The Useful Ones

Cheering the Hell Up, Day 06: Coffee and Tuna Nicoise!

tuna Sometimes you eat the bear; sometimes you meet him at Starbucks and you both get to eat (or at least have a beverage).

Yes, the communicatrix finally met internet giant Citizen of the Month, the one, the only Neilochka! For me, it harkened back ye old days of online dating, only we are both involved with other people and this wasn't a date. But the strange, I-sort-of-know-you-but-I-sort-of-don't feeling was the same.

Given that we're both enormous dorks, you'd think we'd talk about...oh, I don't know, dorky stuff, and maybe gossip about our readers (okay, his, since there are only five of you here and that's hardly enough for a conversation). But mainly, we ended up talking about food, my wacko diet, the delicious rolls at a particular bakery in the Farmer's Market that Neilochka had arrived early to consume so as not to torture me, why factory farming is evil.

We also talked about cooking and learning how to eat properly which, unless you're a ga-jillionaire, involves cooking. Being a straight man, Neilochka never learned to cook; being a man-like straight woman whose mother hated cooking, neither did the communicatrix, at least, not until she was 31, jobless and married to a different straight man who also didn't know how to cook.

Sadly, I can't really teach anyone how to cook; all I can do is make lame-ish suggestions based on my own experience. And in my experience, it's helpful to start out with a few VERY simple recipes (i.e., not stuff from The Silver Palate) and branch out from there as you gain confidence with handling food and understanding which flavors go well together.

Today's non-lession was inspired by the tube of anchovy paste I picked up at the French grocery store in the Farmer's Market. Generally, anchovies, sliced, dressed fishies, are a component of a delicious French salad, Nicoise (which just means "in the style of Nice", which is where there are a lot of goddam fish). For most of us, anchovies are just a punchline involving pizza and truly, truly disgusting, but they do have a nice, salty, robust flavor that adds a certain I-don't-know-what (translation: je ne sais quoi) to a dish. And anchovy paste, which removes all recognizable traces of the fish it came from except for the picture on the box, is a great way to add zip without triggering the gag reflex.

Nicoise also usually involves boiled and cooled, skinned (or not) red potatoes. These are not SCD-legal so I skip them now, but if you like, go ahead and boil yourself a batch of the baby ones (they scream as you drop them in the water) and halve or quarter them to add once cooled.

SALAD NICOISE (adapted for the Specific Carbohydrate Diet)

1 can water-packed, solid albacore tuna 2 hard-boiled eggs 2 cups haricot verts* 2 tablespoons capers 10-15 Kalamata olives (optional) 10-15 cherry tomatoes (optional) 2 cups lettuce, washed and torn up (I like spicy mixed baby greens)

DRESSING:

3 tablespoons olive oil 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard 1/4" squirt anchovy paste (totally optional)

Steam the haricots verts in a little water on the stove until just tender-crisp (not wiggly!) and let cool.

While the beans are cooling, chop the eggs into 1/2" sized pieces. (Don't worry, they don't need to be perfect.) Drain the tuna well. If you're using them, pit and cut the olives into quarters and halve the cherry tomatoes.

Arrange the lettuce in a wide, shallow bowl or on individual plates (this recipe makes about two servings for piggy me). Layer the cooled beans on top of the lettuce, then flake the tuna from the can with a fork on top of the beans. Strew the chopped egg and capers and olive pieces on top of the tuna, in that order (looks best!). Arrange the cherry tomatoes on the side of the dish.

Whisk the dressing ingredients together in a little bowl with a fork. Pour the dressing on the salad and eat!

See, Neilochka? Even you could make this delicious, healthy salad as easy as un, deux, trois!

xxx c

*long, skinny, French green beans. Trader Joe's sells them bagged and frozen; you can find them fresh at some markets. You could substitute regular green beans in a pinch, but the haricots verts are soooooo much better you shouldn't judge the recipe till you've tried them.

Photo by bzibble via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license

Cheering the Hell Up, Day 04: Making Breaking Up Less Hard To Do

mourning First off, for you alarmists out there: no, nothing's wrong in Paradise. The BF and I are still happily "The BF and I."

But I recently made a new friend who recently broke it off with a boyfriend and it got me to thinking about my own past breakups, oft necessary parts of Getting To Happy, but not always fun in their own right.

No advice is one-size-fits-all, so consider everything I'm going to say like a pile of stuff at an outdoor flea market that you can either pick through lazily out of interest or ignore wholesale for the smelly, superfluous pile of ca-ca it is.

Also, this advice is mainly for chicks because, despite all of my efforts to be very manly, I am a chick. If you're a dude...well, maybe #3 & #4 cross the gender line, but basically, I don't know. The best advice I can give is go seek out some dude advice. (Do dudes even give advice?)

For you ladies, read on...

1. Do more hanging out with women right now. GREAT women, who inspire you. Not "girls." And especially not catty girls. It is also fine to hang out with gay male friends who love you and will tell you how gorgeous/fabulous you are. It is even fine if they are catty, as long as it's about the right stuff and makes you laugh.

2. Avoid like the plague anything that makes you feel old/ugly/loser-esque/etc. For me, this means all women's magazines and other lifestyle porn (except maybe JANE and Oprah's magazine) and supertrendy L.A. hangout spots. It is also very good to avoid people who are at all unsupportive or even just well-meaning but have their heads up their asses. Keep your force field as clear as you can of human detritus.

3. Ditto news of anything that makes you feel depressed. This includes "important" but devastating coverage of Darfur, chimpy, peak oil, etc. Quickly skim headlines to make sure the world isn't coming to an end today, then move on.

4. Do lots more of what is unusual and fun for you, provided it is of a creative and inspiring and active nature, and not a passive, consumer nature. Consider spending less time (and money) at the store and more at sites like Inspire Me Thursday and 52 Projects. Be with friends (the good ones, the positive ones) but do as much of it alone as you can. Let yourself rock out aloud with the joy of it all.

5. If you haven't yet, consider reading He's Just Not That Into You. Yeah, it's annoying and cheesy and embarrassing for a variety of reasons, most unintentional. But you don't have to buy it; you can read it in about a half-hour standing up in the aisle at the bookstore (after my last breakup, I read it in a Borders I don't usually frequent because I am a gigantic pussy). And like it or not, it distills the truth about women taking crap off of men like nothing I've ever read.

Of course, nothing heals like time. But a bit of awareness during the healing time might prevent future repeats. Sticking your head into a tub of ice cream feels good in the moment, but doesn't do much to evolve you from emotional knuckle-dragging.

Besides, ice cream is off-limits if you're SCD...

xxx c

Image by scottwills via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Cheering the Hell Up, Day 01: Strawberry-Chicken-Walnut Salad!

chicken-strawberry salad I play the sympathy card when it comes to me and the SCD, but make no mistake: the Specific Carbohydrate Diet* is ten billion-gazillion times (a) easier to follow; (b) lenient; and (c) tasty than 99.99% of the cockamamie diets out there. And it's healthy! And it doesn't make your breath smell like the three-day-old vomit of a furry mammal that crawled in your mouth and died somewheres around your midsection!

As the late, great Elaine Gottschall, standard-bearer and patron saint of the SCD, used to say when someone on the listserv would grouse about all the things we couldn't eat, "Stop complaining and think of all the wonderful foods we can enjoy!" And Elaine didn't even have to be on the SCD; she put herself on it in solidarity with her ulcerative colitis-afflicted daughter (who fully recovered from UC after two years on strict SCD).

One of the great things I can and do still enjoy on SCD that normal people like, too, is salad. True, the days of throwing a little brown rice (starch is a no-no) or feta (ditto, fresh cheeses) or tofu/beans (see "brown rice") are over, but there are puh-lenty of coolio things to throw in a bowl and call "lunch", especially in Southern California, especially in spring and summer.

The above pictured salad is my own variation on one I sampled at a terrific eatery in Ojai (whose name, alas, escapes me) a couple of years ago. It's primary components are chicken, strawberries and leafy greens, but it also serves as a great template for how to put together an "interesting" (i.e., non-iceberg, non-mixed-greens-with-a-cherry-tomato) salad in general.

The Communicatrix's SCD-Legal, Idiot-Proof Strawberry-Chicken-Walnut Salad

SALAD: 3 skinless chicken breasts 1 cup walnut pieces 1 pint strawberries 4-5 green onions 3 stalks celery 1 outrageously overpriced package fresh tarragon (or good handful from the garden) 1 package mixed baby greens (or lettuce of your choosing, or no damned lettuce)

DRESSING:

5 tablespoons walnut oil 3 tablespoons champagne or white wine vinegar

MAKE THE SALAD: Poach chicken breasts (simmer in water to cover with an optional bay leaf) until cooked, 5-10 minutes. Let cool. Chop into bite-sized, salad-y pieces.

Meanwhile, toast the walnuts in a 350ºF oven until golden-toasty brown, about 8 minutes, but keep an eye on them. They burn quickly! Let cool.

While this other stuff is going on, wash all your produce and dry it if you haven't. Then...

Slice off strawberry tops and discard; slice remaining strawberry into 1/4" (or nice, salad-y sized) pieces.

Slice off ratty part of scallion and celery tops and the roots; slice remaining bits into 1/4" (or...you get the idea) pieces.

Chop up that tarragon, sistah!

Arrange lettuce in large, shallow bowl. Strew chicken pieces, walnut pieces, strawberry slices, scallions, celery and tarragon on top.

Purists can whisk the walnut oil and vinegar together first; I just sprinkle the oil and then the vinegar right on top of the salad because I am LAZY and have a TINY KITCHEN with no room for DIRTY DISHES.

***

More importantly, this recipe serves as a kind of template for an easy, protein-based salad. The general idea is to have:

1. a protein for substance (cooked, cut-up chicken or beef or pork; grilled, meaty fish like tuna or swordfish; shellfish like cooked shrimp or scallops or crab)

2. a fruit, fresh or dried, that goes with it, for sweetness (think lighter with chicken, strawberries, grapes, pears; heartier fruits like apples, oranges and grapefruit work with beef)

3. a toasted nut for variety and omega-3 (walnuts, pecans, almonds, pignolias, etc)

4. greens to fill things out and keep things moving down the chute

5. an onion, for snap (scallions, thinly-sliced sweet onion or red onion or maybe shallots, lightly sauteed or not)

6. veggie "filler" to get your 5-7/day (cukes, celery, radishes; tomatoes; carrots, although you'd probably want curls, like you'd make with a vegetable peeler, so they don't overwhelm; roasted, sliced beets, if you dig 'em, although they can be overpowering and/or central to a salad, so you might want to adjust other ingredients; etc.) NOTE: sometimes the fruit and the veggie filler together can be like wearing all your jewelry at once, not so tasteful. Try to imagine the flavors of your favorite salads before you throw in everything willy-nilly.

7. a dressing (hearty for beef/pork, wine vinegar & olive oil & dijo, or an SCD-legal yogurt-based blue-cheese dressing; lighter for the others, some light vinegar like cider or white wine and olive oil always works)

8. complementary, preferably fresh, herb (tarragon, basil, rosemary, cilantro, etc; pronounce the "h" if you are a Brit, don't if you're a Yank)

OPTIONAL:

9. a tasty cheese for fatty goodness! (any SCD-legal, cuisine-appropriate thang, thinly-sliced cheddar, swiss, parmesan, asiago, manchego, etc.; non-SCDers can also opt for feta with a Greek-type salad or bufalo mozzarella with an Italian chix/tomato/basil salad)

I like to mix up all the stuff except the greens in quantity, then add greens and nibble off of it for a day or two. The flavors get more concentrated the second day, but the dressing will wilt the greens.

Enjoy it with your favorite beverage and just TRY being crabby. I dare you...

xxx c

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Beef with Broccoli without _________

broccoli!

It occurs to me that while I've been bitching and moaning about what I can't eat on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, I've done precious little talking about what I can eat in my sugar-free, starch-free world.

Since I've been craving one of my old delivery staples, beef with broccoli, for some time, I finally decided to see if I could approximate it at home in SCD-friendly fashion.

The primary no-no in all commercially-prepared Chinese food is hidden starch. Obviously, the sticky rice is verboten, but the sauces themselves are generally laden with cornstarch, soy sauce (which ontains wheat and soy), shortcut liquid extenders (i.e., which contains commercially prepared broth with starches) and sugar. SCD cooking is stripped of all these, so our sauces tend to be thinner (unless you cook them down within a drop of their lives) and less "coat-y". But we are allowed honey and, after we've been on the diet a bit, tamari in judicial doses, so a quick scan of the following recipe I found via cooks.com looked like it was adaptable:

STIR-FRIED BEEF AND BROCCOLI


BEEF:

2 tsp. soy sauce
1/4 tsp. sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
3/4 lb. boneless sirloin, cut across the grain into 1/4 inch thick slices

SAUCE:

1 tbsp. cornstarch
1 tbsp. soy sauce
1 tbsp. med. dry sherry or scotch
1/4 c. chicken or beef broth or water
1 tsp. sugar
2 tsp. Oriental sesame oil

STIR-FRY:

3 tbsp. vegetable oil
1 tbsp. minced peeled fresh ginger root
1 tbsp. minced garlic
1 (4 inch) fresh red chili, seeded and minced (wear rubber gloves)
1/2 tsp. dried hot red pepper flakes
1 lb. broccoli, cut into flowerets and stems peeled and cut into 1/2 inch thick sticks
Cooked rice as an accompaniment

 

Prepare the beef: In a small bowl, stir together the soy sauce, sugar, salt, add the beef and let it marinate for 20 minutes.

Make the sauce while the beef is marinating. In a small bowl, dissolve the cornstarch in the soy sauce and stir in the sherry. Add broth or water, sugar and Oriental sesame oil.Put 3 tablespoons oil in stir fry pan or wok, add ginger root, garlic, fresh red chili, and broccoli. Finally add beef and cook until meat is ready. Serve with rice.

So here's what I did to make it legal:

STIR-FRIED BEEF AND BROCCOLI


BEEF:

2 tsp. soy sauce 1 tsp. tamari
1/4 tsp. sugar 1/2 tsp. honey (more than I need, but makes it thicker)
1/4 tsp. salt
3/4 lb. boneless sirloin, cut across the grain into 1/4 inch thick slices

SAUCE:

1 tbsp. cornstarch
1 tbsp. soy sauce 1 tbsp. tamari
1 tbsp. med. dry sherry or scotch
1/4 c. chicken or beef broth or water
1 tsp. sugar 1/2 tsp. honey
2 tsp. Oriental sesame oil

STIR-FRY:

3 tbsp. vegetable oil
1 tbsp. minced peeled fresh ginger root
1 tbsp. minced garlic
1 (4 inch) fresh red chili, seeded and minced (wear rubber gloves)
1/2 tsp. dried hot red pepper flakes
1 lb. broccoli, cut into flowerets and stems peeled and cut into 1/2 inch thick sticks
Cooked rice as an accompaniment

Prepare the beef: In a small bowl, stir together with fork the soy sauce, sugar whisk the tamari, honey, salt with fork, add the beef and let it marinate for 20 minutes. Make the sauce while the beef is marinating. In a small bowl, dissolve the cornstarch in the soy sauce and stir in the put the sherry scotch. Add broth or water, sugar and Oriental sesame oil. Put 3 tablespoons oil in stir fry pan or wok, add ginger root, garlic, fresh red chili, and broccoli. Finally add beef and cook until meat is ready. Serve with rice.

With these few simple adjustments, the dish is completely SCD-legal and, I might add, delicious! The BF, who can eat whatever the hell he likes, damn his eyes, chowed down an enormo-portion. Some people might say he did it to please me or with ulterior motives, but since (a) we had already had sex earlier that afternoon and (b) he got up and left the table when he was done to go lie down and take himself a nap while I was still eating, thankyouverymuch, I don't think that's the case. QED.

Anyway, just a little something to show you that SCD can be lovely and delicious just like regular-people food.

And in many cases, a helluva lot better for you.

xxx
c

Photo by Ben McLeod via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license

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I {heart} Western medicine...and chopped chicken liver

little girl with bowl of yummy chopped liver

The lie of Western medicine (here's your silver bullet; see me in two weeks) gave my dad permission to live with for-shit quality of life for 40+ years.

The truth of Western medicine (hey! quantifiable information, here!) allowed him to live out those 40+ years, period.

I just got word from my G.I. doc that my iron levels came back waaaay low on the blood panels we had done this Tuesday. Which means that much of the fatigue I've been struggling with is likely due to shitty (ahem) iron absorption over the past few months, and not necessarily because I'm in the death grip of a Crohn's flare.

According to Doc, this is an easily fixable problem with the administration of a handy OTC iron pill and a strategically placed stool-softener.

According to me, this is an easily fixable problem with the administration of a few pints of organic chicken livers sauteed with onions in butter and whirled together with salt and a dash of fine whiskey in il Cuisinart and some strategically placed almond-bread toasts.

You see!? We both agree this an easily fixable problem. Who says the Establishment and the hippies can't get along?

xxx
c

UPDATE:

Colleen's Highly Loose Recipe for Chopped Liver

1 lb. chix livers, rinsed and patted dry
1 big-ass sweet onion, sliced super thin
2 T butter
1 T olive oil
1 T scotch whisky (optional)
Salt to taste
Chopped hard-boiled egg
Something to put it on or a spoon or your finger.

Heat oil until hot on high heat. Add butter. When butter begins to brown, add onion. Let cook until onion browns crispy, stirring.

Lower heat and add chix livers. Saute until almost cooked through (okay to cut one and peek.)

When just done, slide the whole thing into Cuisinart, add Scotch and process until smooth (or pulse if you like it chunky). Add salt to taste. Enjoy, and watch your iron count soar!

Photo of DELICIOUS chicken liver by Susan NYC via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Order up!

Hot dog with the works! I have been getting better, but this intestinal healing is some sloooow going and you don't want to push it. It's kind of like going back to Baby Tummy. First, when you're in a flare, you literally get a big, air-filled, protruding baby belly. Super-sexy. Second, in the same way that it might be inadvisable to feed a baby one of those excellent Chicago kraut-'n'-pickle dogs with hot mustard and a side of chili fries, it is similarly better to feed baby belly things that are easily digestible on both the mechanical and heat indices.

Unfortunately, when you're on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, your bland choices are even more limited. There are no breads, rice, potatoes, puddings, custards, muffins, English muffins, crackers, pasta, tofu, quinoa, milk, oatmeal, Cream-of-Wheat, Jell-O or pretzels. And, since the things that make those things illegal, sugar and starch, mainly, are present in minute amounts in most convenience food, there is also no soup, that mainstay of Baby Tummy cuisine, unless one makes it oneself. From scratch. Including the broth.

When you have baby tummy, the last thing in the world you want to do is make your own goddam chicken soup from scratch. Homemade "Jell-O" (juice and Knox gelatin), maybe. Chicken stock, no.

So life becomes very small and predictable. Omelette for breakfast. Hamburger and green beans for lunch. Banana in there somewhere. Maybe some (homemade) applesauce or (homemade) applesauce or (homemade) yogurt. Poached salmon, if I can find the wild-caught kind. (I'm not normally so fussy, but I get weird about genetically manipulated, pesticide-laden food when my immune system is being highjacked by 6MP.)

Which is why I freaked out when I went to my friend Kathy's house yesterday and saw her son's lunch. Or rather, smelled it. Broken up hamburger with peas and spinach, covered in ketchup, microwaved.

I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.

Fortunately, I already had some (homemade) ketchup, so all I had to do was load up on peas, spinach and ground sirloin, hurry home and cook it all.

As I've mentioned before, it was not ever thus, and it will not always be. My baby tummy will repair itself eventually, and be able to tolerate not only the full range of the SCD (which is not only diverse, but delicious and far better for you than the standard American diet), but the occasional illegal that creeps in here and there.

Until then? Slow is the new fast.

xxx c

Photo by dyobmit via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

It was not ever thus

Tiny infant, bawling Here's the thing to remember when you have been sick or sad or otherwise sporting the cosmic "kick me, hard" sign on your back for a long, long time: this is not who you are.

You are not this collection of aches and pains that consume your body now. You are not this bundle of anger and fear and despair that you feel you are now. You are not these bills, these woes, these slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. These are things that are happening to you? That's just what they are: things that are happening to you.

Your essence lies deep within, possibly being tested to the limits of its endurance, probably pissed off, but there, at the heart of you, is the heart of you.

Have I been tested? Sure. Yeah. Have the tests been as arduous or lengthy as many of my brethren? Hell, no. For as lousy as my Crohn's has made me feel, I wouldn't trade places with anyone. A-n-y-o-n-e. The devil you know, and all that.

But I forget sometimes, and maybe sometimes you do, too. And sometimes when I forget, there's no one there to remind me: it was not ever thus.

So I will remind you and perhaps, the next time I fall down the well and can't see the light, you will lower down a basket with a snack and a comforting note to remind me: this is not who you are, this wet darkness, but something you're sitting in. Maybe you will even find the right length of rope or somesuch to throw down there so I can climb out.

But mainly, I hope you will be there for me, or whomever needs you in the moment, to make sure I do not forget:

It was not ever thus.

xxx c

Photo by Megro, via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Basic Instinct 2

basic2.jpg I have been told by my shrink to back away from the NY Times Best Selling Books o' Depression* list and to spend a lot more time with movies that will afford me the benefits of that best of medicines, Mr. Laughter.

So what was #1 on my to-do list after being shut in for two weeks? That's right: the new film about Sharon Stone's snatch!

If you've forgotten, it's been 14 years since Miss Stone's snatch first grabbed the spotlight in the original. The premise was ludicrous, the script was ridiculous, the acting was serviceable. And none of it mattered because Sharon and her snatch were magnificent. MAGNIFICENT, I tell you! She was feral and sexy and smart and every single minute she was onscreen, she and her snatch were on fire. You could not look anywhere else. She was the very definition of supahstah!

So 14 years later, L.A. Jan, the world's best sport, and I hauled our own middle-aged snatches to the twilight show at Century City (which is $10.50, now, btw) to see Sharon and her snatch rise again. My short review?

O cruel, cruel time.

Don't get me wrong, Sharon still looks hot. If she's had work done on her face, it's unnoticeable, and her body is smashing. But putting aside the egregious wardrobe and styling, she was like some horrible, tranny cartoon of herself. And in a completely different movie than all of the quiet, in-the-pocket British actors around her. That's the fault of the director in the same way that the LUDICROUS script is the fault of the writer, but the real problem is Miss Sharon Stone, who is too far up (or down) the digestive tract of the Hollywood star machine to be of much use to herself or anyone else.

Friction is good. Having to fight and sometimes even claw your way to things is good. While I hate conflict myself, there is no doubt in my mind that having to clear hurdles of money and time and commitment have made my acting and writing better/stronger/faster. This woman? Clearly, she has no one around her to tell her she looks ridiculous. La Stone and her La Snatch are the buck-naked empress and her royal pussy, borne on a litter of hangers on, wearing horrible clothes, jaw-droppingly awful extensions and acting like a bad Skinemax version of temptress. (Note: the pussy was not wearing extensions; in fact, the pussy was not even in view, as far as I could tell. But this was shot in London, where everything is quite dark, including the police station, the sky and the clothes of all its citizens.)

This is not to say I didn't enjoy Basic Instinct 2. I did. I laughed and winced and was agog at the increasingly implausible turns this movie took. But the overall acting was too good (Charlotte Rampling? HOT! David Thewlis? DOUBLE HOT!) for this movie to achieve high camp. So what you end up with is a good cringeworthy movie, but not the sort of praise-jesus-pass-the-lemonade trash of Valley of the Dolls, Mommie Dearest, or anything made by the Modess corporation introducing young women of the mid-century to the joys of menses.

Paul Verhoeven and Joe Eszterhas were the dream team of trash, producing both the original Basic Instinct and that sine qua non of camp, Showgirls. Whether trashy or campy, there was nothing sedate or correct about their films; they were unabashedly, whole-heartedly, gloriously exhuberant, shameless in the pursuit of the idea, cowtowing to no one's idea of correctness.

Today? Pfft. I laughed, I enjoyed, I'd even recommend it as a curiosity. But would I ever watch Miss Stone and her 46 (!) year old snatch again?

Not likely. And not because it's old, but because it's...

zzzzzzzzzzzz....

xxx c

*Thank you, Fred!

Image via IMDb.com

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How to have a great colonoscopy

cscope 0904

Via a sad letter* in Cary Tennis's "Since You Asked" advice column on Salon.com, I discovered that March is National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month.

As the recipient of no less than four six search missions up my asshole, I feel that perhaps I have some valuable information to offer those on the fence about whether or not to submit to the amazing photographic biopsy machine, and how to proceed once one does.

NUMBER 1: Take care of your asshole, don't be one

Starting at 50, you need to be screened. (Earlier if you've a family history of colorectal cancer; I was told to be screened at 40, since I'd had an uncle DXd with cancerous polyps.)

Yes, a colonoscopy is nothing but a big, fat punchline (for some people, anyway). Yes, it's daunting, the thought of having a foreign object shoved up your butt (for some people, anyway). Don't worry: if you follow some pretty easy steps, it's really a no-big-deal operation. Talk to your doctor and get a referral to a specialist who can give the exam.

One note: if you have any kind of gastrointestinal problems or family history of inflammatory bowel disease (Crohn's or ulcerative colitis), I'd suggest having them screen for that at the same time, and having a gastroenterologist do the colonoscopy rather than a colorectal surgeon; they'll likely do a more thorough job of screening for GI disorders.
But mainly, don't avoid a screening out of fear of horrible pain. Trust me, prepping for the colonoscopy is usually worse than the thing itself.

NUMBER 2 (heh, heh): Name your poison

How well you prepare for your colonoscopy will pretty much determine how easy the procedure goes. As of my last colonoscopy, there were three types of colon blow to choose from to ready your pipes for the camera:

The worst of the three is FLEET'S PHOSPHO-SODA, an over-the-counter formula available at any drugstore that will violently blow every last bit of whatever out of your intestines, cause horrific pain and cramping and generally make you wish you were dead. Looks innocuous; will kick your fucking ass. Pun intended, and NOT recommended.

Marginally better is Kool-Aid from Hell, also known as "GO-LITELY". This is a saline All of the flavors suck and you have to drink gallons of this stuff. I'm serious: gallons. In a very short span of time. It is much, much milder than Fleet's, but that's about all it has to recommend it.

Finally, there VISICOL, the brand name for a prescription pill one takes in combination with various glasses of water and fizzy drinks. It's not a party, and you've got to swallow an awful lot of them, but I've found it to be the easiest on my GI tract of the three methods.

Remember, the world of meds changes fast and furiously. And with all these boomers headed into the colonoscopy years, you can bet there will be further refinement of technique. ASK! Make your doctor explain the differences to you. Do a little internet research (I guess I don't have to tell you that if you're reading this). You are your own best advocate.

NUMBER 3: A little extra prep pays off huge dividends

Your doctor (or his assistant) will give you a list of things you can and can't eat right before the procedure. If you know what's good for you, don't stop there. Give yourself at LEAST one additional day of extremely light eating before the day you're actually required to, especially if you are one of those people with a slow transit time (i.e., you don't poop a lot, or tend towards constipation). Despite my Crohn's, I've always been one of those people, and believe me, the evacuation process is a helluva lot more pleasant when the purgative isn't blasting its way through the intestinal equivalent of bedrock. I recommend salads and smoothies and broth, along with as much water as you can stand.

NUMBER 4: If possible, schedule first appointment

Due to the mild sedative you'll be given, you're not even allowed water for several hours before the procedure. Combine that with the purgative and lack of nourishment your body has dealt with over the last 24 hours and you want to make sure you spend the minimum amount of daylight feeling like you do. If your doctor offers an 8am appointment, take it; you'll do most of your hungry/icky time asleep, and won't have to worry about expending a lot of energy that you don't have.

NUMBER 5: Lay in a supply of eeeeeasy foods (and videos!) for afterward

You will probably be a little gassy and uncomfortable afterwards: all that colon-emptying creates a lot of residual gas; in addition, they sometimes blow air up your colon to get a better look. You will get hungry anyway, and believe me, you don't want to give your tummy anything challenging or heavy for a day or so afterwards. Again, the facility where you have your procedure done will probably give you a list, but non-heavy soups, smoothies and other "sick" food are a good bet.

You will probably also be not your shining best for the rest of the day. Try to take it off completely, or if you must, only really light work from home. I'm sure there are some hardy souls who spring right off the table and are ready to chop wood or bury the competition, but really, that gas can be ba-a-a-ad, and a day and a half without real food (by the time you're home from the procedure) can make you weak as a kitty.

NUMBER 6: Follow up!

Your specialist will probably go over the visual assessment briefly in the recovery room; you'll get the in-depth results later on. If you're not used to talking to doctors, consider bringing someone along with you to actually hear the news with you and ask questions. Barring that, do a little research, bring questions and make sure you understand what your doctor is telling you. Write it down, if you have to. I know it sounds weird, but we have an uncanny way of not hearing what we don't want to, or at the very least, minimizing it. I'm convinced that if I'd had someone with me the first time I'd gotten my c-scope results, I would never have suffered the violent onset of Crohn's that I did.

That's about it. Please remember, I'm not a doctor and none of this constitutes medical advice. It merely represents the sum total of my experience before, during and after having cameras shoved up my heinie (which is not inconsiderable).

Good luck, and don't forget to ask for a picture!

xxx
c

*You may have to watch an ad to read the link if you're not a subscriber.

UPDATE 7/21/08: After two less-than-great preps with Visicol and a similar prep drug, I'm back to endorsing the Phospho-Soda. Basically, there's no fun prep, but I think this is the cheapest and least awful of them.

UPDATE 5/30/09: Phospho-Soda has been taken off the market.

PHOTO of my beautiful colon by Dr. Graham Woolf, G.I.

LINK: National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month

SXSW: All your Interactive are belong to us

SXSW baggie I know what you're thinking: she went to all of those movies; no way could she have hit up a bunch of geek panels, too.

Way.

Overall, the interactive panels/presentations portion of SXSW was a mixed bag. There was far less actionable information than I'd hoped for, but since I was mainly interested in how you turn something hopelessly unmarketable (i.e., this blog) into something that might bring you a comfortable living, a national forum and self-actualization, I was pretty prepared for finding my hopes unaligned with reality.

Unfortunately, after the first panel we attended, Podcasting 2.0, at my insistence, both The BF and I were ready to forego the interactive part of the proposition and slum at the film fest, where we at least stood a chance at being entertained. The entire proceedings felt thin, weak and hastily thrown together, which, it turned out, was the truth: the panel was a last-minute addition to the schedule, most likely because someone at SXSW realized (or had pointed out to them) that in the age of the podcast explosion, there was zero podcasting presence at this supposedly forward-thinking conference itself.

In stark contrast to the podcasting panel was the Daniel Gilbert Presentation: How to Do Precisely the Right Thing at All Possible Times. Desperate for the schwag, an advance copy of Gilbert's forthcoming book, Stumbling On Happiness, to the first 100 attendees, I dragged the insanely tolerant BF to the next conference room. Like a scene from a movie starring ME, I made a beeline to the schwag girl, watching her hand off book after book from her dwindling supply, a sea of smug recipients peeling off to either side of me. When she handed me the 100th copy, I was certain that this presentation would be a winner; I was not disappointed. Gilbert, a Harvard professor and grampa when he is not giving presentations and writing books, is a smart, funny, engaging speaker who has honed his presentation to a fine edge. But in addition to the interest factor Gilbert for me, pundit-in-training, his material, an exploration of the evolutionary roots of decision making and its effect on the happiness of modern decisionmakers, was fascinating and compelling. I suspect this talk will not show up on the SXSW podcast page, but if you get the chance to hear Gilbert speak, I highly recommend it.

So I'm figuring that the dealio (for me, anyway) is to hit the solo presentations and skip the panels. With that in mind, I trucked on over to the James Surowiecki Presentation: The Wisdom of Crowds, the New Yorker writer's live presentation of his book's content, which was...disappointing. Curses! And so much for my ingenious ferreting out system. Granted, some of the difficulty stemmed from the presentation being held in a large, high-ceilinged ballroom with dreadful acoustics, which itself was adjacent to another ballroom serving as a band's daystage, but Surowiecki himself was clearly at a stage where he's more comfortable as a writer than a presenter, and having no slides or other media to distract from his slight awkwardness didn't help. This is one case where I'd rather have read the book, and to be fair, because the talk's content was pretty interesting, I just might.

I had no idea what to expect with Sunday's Keynote Conversation: Heather Armstrong / Jason Kottke, except for a very large crowd in attendance. Since I've a mild obsession with both dooce (a mommyblogger who went nationwide!) and kottke.org (I became a micropatron after only being a short-time reader), I made sure The BF and I got there early. We met a charming young localblogger who was a freak for dooce and fought over the 12" (PowerBook) until the show started. Again, no real actionable information, but I was there to hear about how they blogged and how blogging affected them and they didn't disappoint. Even The BF enjoyed this one. Podcast available for download here.

Immediately following in the same room was one of the liveliest panels I attended, DIY Now More Than Ever. I'm a huge fan of Gina Trapani from Lifehacker, and she's just as sunny and energetic in person as she comes across on her sites. And humble. Humility was sort of the watchword here: every one of the panelists seemed genuinely grateful that s/he had achieved whatever quantifiable measure of success s/he had. Again, not huge amounts of actionable information, but since I'm not really looking to start a web business or sell a piece of software, I doubt I would have found much more than inspiration and encouragement, which the panel provided in spades.

Personality was my main reason for attending Cluetrain: Seven Years Later, as well. I stepped on the internest bandwagon rather late (not counting my early obsession with epinions), so most of these rockstars don't register for me. I'd heard of Doc Searls, though, and was curious. He's a cool dude, is Doc, laid back and just into doing his own thing. Which, by the way, was my biggest takeaway from SXSWi: do your own thing and whatever will follow, but at least you'll be doing your own thing, which presumably should be reward enough.

DL Byron ran my favorite panel at the conference, Does Your Blog Have a Business? He took his role as moderater seriously and had excellent questions prepared. Not that I have any information to share, I was basically there to see CSS god Jeffrey Zeldman, and wasn't planning to take any notes. I am pretty shy and felt extra shy at my first SXSW, so I didn't actually meet any of these superstars. I did run into DL at the Austin airport, though, and was able to tell him how much I enjoyed his panel. He, in turn, gave me a sample of his new product, clip-n-seal. Damned thing is simple as hell and works like a charm (that's me in the photo above, holding up the new communicatrix cards I had printed up for SXSW, in a clip-n-seal). I hope he makes a bazillion dollars and can quit all his day jobs.

The last two panels I attended were about vlogging, although no one seems to call it that: How to Add Video to Your Blog and Video Blog Business Models. I was astounded at how many people crowded their way into the first panel...and how sparsely attended the second was, by comparison. Especially since, as Michael Verdi from FreeVlog put it, there's an online tutorial that explains the entire thing in detail...for free! There was some useful information, mainly along the lines of length (keep it under 3 minutes), choosing the right medium for the message (blogging vs. podcasting vs. vlogging) and what makes for good subject matter (your hilarious, quirky family members, from the looks of things), but really, the first panel was just fun to listen to. I mean, hell, they're good at presenting live, right?

My takeaway on videoblogging business models echoes my takeaway from SXSW, period: you will most likely get paid because of your presence on the internet rather than because of it. None of the people I saw speak at SXSW, not one of them, started blogging or podcasting or vlogging to make money. Well, I suspect one person who kept cropping up on panel after panel did, but he's the anomaly, and so fucking annoying and full of himself I cannot believe anyone listens to his podcasts, much less that he gets paid for them.

The other great takeaway info I got was this: if you want to do something on the web, see who's doing it now and figure out how you can 'kill' them. Time and time again, I saw that it wasn't necessarily the first person to get there, but the one who did it best. In that way, I suppose all this geeky internutty stuff is like writing (all the stories have been told, you're just telling them a new way) or acting (no one can do Hamlet like you do Hamlet) or anything else (build a better mousetrap, etc).

I guess I went to the oracle expecting something, and the oracle told me I should look first in my own back yard.

Actually, I told myself that...

xxx c

SXSW: Movies! Movies! Movies!

alamo drafthouse Outside of plain old good times, the chief feature of SXSW seems to be overwhelm. There are more great films crammed into a ten-square-block area than I could possibly hope to see in 30 days, much less four. (The 2006 SXSW Film Festival stretches from March 10 to the 17th, but The BF and I were only there for the part that overlapped with SXSW Interactive.)

Then there's the waiting time that eats into your movie consumption. Some of the theaters are tiny, and even with the magic badge that grants you first access, you need to queue up at least an hour in advance to gain entry. (Film passes, at $65 each, get you into a separate queue that gains admission after the Badge People enter; individual tickets put you at the very back of the bus.) The weather was lovely for the festival this year, unseasonably warm for the first three days, and we met some terrific people waiting in line, but still: every minute you're standing in line is a minute you're missing another panel or meetup or film.

Which brings me back to one of the Real Things I Learned at SXSW: a festival, much like money or alchohol, brings out the truth in people. My particular truth? I lack the easygoing gene. I'm not particularly good at going with the flow, and when faced with the possibility that one of my plans might fall through, I react with a mix of anxiety and crushing disappointment. I do not know why I didn't learn this particular truth about myself 10 years ago when I would break out in hives everytime I had to improvise at a Groundlings Sunday Show performance, oh, wait...yes, I do. I am an uptight control-freak asshole.

Anyway, what was fascinating to me about the film part of the SXSW equation was that it was my first experience with buzz, or the first time I was able to watch buzz play out in almost real time, because of the compacted time frame the festival provides.

Example: we were fairly interested in seeing Darkon, the feature documentary on a Baltimore-based live action role playing group, when we first looked at the schedule. (Well, The BF was, anyway. He's got better film-dar than I.) But after two days of hearing people talk up Darkon, we put it on our must-see list. It did not disappoint. The filmmakers, who spent a year filming the players on and off the battlefields of Darkon, winning their trust and gaining access to some pretty intimate details of the players' lives. As a result, the film offers a fascinating look both on the nature of the outsider (live action role playing is hardly a mainstream pursuit) and the basic human need for drama, connection and expression. There's a sideshow factor, too, of course, it's hard for most of us to relate to a group of grownups spending their weeks duct-taping their plywood and styrofoam shields for a weekend of ye olde combat and a chance at grabbing an imaginary slice of land in an imaginary realm. On the other hand, it's no weirder than scrapbooking, shopping or, let's face it, blogging as sport, so maybe I should lay off.

There was more fine, outsider action at The Last Western, a feature documentary about the rise and fall of a small "Western" town on the edge of the Mojave desert. Pioneertown was a fully-functioning Western movie set built by the Hollywood studios to facilitate filming. It was abandoned by the studios with the falling fortunes of the B-Western, but a number of inhabitants stayed on, creating a sort of Western Island of Misfit Toys. While a bit incohesive as a film, The Last Western does a fantastic job telling the stories of the individual dreamers, outcasts and iconoclasts who populate Pioneertown.

The residents of Small Town Gay Bar are outsiders for a different reason. Choosing to remain in their small, Bible Belt towns for whatever reason (this is never really explored or explained in the film), these gay men and women are (barely) tolerated at best, persecuted or killed at worst, and severely isolated at all times. Small Town Gay Bar is a fascinating look at the need for community and how it will out (no pun intended). The filmmakers do an incredibly thorough job interviewing the various denizens of small town Bible Best gay bars past and present, as well as showing the pressures they face from the community at large and a few especially vocal, intolerant entities in particular.

There are mainstream outsiders, too, of course. In the 2004 U.S. presidential elections, they were called "Democrats", and they struggled mightily to find their collective voice and make it heard. Al Franken: God Spoke documents the plight of American liberal Al Franken, as he worked to save the American people from four more years of tyranny, lies and land-grabbing by the administration in power. I won't lie to you: while often outright hilarious, Al Franken: God Spoke was the most depressing movie I saw at SXSW by a long shot, and I saw movies about gay men in the Bible Belt and transgender males in prison.

Oh, yes, what's more fun than being a liberal in new millenial America? Being an enroute, transgender male in the U.S. penal (!) system. Cruel and Unusual is a look at the special degradation and horror the pre-surgical transgender male undergoes in prison. Aside from the obvious nightmare of having to be some bad man's girlfriend, incarcerated transgenders are routinely denied treatment for their medically-recognized condition, suffering physical withdrawal and severe depression as a result of going off their hormone meds cold turkey. For its important message, I wish I could give Cruel and Unusual the unqualified thumbs up. Unfortunately, I came away feeling that while the subject matter is compelling, the film itself didn't have a point of view other than "this is really awful." I hope it finds life on public television as a special, where its mere reportage quality would serve the community, but I can't really recommend it as a film.

I can, on the other hand, heartily recommend The Life of Reilly, a filmed version of actor/teacher extraordinaire Charles Nelson Reilly's electrifying one-man stage show. Most of us of a certain age know Reilly as a mainstay of 70's crap TV. (Most of the rest of you don't know Reilly at all, which a funny montage in the movie takes pains to point out.) But Charles Nelson Reilly had a major career as an off-Broadway and Broadway actor before his TV years, and an active life during and after as one of America's preeminent acting teachers (he took over Uta Hagen's class when she died). Reilly is smart and funny and a consummate performer; while there are a few awkward "openings up" in The Life of Reilly, for the most part it is a hilarious, breathtaking telling of a fascinating life and a great insight into what makes performers tick.

kustom karMy chief issue with Tales of the Rat Fink, the story of kar kulture icon Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, has to do with the opening up of its story. Director Ron Mann is known for his iconoclastic takes on documentary subjects, but there were so many crazy elements in Tales, animation, talking cars, strange interstitial bits, the end result felt a little disjointed. According to Mann, there was virtually no archival footage of Roth; when Roth died shortly after Mann started the project (it was shelved for some time), the director had to come up with some alternate way of telling the story. To be fair, the cut we saw on opening night had been rushed through to make the premiere, but I think there are structural issues beyond tightening up a few odd editing gaps. To be even more fair, I am on my third Toyota Corolla, which is to say I am so not a kar person. If you like kars, or cool illustration, which Ed Roth is also known for, you'll probably love it.

The only narrative film we saw during our entire SXSW trip was The Notorious Bettie Page. We were mainly interested in seeing films that we weren't sure would get distribution, and Bettie is scheduled for release in April. But we thought it would be fun to see at least one biggie before the general public, since that's part of the thrill of the festival. For a thrill, and a fairly risque, fairly thrilling subject, The Notorious Bettie Page was pretty disappointing. The acting was solid and the cinematography was gorgeous (at least, I thought so, The BF was less impressed). But the script was pretty lame, lots of bad dialogue and a cringe-inducing first fifteen minutes, and the whole thing came off as more of a made-for-TV biopic than a great narrative film.

The BF saw another picture or two without me while I was geeking out at the SXSW Interactive panels, but no big recommendations, so we'll let them lie. I may post some mini-reviews from our new Austinite unicyling friend, Steve Wiswell, if he grants permission. And if you're into it, there are more great mini-reviews on some of the pictures I didn't see at SXSW by Andrew O'Hehir at Salon.com.

Of course, you can always just go to Technorati and hit the SXSW and film tags. SXSW is the nexus of all things arty and geeky.

I miss it already...

xxx c

PHOTOS of the exterior of the fabulous Alamo Draft House and a kustom kar outside the Rat Fink premiere taken by me and The BF with my spiffy new Razr.

The inside poop on SCD

cooking of Takayoki

As I was grocery shopping for what seemed like the 14th time this week, it occurred to me that I haven't ever gone into much detail on what day-to-day life on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet is like for Crohnies (and UC patients), most likely because way back when I started this here blog, I was already down to about 95% SCD-compliant, which, as any true SCDer will tell you, means you are not actually doing SCD at all.

SCD, you see, requires what its major proponent (the late, lamented Elaine Gottschall) called "fanatical adherence". Since it's predicated on eliminating every rogue bacterium in the gut, and since rogue bacteria can have a company picnic on one potato chip, there has to be a zero-tolerance policy towards fucking around. After all your symptoms are cleared up for a year, there's cautious talk about introducing "illegals", but most people on the SCD choose to remain on a modified version of the diet indefinitely, since it's way healthier and they're way scared of a repeat on the room-clearing gas and projectile diarrhea that brought them to the SCD in the first place.

Initially, my few cheats were small, but big: a half-piece of particularly toothsome bread, something I hadn't tasted in 2 1/2 years, on an early date with The BF. A lavender cupcake at a friend's film opening two months later.

But then I hit on what I should really use my cheat allowance for: dealing with the rogue illegals that turn up in virtually all restaurant food, no matter how 'clean' you try to order. Restaurant dining becomes more enjoyable by an order of magnitude when you do not have to grill the server on every, no, seriously...EVERY ingredient. In the steak. Or the steamed spinach. Or the "absolutely plain" house vinaigrette. Because I can almost guarantee you, that "absolutely plain" vinaigrette will have a minimum of three to five non-SCD-compliant ingredients which, in the early stages of recovery, could send you running for the toilet.

Everything was going relatively well (no pun intended) until last December, when I decided to get jiggy with the starches for the holidays. Mind you, my recent transgressions, an entire piece of rye toast at breakfast AND a forkful of potatoes AND a salad with Thousand, all in the same 24-hour period, were nothing compared to my old, "thank-you-drive-thru" ways. But a little too much fast & loose, plus a heavy round of antibiotics after some incredibly minor skin surgery and I was done fer.

So now I am back to square one, at least as far as the diet is concerned. Everything cooked and peeled. Nothing "challenging" like, oh...say...peppers or mushrooms or, heaven forfend, onions. After almost knocking myself out with my noxious wind after ingesting a stray piece of onion in last Saturday's steak dinner, onions are off le menu for awhile. Along with steak.

It is not all bad, though. Tonight we are having baked acorn squash, sautéed baby spinach and bay scallops with shallots in a butter and wine sauce. (Smaller member of the onion family = smaller farts.) There's a vat of homemade applesauce in the fridge (because the commercial stuff might contain sugar), along with homemade yogurt (because the commercial kind definitely contains lactose) and leftover homemade chicken stock (because the commercial kind contains, among other things, starch, stabilizers, gums and the dreaded catch-all "spices").

Collectively, though, they represent dozens of man-hours of shopping, peeling and cooking. That is the hardest thing about following the SCD: finding the time in which to do it. With planning, you can really streamline operations, but the bottom line is it much, much harder to make everything from scratch than it is to 'cheat' with canned broth, pre-made yogurt and a thousand other modern convenience foods. When I'm on SCD, my convenience food is stuff I've made in bulk, portioned up, and frozen.

On the other hand, if you want a lesson in patience, humility and gratitude, you'd be hard-pressed to find one better than fanatical adherence to the SCD. Barring subjection to a major natural disaster or life-threatening illness. And with the worst of Crohn's behind me (there's that ass-punnery again, dammit), maybe it's good to have a little refresher course in the difficulty of day-to-day living for most of this planet's inhabitants. At least I have supermarkets, and a car to drive to them, and the relative security of knowing I won't be shot at while shopping for them (although that graffiti-tagged car in the Vons parking lot this afternoon shook me up a little).

My complaints are tedious and few, and I tire of the whiny voice in my own head as I head out for the store yet again to get what too many people would weep with gratitude over being blessed with.

And so to dinner. And, after we wail through the leftovers, to the grocery store again tomorrow, I'm sure. I've been craving muffins, you see, which can only mean one thing:

Muffin cup liners...

xxx
c

PHOTO: Ungodly, surely SCD-non-compliant deliciousness Cooking of Takoyaki by tab2_dawa via Flickr

The Matador

matador I wanted to open by comparing the excellence level of this film to another excellent (albeit utterly different) film, The Squid and the Whale, but I realized that in my holidaze torpor, I'd completely forgotten to write a review for it...along with Match Point, the Gay Cowboy Movie, and several popular books that other casual readers of communicatrix-dot-com could flame me about.

Perhaps I'll get around to that review someday; perhaps not. I fear part of what stops me from posting reviews is my tendency to prattle on. I fear another part of what stops me is my fear, funny, that. Even critiquing other people's work, I fear I'll never be good enough.

At any rate, The Matador is fun...and serious. It's breezy and rooted; it's formulaic and utterly surprising. It has that marvelous sense-of-place thing I love about my favorite flickeroos, along with beautiful photography, can't-catch-'em-doing-it acting and flawless dialogue.

What it doesn't have going for it (much like The Squid and the Whale and Match Point) is a good title. Bullfighting?! Bleh. There is, however, precious little bullfighting that takes place in The Matador, and I was able to spend most of its screentime refreshing myself in the fabulous powder room of the new Century City Theatres. Frankly, I'm having problems with the metaphorical aspect of matadors and this film. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure that hired killing and hired bull-killing have a lot in common. There's the, um, killing thing. And the exotic locales thing.

Really, I suppose the closest comparison is that matadors and hired assassins are an elite, and perhaps a dying breed, at least, when played with the style and wit of the former .007. (The gloriously-and-yet-never-boringly-middle-class-ness of Greg Kinnear and the always amazing Hope Davis go a long way towards setting that off.)

There is abundant wit and style to The Matador, but it's built upon a firm foundation of story and skill too rarely found these days.

Perhaps great, surprising film itself is the metaphor. So much of what we're subjected to as moviegoers is so...unsurprising. Clunky. Obvious. Modern-in-a-bad-way. The Matador, on the other hand, is both timely and a throwback, like most timeless things.

Olé, muthafuckahs.

xxx

c

Image via The Sun-Times.com

How to get the man of your dreams: make a list, check it twice

heartIt's been awhile since the c-trix blogged about dating. This is only natural, given that she has been blissfully, if somewhat surprisingly, ensconced in a monogamous relationship with The BF for the bulk of 2005. Plus it's the holidays and stuff, people have Black Friday and E-mail Monday and other important issues to wrestle to the ground. At the same time, the management is nothing if not sensitive to the fact that the holidays can be an especially difficult time for those who are single and wish not to be. Hell, the management has spent more than one holiday with nothing but a camera up its ass to keep it company. So when a recent check of the stats turned up an interesting dating-and-the-single-woman blog that's recently linked here (thank you, Dr. Annie), we here at communicatrix were impelled to action.

The post in question raises the question of "dealbreakers": must-have accessory of the self-actualized gal or blueprint for foolish pipe dream?

The post links to an entry on another blog written by a young Adventist Christian hussy (God bless the internets) who very much knows what she wants. In fact, she's enumerated it, in minute detail, for which I applaud her. It can be very scary asking for what you want, but also very, very powerful. I know; I myself wrote a series of these lists in the year before I met The BF. The way I see it, when I finally got the list right, bam! I got the guy who matched the list.

However...

There are two caveats to keep in mind if you want the voodoo to work.

First, you can't be cavalier about the list. The list needs to be a distillation of the things that resonate in the deepest, darkest parts of you. That list needs to be s-e-r-i-o-u-s.

That doesn't mean things like "makes my heart thump from across the room" or "can pound me till the top of my head comes off" can't be on there; they should, if those things matter to you. Anything that really matters should be on the list. It just means you must not sully it with frivolous, superficial bullshit your frivolous, superficial ego has on its shopping list.

So, in this brave new dating universe, "attractive to me" replaces any specific trait you may have found hot in anyone to date (pun intended). "Gets it" replaces a specific level of schooling you think is the benchmark of smart. And be very judicious about your inclusion of lifestyle line items: unless you are a porpoise, best to leave "MUST love the water" off.

Part II of the love juju operation is what most people leave out, and the thing that generally insures against frivolous line items: you, the asker, must be ready for the askee. Not ready as in "I am so fed up with all these stupid mens who don't appreciate my fine self" but with the heightened state of readiness a martial arts master knows his instrument. You have read the books, shrunk with the shrink, risen from the ashes of devastion like a self-evolved phoenix. You have, most likely, spent months or even years at a stretch with naught but your loathesome self (and maybe a camera up your ass) to keep you company. You know humility from false modesty from self-loathing; you take shit off of no one because you have the deep confidence in your choices that comes with time and thought and meaningful action, not because you bad.

In a quick fix world, Part II seems cumbersome, inelegant and tedious. It lacks the can-do, Tools For Livingâ„¢ sexiness of listmaking.

But there is no substitute for knowing oneself, and the alternative, a world full of people with the extraordinary and unprecedented luxury of time for self-evolution who instead choose Doritosâ„¢ and trips to Cabo and other disposable bling of our modern era, is far more horrid to contemplate than even a lifetime alone.

So for the good of the planet, of the rest of us who share it, of the people you and your future love-monkey might put on it, before you make that list of everything you want in another person, make a list about everything you want in a best friend. Or a list of all the traits the most amazing teacher/family member/heroic figure you've ever met possesses.

Take a long time with that list: write, put aside, live your live, come back to it. Rinse, repeat. It is a lengthy process and yes, sometimes a tedious one. But it can also be a thrilling, challenging and even joyful process.

Become that list, and chances are the right person will fall right into your self-actualized lap.

xxx c

Book review: Freakonomics

Everybody knows that economics is about measurement and money and things numerical; that's why most of us find it so damned dull.

But as approached by offbeat economist and Freakonomics co-author Steven D. Levitt, economics is also "the study of incentives": what it takes to get us to do a certain thing, or to not do it, as the case may be. Which makes it human, and therefore fascinating.

This is what I love about this delightful new book by Levitt and journalist Stephen J. Dubner: that it comes at things sideways or upside-down or head-on, but never the usual way. I'm still not sold on some of the more radical hypotheses Leavitt coaxes from the data (the link between abortion and falling crime rates being the most widely reviled and quoted), but I'm 100% there on the importance of throwing the numbers against conventional wisdom to see what sticks. The numbers may not always tell the exact truth, but neither do they lie, making them extraordinarily useful in the exploding of myths.

Levitt and Dubner tell fascinating stories about how to combat crappy teaching, bring  down the Ku Klux Klan and what happens when you call your kids "Winner" and "Loser" (answer: not necessarily what you'd think on any count). But really, they've written a book celebrating the heart of truth: asking questions, and hacks to stay open to the real answers.

As an interesting side note, the prospect of reading something that seemed like it would rock my world long and hard was too enticing to wait for a library copy to become available, but not enticing enough to get me to part with $26 of my hard-earned money. My break point? A 25¢/day rental from the Beverly Hills Public Library, and pushing the rest of my reading to the bottom of the pile. Some might call that cheap, but I'm betting Levitt would come at it sideways and say that I was already giving up time I'd committed to other reading to explore this book, and therefore it was of great value to me.

And you know what? He'd be right.

xxx
c

Pride & Prejudice

After the triumph that was the 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice, I thought we'd be done with adaptations of Jane Austen's magnificent 19th century novel of manners. After all, in addition to giving us stunning production values, crackerjack performances and the definitive Mr. Darcy, the miniseries finally gave us a theatrical presentation that could accommodate the scope of the story. But I'm a sucker for Austen, so I figured I'd catch the wham-bam-thank-you-mum version...at a bargain matinée, of course.

Bottom line? They play a little fast and loose with the Austen, which is weird, and the length of the film necessitates a few hefty story cuts (for a stretch in there, it feels like Austen's Greatest Hits), but the performances are uniformly wonderful, with some really fresh takes on priggish cousin, Mr. Collins (Tom Hollander actually makes you feel sorry for the poor shlub) and both Mr. & Mrs. Bennett (special kudos to Brenda Blethyn, who finally makes one understand how this nagging harridan might still be beloved by her husband and daughters).

What I enjoyed most about the film was the dash of "realism", let's face it, we none of us were there, but it's pretty clear this lot didn't bathe or even tidy up as often as we do, and the drabbish, shabby surroundings made the fun that they did manage to have even more so.

I must confess, my heart still lies with the miniseries. It is a lavish, two-tiered box of Godivas to this utilitarian mix of Cadbury and Smarties. But really, I quibble: this is just that more Austen to love, and that's what Austen should be, loved, and often.

xxx c

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Shopgirl

Steve Martin loves Los Angeles like Woody Allen loves New York. They make their respective cities look like the most marvelous places on earth (at least, for would-be melancholic sophisticates like myself).

The Los Angeles of Shopgirl, the movie, is lustrous and hyper-true and, yes, melancholic. It is beautiful, distilled down to its essence. It is a Los Angeles I know well, and a Los Angeles I have inhabited only in my mind, the glittery carpet of interlinked grids you see from way, way up on Mulholland Drive that usually disappears as soon as you hit the traffic on Sunset. It's the Los Angeles that dreamers fall in love with, and Steve Martin is a dreamer.

The story, slim and fable-like, unfolds at a dream-like pace: a little slow, with all the edges carved off and replaced with perfectly chosen details set perfectly in frame, like little jewels. Mirabelle, the shopgirl of the title, and her perfect retro pendant. Ray, her lover/benefactor, placing a surprisingly knotty hand against the small of her back as they exit a restaurant. Jeremy, the scruffy, seedling lover who isn't quite ready until the last reel, sunlight glinting off his white suit onto his oversized shades and back onto his white suit as he finally reveals his ready-ness.

For most of the film, I sat back in my newly reupholstered movie cradle and bathed in sense of place, my favorite movie pr0n. But by the end, when Ray and Mirabelle reunite at an art show of Mirabelle's and we see that she's broken through to the other side but he still has miles to go, my heart broke, not at all a reaction I had as I finished the little novella that fueled this.

I think this is partly because, even though he wrote the screenplay, too, Martin couldn't overwrite the film. There are real human beings inhabiting these characters, and damn, they're good. Claire Danes fills in all of Mirabelle's blanks with deeply felt, completely restrained emotion. Jason Schwartzman is Oscarâ„¢-fabulous, so riotously, painfully human, you find yourself cheering him on even when he makes staggeringly wrong dude moves. And Steve Martin? Well, maybe you can catch him acting here and there, but his bravery points override any issue I have with that. He is by far the saddest character in the film: as the writer, he knows it; as the actor, he knows it a little more often than I'd like. Compare that with Bill Murray's turn as the impassive superstar in Lost In Translation (go on, everybody else is) and you'll see what I mean. Say what you want about Bill Murray's acting style (I like it, for the most part), he never, ever winks at what's happening.

My friend, Michael Blowhard, is always bemoaning the lack of grown-up movies and predicting doom for the movies in general as a result. Here's a film where 2/3 of the cast is under 30 (plus a slightly-older, perfectly-cast Bridgette Wilson-Sampras as a predatory blonde), and it is as grown-up as they come.

Doom forestalled for one more season...

xxx
c

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Book review: Shopgirl

I am a fan of the old Steve Martin. The SNL/L.A. Story/"The new phone books are here! The new phone books are here!" Steve Martin. I don't get the New Yorker pieces, and the thicket of hype was too thick around Lapin Agile to entice me into seeing or even reading it.

I picked up my copy of Shopgirl, the book, years after it was first published; this particular softcover had an inside cover price of one dollar when I picked it up at a Salvation Army store on the West L.A. And I walked around with it for a bit before I committed even to that.

It was its heft that was the deciding factor. Shopgirl is a slip of a novel, a novella, as the cover proclaims, slight and ever-so-slightly precious, like most self-proclaimed novellas. It feels good in the hand, though, much like I imagine the gloves that introduce its two main characters must feel.

It is undeniably elegant on the inside as well, both in its faintly-stilted prose and the strange, spare atmosphere it conjures up. Shopgirl evokes a Los Angeles more like the one depicted in 1950s L.A. Confidential than the post-millenial version I tool through daily. The archetypes are modern, but they feel quaint, like girdled Suzy Parkers instead of juicy Carmen Electras.

It's not so much that the characters are unreal as it is they are remote, real seen through glass, real seen from one cool remove. What the novel(la) did more than anything was make me want to see the movie; I want to see actors inhabit these characters and bring them to life because I could not connect with them on the page: this Seattle millionaire, this alt.rockboy, this Silver Lake artist/shopgirl. Everything is a clean, sleek surface, with no grubby human bits to grab onto.

Steve Martin has the dark side down, like most funny people. He sketches out a sad, beautiful, believable story of two people running up hard against their limitations. But like Capote, a film I reviewed here recently, it's curiously unaffecting given what the characters are going through. I suspect Martin is a fan of order, and imposes it where he can, thinking the discipline serves the storytelling.

But it's the mess that makes a good story interesting. A writer can clean it up; a writer and director and editor can't.

Which is why I enjoyed reading Shopgirl. But I can't wait to see it.

xxx
c

Buy Shopgirl, the book, on Amazon.
Buy Shopgirl, the DVD, on Amazon.

UPDATE: Marilyn & Neil brought up the whole book-vs-movie thing in the comments, which reminded me that this rare movie-being-better-than-book thing has happened to me before, with Sideways, a delightful film which turned out to be much more tedious and blathery and self-indulgent in book form:

  • My review of the film Sideways.
  • My review of the book Sideways.

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Somewhere in the Night

Lesser noir is fun. Like all noir, it's generally filled with Famous Character Actors of the Golden Age: faces that started looking 35 when they were barely 20 and never looked too pretty to begin with, your Harry Morgans and Thelma Ritters as opposed to your Alan Ladds and Veronica Lakes. But with lesser noir, whatever didn't make it to the top of the pile along with The Maltese Falcon or Double Indemnity, you get to figure out what about it didn't work. Somewhere in the Night is chockablock with Famous Character Actors, Harry Morgan is so far down the list, he's not even credited, and sports direction by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and story adaptation by Lee Strasberg (er...come to think of it, that could be the problem right there).

But if you ask me, what doesn't quite work about it is that its stars are...um...shall we say, 'less than luminary'? John Hodiak has a reasonably long IMDb, but he also sports this farkakte moustache that says "dashing-but-dangerous leading man" less than it does "Rodolfo 'Chance is the fool's name for fate' Tonetti". And Nancy Guild ("Rhymes with 'wild!'"), while unquestionably hot, is...well, when you've done almost as many films as you have husbands, it's no wonder you're not a household name 50 years later.

The story, an amnesia plot with a pretty predictable twist, is good-ish noir, and whoever lit and styled the thing did a damned fine job, but the really absorbing, fun element of the film is (are?) the performances.

Not as much fun as the new Wallace & Gromit DVD release, of course (run! don't walk!), but not a bad way to pass a late-Friday night.

Bourbon optional. Well, in some households, anyway.

xxx c

OTHER FILM NOIR REVIEWED HERE: Out of the Past, with Robert Mitchum

Image via the loathsome Amazon.com whose so-called customer support makes the USPS look like Neiman-Marcus.

Capote

We blather on about Truth-with-a-Capital-T fairly often here at communicatrix, partly because we spring from soil rich with mendacity and partly because we feel it's an important concept to stay in touch with if one is an artist. (Ahem.) Early on in Capote, the main character, played excellently by Philip Seymour Hoffman, makes a big flap about The Truth, specifically, how he always hews to it. Of course, the rest of the movie is about how he twists and turns it and even, in one harrowing jailhouse scene, abandons it altogether. Because of course, there are few artists who aren't ready and willing to abandon The Truth when it gets in the way of making art. Especially brilliant, megalomaniacal artists who are trying to fill an emotional black hole with fame and adoration.

As one of the executive producers on the film, Hoffman is at least partly responsible for getting so many of the details right. The cinematography is exquisite, bleak and stark in the killing fields of Kansas, rich and warm in Literary Party Town, a.k.a. Manhattan of the 1950s and '60s. The casting (with the curious exception, for me, anyway, of Clifton Collins Jr.) is top-notch, and the performances are so good you don't pay attention to them.*

It's not an especially moving movie, though, which I find odd given the subject matter (the film focuses on Capote's years researching and writing In Cold Blood, his non-fiction masterpiece about the Clutter family murders, a senseless and gruesome multiple homicide in West Kansas). I can't put my finger on why exactly, but I've a feeling it springs from being too close to the material: clearly, Hoffman was a guiding force behind this picture and doubtless he felt very connected to the material somehow.

Still, in an age where the measure of a great movie is rapidly becoming the number of times you don't look at your watch in the theater, Capote stands out. It's beautiful at the very least, and engrossing at its very best.

Intellectually, anyway.

xxx c

*This includes a smallish but wonderful performance by a very lovely and talented acquaintance of mine, Miss Bess Meyer, as Perry Smith's sister.

Image ©2005 Sony Pictures Classics

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