelligent people. It should never have reached the level that it did, but the reason that we had to run away from a handful of chanting, violent strangers in uptown Waterloo was because NOBODY IN THE CROWD HELPED US. They SAW us and they understood what was happening, but they all looked away, probably frightened.

Here's the first lesson I've learned about homophobia: it only happens if bystanders allow it to. I have been in many other situations where a small group of people have started to get violent with me, but it always stops when a single stranger steps up to defend me. This reverses the "us versus them" belief that is the root of this form of homophobia; when the aggressors suddenly realize that THEY are the outsiders and not ME, it's like popping a big ugly balloon. They retreat and go home and complain to each other and then they throw up.

But if the balloon doesn't pop in the face of public disapproval then something more complicated is at work. I'm talking about the men who hate homosexuality but are simultaneously attracted to me, even though they know I'm a man.

This happens in bars near the end of the night. I suppose that these people can deny their attraction to men in most situations, but they can't deny their attraction to a man in a dress, and this gives them a glimpse of themselves that they don't like at all.

Usually they try to take this anger and confusion out on me in an over-the-top, ironically sexual way, trying to "mock molest" me in front of their friends. This is meant to prove that they're "straight," but their obsessive and bizarre behaviour makes them look even gayer than they're pretending NOT to be.

One extreme incident incident sticks in my mind, though; it was a whole new level. I was sitting on a stool and minding my own business when a huge, hulking guy sat down next to me. He leaned close and said quietly and calmly into my ear: "Watching you looking so good and turning me on like that makes me want to pick up a hammer and kill you."

Then he got right up and left the bar. He was so sober and matter-of-fact that I totally believed what he'd said...and I realized the deep, burning, loathing and hatred that a person can feel for themselves, and how often that loathing can be directed at something or somebody else.

It's a common tactic to enrage homophobes by saying they are secretly homosexual themselves, but in some cases I know this is true, especially when their derision is sexualized. Their feelings are composed of some terrible combination of self-loathing, panic, public shame, and thwarted affection. Society and the sick people in it must work REALLY HARD to instill those sorts of feelings in a child...it doesn't "just happen." Fortunately I think it happens less and less, and that can only be a good thing for everybody.

One final point I'd like to make is that there is a difference between "homophobia" and "confusion." The vast majority of encounters that I have are with people who simply don't "get it," not because they HATE me, but because they've never MET somebody like me...they want to know "why," and they ask blunt questions, and they giggle a bit. If I were to label their attitude as "homophobia" then I would approach them differently, but as it is I try to be friendly and honest. I never JUSTIFY what I do, but I'll still EXPLAIN it.

Granted, the way people confront crossdressers is different from the way they confront lesbians or gay men who aren't in drag, but by learning to tell the difference between confusion and homophobia, between curiosity and cruelty, I have made friends and allies instead of enemies. Maybe I can do this now because I'm comfortable enough about myself that I can make other people comfortable too, as long as their intentions are even remotely good.

That's why I'm wary of sharing sensationalistic anecdotes: because even though it's important to know how bad things can be out there, it is equally important for me to remember that the vast majority of people really DON'T want to hurt me. Most of them are simply INTERESTED in me. That says something good about people, and I try to always keep it in mind when I'm out in the world.

The Universe - FOX News Edition

I'll watch any science DVD that comes my way, and I have a special soft spot for shows about space. Anything that helps me get a grasp of the vastness, complexity, and beauty of the universe is a good thing!

Except for this History Channel program called "The Universe," my disdain for which I cannot put into words.

But let me try.

The program is OFFICIALLY called "The Universe," but I suspect that the full title is "The Universe is Full of Scary Stuff and HOLY SH*T, WE COULD ALL DIE AT ANY MINUTE!" It's produced in the bombastic style generally used for self-serious war movies, full of loaded adjectives and contextual tricks to convey one thing and one thing only: THREAT.

The music -- which never ends -- is of the type used by TV stations to brand military offenses. The announcer's delivery alternates between doomed acceptance and self-referential downplaying...everything he says sounds like the promo for a cheesy TV show. Even when he's describing the atmosphere on Mars, he's saying it in the same tone he would use to say something like "Buffy is 100% man-killing hot stuff, but a bigger enemy is slouching over the horizon...and he could unleash the very powers of hell. On. EARTH."

I knew something was wrong in the very first episode, which was called "Secrets of the Sun" but was really "Secrets of How the Sun COULD KILL YOU." Despite all the overwrought gravitas about the power at its core and the turmoil on its surface -- complete with real disaster footage from earth, as though there was a relevant comparison -- the bulk of the episode was about solar flares and the predictions about the Next Big One.

HOLY COW, WHAT'LL HAPPEN?!? Show us footage of stuff on fire, and rioting, and mass chaos! More CGI of violent solar winds and snapping magnetic force lines! ARGH! ARRRRGH!

But wait...here are the BRAVE NASA TECHNICIANS who tirelessly scour the sky in order to predict these solar storms! Thank goodness these selfless soldiers of the stars are there to protect us, with their fingers always on the button that...well, puts satellites to sleep for a few hours until the storm passes. BUT THAT'S REALLY BRAVE!

Then, of course, all the stuff about the sun eventually expanding and burning the earth "like a charcoal briquette." End of episode.

I kid you not. Any bits of actual, scanty SCIENCE is trampled by the whiz-bang visuals and endless depictions of disaster. The sun is even scarier than TERRORISTS!

I figured I'd give the show a chance and watch the second episode -- "Mars: The Red Planet" -- because I figured they couldn't make Mars frightening. WAS I EVER WRONG! The surface used to have this HUGE VOLCANO, and that volcano might have RIPPED A GIANT CHASM RIGHT ACROSS THE PLANET! And do you know what would happen if you visited Mars? YOU'D DIE! YOU CAN'T BREATHE THERE! How did Mars turn into such an inhospitable place? BECAUSE THE VICIOUS, DEADLY SUN RIPPED AWAY ITS ATMOSPHERE! AND ONCE PEOPLE THOUGHT THERE WERE EVIL ALIENS THERE, WAITING TO INVADE! MARS IS TERRIFYING!

You can imagine how the third episode -- "The End of the Earth" -- turned out, with its killer asteroids and exclusive focus on "The Big Rip" (SO much more scary than any of the other hypotheses), and don't forget about the VICIOUS, DEADLY SUN, and the same handful of earnest science-guys explaining that we're all gonna die...though probably not for another 50 billion years, shhhh.

As usual, though, there are Fearless American Scientists protecting us, "cosmic bounty hunters" who "refuse to be bullied by the asteroids." Jesus RETCH!

The fourth episode was "Jupiter: The Giant Planet." I managed to sit through fifteen minutes because I wanted to know how Jupiter was gonna kill us. Fortunately it doesn't appear that Jupiter -- "a giant ball of intrigue" -- is out to murder our babies and steal our freedom, but -- here you go -- it tends to draw asteroids into its own orbit...ASTEROIDS THAT WOULD OTHERWISE HIT EARTH AND DESTROY CIVILIZATION AS WE KNOW IT! Cue disaster footage again, and CGI images of disintegrating buildings and fifty-foot tidal waves.

What the f*ck is wrong with people? Can we only engage with things if we consider them to be threats? Are events only interesting if they involve violent turmoil? Maybe I'm so disgusted because I grew up on a diet of Carl Sagan, for whom the universe was a big and comforting pair of breasts, but most of the problem is that I have NEVER seen an emotionally-manipulative, fear-mongering science show about SPACE before. I'd understand if the show was PROMOTED as such, but it's not.

I can't tell you about the atrocities in the rest of the show, but the episode list gives a few hints. Seriously, if I didn't know better I'd think this was a joke:

EPISODE SIX: "A survivor of one of the most violent 'neighborhoods' in the universe, learn how earth was created and discover what creatures hold clues to how life began. What evil forces threaten the demise of Earth?"

EPISODE SEVEN: "Scorched by their proximity to the sun, Mercury and Venus are hostile worlds; one gouged with craters from cosmic collisions and the other a vortex of sulfur, carbon dioxide and acid rain. Prime examples of planets gone awry, do they serve as a warning for ominous scenarios that might someday threaten Earth?"

EPISODE TEN: "Ignited by the power of the atom, burning with light, heat and wrath [?], stars are anything but peaceful. They collide, devour each other, and explode in enormous supernovas--the biggest explosions in the Universe."

EPISODE TWELVE: "Super massive black holes can figuratively 'lasso' the Earth out of the solar system. A clash between two galaxies can result in a barbaric ritual called 'galactic cannibalism' in which the dominant galaxy's super massive black hole eats the weaker one. Magnetars are a cosmic magnetic force so strong it could wipe out data on every credit card on the planet."

And on and on and on. These people should be ashamed of themselves.

My Little Black Cloud of Mishaps

Sometimes it seems like the world is out to get me. You know this is leading to a story about intense frustration, so let's get right to the point.

Sunday, December 16th: a tremendous snowstorm -- the second in three weeks -- wallops my little town.

It's the night of Club Abstract's Christmas party. Since the party is mainly for staff members, they insist you arrive before 10pm so all hands can lock the doors and retreat into debauchery. With this in mind I call a cab at 8:45 and wait.

And wait. And wait. Once again a cab driver has been unable to find me, and instead of calling to check my address he's simply driven away, leaving me without transportation. At 9:30 I am frantically talking to the cab company: they can send somebody else, but not anytime soon; they're booked solid with Christmas parties and the roads are terrible. The fact that THEY screwed up doesn't seem to change the situation.

I make a snap decision. I put on my sturdiest boots and begin to walk, over twelve inches of mostly-uncleared snow, through 60kph winds. Here's a brief excerpt so you can share the joy with me. I make an appearance at the end that turned out surprisingly well. I figured that if I died like a stranded Jack London character, they could use my camera to learn about my last desperate moments.



A survivor, I arrive at Club Abstract...and discover that I'm dressed like a bar skank at a formal event. Alright, maybe I should have asked about the night's "tone."

I feel terribly out of place, I brood about the inevitable walk home, I get increasingly nervous and repetative. People are looking at me strangely. Eventually I discover that my blood sugar is catastrophically low; the walk through the snowstorm has done me in.

A sweet bartender serves me Shirley Temples, I eat a bag of Skittles, I acknowledge that things couldn't possibly get worse.

THEN THE SOLE OF MY RIGHT BOOT FALLS OFF. I cannot walk back home, in a snowstorm, post-insulin shock, with only one boot. I want to kill myself.

Fortunately a quick-thinking staff member gives me an early Christmas gift: duct tape.



Desperate for home, my little black cloud parts long enough for me to grab an impossible cab. I count my considerable blessings.

The next morning I walk to work; a half-hour ordeal through a city paralyzed by the storm. I stop at Tim Horton's for food and realize I've left my wallet at home. I only have petty change with which to buy lunch. I am going to cry.

I sit down to eat my paltry food, I reach into my bag to give myself insulin...and realize I've forgotten my insulin as well. I've come all the way to work and I can't buy or eat anything.

My heart has gone cold and squishy. I gently put my head on the table. I cover my head with my hands and press, scratching my scalp, moaning slightly. I have had a terrible, terrible weekend. I am actually looking forward to going to work; I can't get hit by a car while sitting at my desk, probably. I do not feel safe in the world.

I wait patiently for a cab to take me home so I can grab my wallet, my insulin, and return to work. This costs me twenty dollars. Smiling over its shoulder, my little black cloud of mishaps laughs and wanders off to torture another soul, hopefully not you.

Plague of Flies

After the wasps, the flies.

For the last two days I have been plagued with houseflies. Fat ones, skinny ones, they’re flying back and forth between the two large windows on the first floor, and they even penetrated the upper storey last night. Lacking a flyswatter, I’ve been using my telephone bill to kill them, which is far more fun than actually paying the bill...but sort of gross.

This is driving me nuts. My eyesight has become hyper-sensitive to small black things that fly horizontally. I killed about two dozen of them on Wednesday, and that seemed to be the end of it. Then, on Thursday, a whole new swarm appeared, all bright-eyed and bushy-thorax’d. There are more of them today, and when I killed the latest one there were SQUIRMING MAGGOTS inside it. I will not allow these creatures to use my apartment for cheap sex.

My phone bill is a real mess. I have become the fearsome, silent killer of housefly mythology.

I have cleaned everything and removed all household waste, scrubbed the sinks and the stove-top, swept floors, filtered the litterbox. I washed and took out those empty bottles of booze that I tend to collect. I can’t imagine where they could be coming from, unless there’s a hole in one of my screens (but I doubt it). Are they spontaneously generating? Are they the devil?

I grew up on a cow farm so I know how to kill flies. Still, that hasn't stopped me from doing some research online, and I’m delighted by some of the new-fangled, urban methods that people recommend. None of them will inspire me to retire my phone bill (and actually pay it), but chasing flies around with a vacuum cleaner or applauding them at close quarters seems comic.

On top of all this, I notice that a shifty-looking wasp is visiting the elaborate, rustic pipe on the side of my house that the power lines come through. I worry that another nest is developing in there. In a moment of fury I sprayed hairspray and mouse into the cracks around the pipe, before realizing I was messing with a potentially lethal electric charge and revealing powerful secrets of hair-care to unworthy insects. So I followed up by filling the cracks with “DAP Kwik Seal." No self-respecting wasp will be stopped by such a wimpy sealant, but maybe they’ll decide that my apartment is more trouble than it's worth.

Then I'll be safe. Until the locusts come.

Ugh, Borat

It's taken me three days to watch the Borat movie. I don't like watching aggressive confrontations and I'm not a fan of average people being made to feel uncomfortable, so I watched it in chunks, sometimes with my head partly turned away.

This is too bad because I really like the Borat CHARACTER. I think he's much more consistent than Sacha Cohen's other characters, and when he gets on a roll (at the doctor's office, for instance, or at the Pentecostal meeting), he's disturbingly captivating.

And fearless. Jeez, it's just INCREDIBLE the way people respond to him in New York City. Cohen is apparently seeking to reveal western insanity through Borat, and watching men scream at him in the subway or run away from him on the street certainly makes the point: yes, humans are sick.

But then he's insulting a nice couple at a Bed & Breakfast, or disturbing everybody at a high class dinner, or smashing up an antique shop, and I can't help wondering: why? If anything these scenes show us how ACCOMODATING people can be, far beyond when they should have kicked him out. Borat ceases to be a catylist and becomes, simply, a horrifying nuisance. And that's when I can't watch.

My favourite moments were the scripted parts. I think Cohen is much funnier when he isn't disturbing innocent bystanders. And kudos to Pamela Anderson for playing along. But jeez, this stuff always leaves me feeling icky, and not just because I saw a hairy, obese man sitting on Cohen's face.

Alright, it was worth it for the naked fight. Yes.

People

Today, at breakfast, a preppy couple in their mid-30s were seated at the table next to me. Just as I arrived they asked the waitress for directions to the bathroom. They left and never came back...they'd done a "dine and dash."

What was shocking about this was the utter RESPECTABILITY of these people. They were yuppies. They had expensive haircuts and nice clothes. They did not fit the stereotype of people who are thrill-seekers or who can't afford breakfast.

But I'm happy that some people still manage to surprise me with their unpleasantness. If I hadn't been shocked by the deadbeat yuppies I'd be worried.

Psychology classes teach you all sorts of pithy factoids that stick with you through the years, and one of them is that people who suffer depression tend to have a more realistic view of things -- world events, future prognoses, the way they're percieved by others -- than do happy people. I've always believed this was true, but I realize now that I've looked at this issue from only one direction...the path to happiness MAY be ignorance (it's bliss, apprently)...

...or maybe the problem is that we have UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS for human behaviour? Maybe we expect too much? The first step may be seeing selfish unpleasantness in human nature, but the NEXT step could be to see this as NATURAL. This could lead to hedonism, but it could also lead to Kate Bush's "Rubberband Girl" philosophy: rather than get depressed and angry when somebody does something supid/annoying/cruel/selfish, just "bend" with it. Why SHOULD you get frustrated by something that's natural? The frustration may come from believing that people SHOULDN'T behave in this way, which is stupid if (like me) you believe that everybody does, now and then.

(An important part of this is to assume that you yourself are just as stupid/annoying/cruel/selfish as the average person, of course).

This all gets uncertain when I acknowledge that I can't be SURE that selfish unpleasantness is a basic human trait; I might just see it because I'm projecting my OWN selfish unpleasantness on others, or maybe I'm just selectively noticing the things that annoy me (see the earlier post about persection and Beelzebaby).

On Saturday night, on the bus home from Toronto, I practiced this theory by tolerating the guy sitting next to me, who smelled like a rotting gym towel. His odour was oppressive and almost made me gag. It washed over me in waves, depending on his posture.

I tried to look at him in two different ways:

1. He's selfish/stupid/dirty. This is an actual character trait. It stems from him being clueless and not caring what other people think.
2. He's a bit clueless, but just doesn't wash his clothes often enough. When he got caught in the rain the vaguely smelly bacteria in his sweatpants began to thrive and multiply, and now he smells far worse than he's ever smelled before, and he's acutely embarassed by this.

The first is the pessimistic approach, the second is the optimistic one. Given that the guy seemed totally oblivious to everything and wasn't particularly pleasant -- and that, c'mon, it takes EFFORT to smell that bad -- I had to settle on the first approach ("realistic.")

But then I get frustrated. I think, "what a stupid, selfish jerk! I shouldn't have to sit next to him for 90 minutes while people in other seats sniff around and wonder if it's ME who stinks. He doesn't deserve friends or pleasantness or positive reinforcement!"

And I admit my world philosophy is that people are, generally, selfish and annoying, including myself. But rather than get ANGRY and DEPRESSED about this, shouldn't I be RESIGNED? And I don't mean "resigned" in a bad way, I mean in the same way that I'm resigned to gravity and work and the fact that shoes don't last forever. Shouldn't we all just "bend?"

Caveat: People delight and amaze me, too. I have wonderful friends and I see people behave wonderfully every day. But I always assume that they, like me, have a gunky, nasty little imp sitting inside them. Can anybody say they don't? And can anybody who SAYS they don't be telling the truth or be even remotely self-aware? Hmmm.

My New Digs: Misdirected Persecution Complex

I think it's natural for human beings to feel persecuted. Rather than admit the random scariness of life -- random because life is so complex that we can't possibly predict it or make sense of it -- we prefer to interpret the bad events as some sort of persecution. What's more, if we believe that somebody else is deliberately hurting us, we by extension feel important enough to warrant the effort that goes into persecution, and we also feel superior to the people hurting us: we'd never be so nasty ourselves, would we?

Part of me likes to feel persecuted. Let's call that part "Beelzebaby." The OTHER part of me recognizes this tendency and, after objectively (or obsessively) reconsidering events under the influence of correct blood sugar, this part usually prevails. Since I'm so concerned about what other people think of me, I also have a tendency to analyze other people's motivations for doing things. And that helps me triumph over Beelzebaby once in a while.

I'm going to explain how this relates to My New Digs in a second, but first let me say that Beelzebaby serves another useful purpose: if I feel that other people in the world are stupid jerks who do stupid and mean-spirited things, by logical extension I can make myself a better person by NOT doing those stupid and mean-spirited things, right? The downside of this is that we ALL do stupid things, and due to the pervasive tendency for humans to think that evil motives lie behind stupid behaviour, OTHER people think we're doing MEAN-SPIRITED things too. So it's a losing situation in the long run but a little self-improvement never hurt anybody.

Let's get to the point of the story. My neighbours and I have a curious relationship in that we never really see each other -- our doors are on opposite sides of the building -- but we share a center wall that transmits (and perhaps even amplifies) sound. What's more, we also share a very small parking lot.

I don't drive a car but my friends do. Last Saturday I had a "mini-party" that involved a car being parked in the tiny lot. I didn't give my friends any parking instructions, and I didn't notice where they'd parked when they came into My New Digs, so for a few hours one of their cars was blocked in.

Later, when we piled into the car to go to Club Renaissance, we found a note attached to the windshield asking us to PLEASE be more careful next time. This is a sweet and gracious gesture, especially since the note was elaborately (and sort of hilariously) wrapped in Saran Wrap to keep it from getting wet. Being drunk and happy, my persecution complex didn't kick in and I assumed everything was A-OK, and later that night I left a (poorly wrapped) note in their doorway apologizing for the inconvenience and asking if their heat was working properly (since I'd fixed it a few weeks previous as mentioned in another entry).

I figured one of them would come over to accept my apology and/or respond to my heat inquiry, but neither of them did. My persecution complex kicked in: maybe they didn't like me? Maybe they took the parking lot issue more seriously than I did? Maybe they thought my reply was flippant, or thought I was making fun of their Saran Wrap?

On Wednesday afternoon I happened to run into Jenny ("call me K.C."), who said it was no problem and explained that her roommate's boyfriend was the one who got blocked in. She also said the heat was working again. Still Beelzebaby whispered in my ear that they don't like me, they've got a grudge against me...it's certainly true that they aren't "warm" to me. Maybe they don't like hearing Bob Hope at 8am any more than I like hearing them making dinner at 11pm. I'd love to be able to hash this stuff out with them, but that sort of thing is best done when drunk and our relationship isn't at that level.

On Thursday night I put my garbage out, and I also took the recycling bin to the curb. I think of this as my small samaritan duty, my willingness to take the recycling out, mainly because I get home from work earlier than they do. But the thing is, they never put anything into the bins...we have two of them near my back door, and I always fill one up but they never touch the other. Later that night they took their garbage out as well...

...and guess how they recycle? They stuffed all their plastic bottles and soup packets into a flimsy, open cardboard bouquet box, and just left it at the curb. Of course the recycling truck didn't pick it up, because (doesn't everybody know?) that they'll only pick up the official bins.

So Beelzebaby whispered in my ears again: your neighbours are irresponsible and dim-witted slobs. They don't even know how to recycle. And, what's more, two days later their bouquet box was STILL sitting in the snow at the curb, looking ugly and on the way to getting buried and frozen until somebody would have to deal with it in the Spring.

But then I stopped to think about it more: maybe they really DON'T know how to recycle? If not, would they be insulted if I left them another note? I didn't want to clean up their garbage myself because they'd never learn to do it themselves. Then I looked at the backyard through their eyes and realized: maybe they think BOTH recycling bins belong to me, since they're so close to my door? Maybe they did this because they're angry because they think that *I* stole the bins?

You see how the persecution complex gets out of hand.

So I decided the best thing to do was to take the second recycling bin, put their bouquet box and bottles into it, and leave it near their porch. That's my way of saying "this bin is yours, and you need to use it." I'm not trying to be condescending or vindictive. But K.C. surely has her own Beelzebaby. Will K.C. come out of her house today and say to her roommate, "oh, SOMEBODY'S leaving us a HINT, what a JERK"?

Postscript: This morning at 7am I was awoken by frantic pounding on my front door. It was Fedora Nerd, who lives in the other building which shares our parking lot. He asked if my car was blocking him in. I sent him next door. Eventually The Boyfriend sheepishly came outside and moved his car so Fedora Nerd could get out of the lot. Yes, this is the same guy whose girlfriend left me The Note last weekend. He'd done exactly the same thing.

My point? We tend to get riled up about other people doing stupid things, but at the same time overlook that we do exactly the same stupid things. Even if everybody does only one stupid thing a year, we see so many people every day that we're bound to see lots of stupid things happening, and therefore to assume that people are just stupid. Some of them are, certainly. But not all of them. And even when people do stupid things, they usually do them for reasons other than basic cruelty or stupidity.

H. Jaeckel & Sons Still Stalking the Ladies

A few months ago I posted two 1926 adverts from H. Jaeckel & Sons featuring women being stalked by men who looked like American Psychos.

To their credit I've seen about three more of their ads, and none of them follow that particular plotline. This one I found in the February 12, 1927 issue may not be about stalking either -- maybe that guy's her husband, who was also lured out by the balm of spring -- but here it is anyway, just to be cautious:

It won't be long before the balm of Spring will lure one to the morning constitutional. Our cloth coats for the morning walk are a pace in advance of everyday fashions.

On an unrelated note I think the dog's on amphetamines.

Bye, Tokyo Rose

You might have already heard that Iva Toguri, aka "Orphan Anne" and "Tokyo Rose," died yesterday in Chicago. Ever since I listened to the few surviving recordings of her show and read up about her tragic life, I've felt a certain affection for her.

If you want to hear a short clip of Iva saying goodbye back in 1945, click here.

On next week's episode of Repeater I'm going to try to play one of her shows (if I can find any that are audible enough). Yes I know the schedule is out-of-date...I'm not maintaining the site anymore, but it does tell you how to listen to the program.

See ya, Orphan Anne...you deserved better.

Stalking the Advertisements of H. Jaeckel & Sons

Thanks to Vanilla I am working my way through "The Complete New Yorker." Since it was a "smug bon mot" magazine in its early days, I generally find the advertisements more interesting than the latest snuffy gag about prohibition and debutantes and Yale football.

I've started to become aware of these CREEPY ads from H. Jaeckel & Sons, furriers. Besides having the lighting and mood of a 1920s Tod Browning film, they also tell the ongoing cheerful story of a woman (in a fur coat) who is being stalked by a man (who is also in a fur coat). What's even more strange is that the write-ups are only tangentially related to the disturbing images, as though the IMAGES were the real point and the ADVERTISEMENTS only an after-thought.

This one (October 16, 1926), shows a woman being chased up a flight of stairs:

If we inclined to "punning" we might say furs are going up. The situation however is this: Really rare furs are found in two or three shops in the entire world. We are included in this rather limited circle.

Then there's this one from October 23, 1926, in which two young ladies are being followed by American Psycho:

Boyhood's game of Follow-the-Master is carried into manhood with no dimunition of the spirit of pursuit. Masculine eyes will eternally follow the fur coat that contains and expresses beauty.

It's a no-brainer to say that "following women" had different social connotations eighty years ago. Even so, the first advert made me think "hmmm, that's strange." The second advert made me think that H. Jaeckel & Sons had an unsavoury fetish.