There Will Be Strawberry Jelly

There was an Oscar party yesterday at Seth's friend's house. I think between he, I, her, and her roommate, we had seen about half the films that were up for consideration overall, but we'd each seen Juno at least once.

In the station on the way there, a saxophonist played "And I Love Her" for spare change. If he hadn't been on the opposite side of the tracks, I would have given him spare dollars. Among other things, this prompted Seth and I to spend most of the ride there singing "Bohemian Rhapsody."

This is the same friend that we spent both Christmas and the Superbowl holidays with, and so we inadvertently established a tradition of toting copious amounts of food on the train and stuffing ourselves silly upon arrival. We'd agreed that our dishes had to correspond to a nominated film. Her roommate got mini pecan pies and jelly to stand for the meat pies and blood in Sweeney Todd. Seth got french bread and baby brie for Michael Clayton, and pickles and peanut butter for Juno. I brought milkshake supplies for There Will Be Blood.

I watched a Barbara Walters interview with Harrison Ford in a segment before the ceremony. His first agent had told him that he'd never go anywhere in the business. She asked him if it bothered him that he never won an Oscar. He said no. I think I'd rather have his career than an Oscar, anyway. She asked what he would most like to be remembered for in his lifetime, and he said, "As a good collaborator."

The red carpet pre-show only made me feel contrary. The other three spent that half hour criticizing the hell out of the outfits and actors, and I spent it contradicting them out of spite, regardless of whether or not I agreed. Which usually I didn't.

I was already ripe with a food baby before Jon Stewart got warmed up, and my best friend didn't win his category, but mostly I didn't have any major beef with the decisions. I especially enjoyed the Tribute to Binoculars Montage, when the voice-over announcer stumbled over an actress's name, and when one of the winners for Best Original Song got to come back on and make her acceptance speech when she was cut off by the musicians.

Gnosis

"The Origin of Love" from Hedwig and the Angry Inch started playing from my iPod over the sound system at Oren's. I was toiling over various milks and shots when my boss, doing the same, remarked casually, "You know, when Hedwig was off-Broadway, his drummer, Dave, was a manager over at the Waverly store."

"Yeah?" I said, intrigued.

"Mm-hmm. Actually, the bassist, Chris, was also an assistant manager at the store on 79th. And John Cameron Mitchell's boyfriend at the time, I don't remember his name, was a keymaster at the store on 3rd. He ended up overdosing, though, so he's no longer around. It was really very sad."

"Wow!"

"Yes, and actually, the guitarist also worked on 3rd with John Cameron Mitchell's boyfriend. And Chris's girlfriend Kara also worked at the 79th store, but she wasn't a manager. And, Stephen, the guy who wrote the words to the songs--"

"The lyricist?"

"Right, his name was Stephen Schwartz then, but he took his boyfriend's last name, so now he's only known as Stephen Trask. Stephen worked part-time here, on 58th. Pretty much everyone in the band except for John Cameron Mitchell. But he was the only one who stayed with it when the movie was made."

There was little left to do but marvel. And finish the drinks.

No Melanie Daniels

Leah told me that the worm probably graced my windshield because a bird picked it up, then decided it didn't want it and dropped it. This makes sense because all the robins around here became morbidly obese the four or five days of rain last week and one more morsel was just too much.

Or the bird could have been launching its own neo-Hitchcockian attack against Kirksville mankind in retaliation for their air pollution, neverending hunting season, and poor food scrap quality, all while taking advantage of a weekend downpour's worm harvest.

Too bad for the worm, though--it died nonetheless.

Terror Watch, Level Red

I took a trip to St. Louis yesterday for the duration of twenty hours, half of which were spent sleeping. It was not a wasted trip: I saw The Host, a Korean monster movie, and The Birds, a classic American thriller, and spent time with Christian and his mom. Before I even turned on the car, though, I got in and met face to face with a quandary: a worm on my windshield.

Maybe I am ignorant or of little faith, but this was enough to puzzle me off and on throughout the trip. True, it rained the day beforehand, but a downpour doesn't make a common earthworm strong enough to brave the metallic jungle of my car's exterior to wriggle onto my windshield for no apparent reason. I was left with no other explanation than someone put it there. Some vicious urchin placed this poor worm on my car in either mysterious retribution for a forgotten misdeed of mine, or else I was the victim of the first annelid terrorist attack in known history. Somehow I'd like to believe the latter.