In celebration of a certain friend of mine returning from a warm and semi-tropical place I am going to relay a story to you regarding an interesting situation that she found herself in. No names of course, and events may be slightly dramatized.
This friend of mine loves vampires in all their forms. It was she that forced Buffy on me until I actually liked it, and it was no surprise that she adored the first Twilight movie. She teamed up with another friend of mine to sing its praises, repeatedly, until at last I agreed to watch it. I hated it and thought it was dumb (But I was also exhausted and hungover and guilt-ridden due to inadvertently crashing a wedding the night before and probably slightly anemic from all the blood I lost through the gash in my lower back created when the best man tackled me onto a wine glass like an asshole). And though many of my friends have devoted time to these books with all their vampire allure, Mormon values, and easy to follow plot, I refuse to indulge in this cultural phenomenon.
So, my friend was sick the other week, a flu of some sort, and she was laid up in bed for about five days. Finally well enough to sit up and do some reading she decided to read the Twilight series. Because when you're sick you don't want to do much thinking. She blazed through a few of them and found herself at a crossroads. She could stay home in bed and watch movies she had already seen, or she could go out and buy the rest of them.
She went to Borders. A Borders out somewhere on the edge of town, Jantzen Beach or something, where no one would be able to identify her or remember her face. Apparently, (this is what she told me) she kind of smelled and I also imagine her looking very pale, with dark circles, almost like a vampire herself. She couldn't find the books, was circling aimlessly through self-help and diet books and then looked up, (probably picked up their scent) to see them glistening in a large and ostentatious display. Balloons, ribbons, lunchboxes, stacks of books on the table. She took off in a half skip, half run towards the display, full of sick joy , and then tripped over her feet and in a complete collapse of dignity, pulled the whole display down on top of her as she went. The whole thing. She recalls a lunchbox being the sharpest item. Needless to say, it was a shit show and a perfect example of intellectual karma and I would have payed no small amount of money to be there.
On a complete side note, my friend Aaron is going to be dj'ing tonight at the Mercy Studios Opening Party at 537 SE Ash. He is an excellent dj and I can only imagine that it will good. I've heard him explain that being a dj is about developing trust. No musical alienation here.
My friend Gabe and I have a running Werner Herzog movie night. We love him. Gabe first introduced me to Mr. Herzog with Aguirre the God of Wrath and we followed up with Cobra Verde. We also saw Bad Lieutenant at the Mission a couple months ago. He's so great. The long shots, the pace, the dark, spiraling stories, the madness of Klaus Kinski (and Nick Cage for that matter), all the making-of drama that is inherent in a Herzog film. He stole a bunch of monkeys for the ending of Aguirre the God of Wrath in this cartoonish I'm pretending to be a vet and these little guys are under quarantine sort of way. Who does that? And then apparently brags about it? 
