Actually, You Don't Smell Like a Brewery

Did your mom or your grandma ever tell you that someone smelled like a brewery? I used to sit with my grandparents on their enclosed porch in the summer. My grandpa read aloud from the Detroit News while I perused grandma's Scots Magazine which had articles with names like "Ah, Sangobeg..." and "Leith's Little Eskimo." In the mean time, grandma would monitor and comment on the activities of the neighbors. Almost every day, she had reason to announce, "There goes old MacNeil, awa tae the beer garden." On his way home, he invariably smelled "like a brewery," since he'd been drinking beer all afternoon.

Recently a brewery opened up a few doors from my office. Naturally it is a "micro-brewery." In case you need to know, you can drink as much beer as you want until you pass out or float away and you will never smell like a brewery. You will smell like beer. A brewery emits a peculiar and disgusting odor. Words fail me when I try to describe it or compare it to anything else. So drink your beer and if someone makes a comment about how you smell, smack 'em one.

The Killer Inside Me

 

I could try to be cute and claim that I didn't know Casey Affleck was Ben Affleck's brother. Of course I knew, although I'd never seen him acting before. As a small town psychopath, Lou Ford, who relaxes of an evening playing classical piano, reading great literature, and listening to Donazetti on his late father's Victrola, Affleck will curdle your blood and turn your bowels to water before you finish your popcorn.

Enjoying Una Furtiva Lagrima

This movie is about as noir as noir gets, but the sunlight in 1952 Texas is so bright it will make your eyes hurt, the characters are always sweaty and grimy, and Texas swing plays endlessly on car radios. If you want dark alleys and moody black and white cinematography, you probably should skip this.

Apparently, there was much controversy about violence against women in this movie when it came out. I've seen more than my share of murder and mayhem on the big screen, and I'm not sure I have much light or heat to add to the debate. I will comment that if your story includes people beating other people to death you should probably make it pretty violent, and not in a Quentin Tarantino way.

 

Dental Death Match

I was going to the same dentist in Chicago for about thirty-five years before it hit me that there was no reason he should be entrusted with my teeth for the rest of his career, or my life, whichever ended first. So feeling very pleased with myself, I went and found a new dentist. My primary requisite was that he or she have graduated in 2000 or later. Research shows that psychotherapists' performance improves with experience. I have no reason to assume the same goes for dentists. Under the care of my new dentist I have benefitted from technology much improved since the 1960s. For example, no more scrape, scraping with those nasty looking picks to remove plaque from the teeth.  My new dentist uses some whirring electronic device that takes less than half the time as the old method, eliminates the chalk on blackboard sound, and doesn't involve a less qualified person than he fooling around with my teeth. He is great. If anybody wants his contact information, send me a direct message, as I assume he probably would rather not have his practice associated with some of the weird shit on this blog.

Recently we decided I should get one of those mouth guards that prevent one from grinding or clenching one's teeth while sleeping. A plaster mold went off to the laboratory, but when the wee mouth guard arrived it proved to be tighter than Mamie Eisenhower's girdle! It went into my mouth just great, but we had to take turns wrestling it out, with him exerting masculine force, me scratching my gums, and him exhorting me not to break my nails in the process. After much grinding, adjusting, and inserting and removing, it seems to fit, and I have dutifully been sleeping in it. My name is cleverly inscribed inside the plastic, which again brings me childish pleasure, although I'm not sure what contingency might make that necessary, and try not to speculate too much about it.

Google 'mouth guard images' to see what can happen when you don't use one! 

Dragonwyck

Totally stumbled on the film Dragonwyck due to my interest in Gene Tierney. Some people carry on about how she was the most beautiful woman who ever acted in film. I can't see it, but her work is awesome and her life was very interesting (See Self Portrait by Gene Tierney).

Dragonwyck features Vincent Price, Walter Huston, Spring Byington, Harry Morgan, and Jessica Tandy, along with Tierney. This is an over the top Gothic movie, set in New England rather than the Cotswalds, or where ever else they have in England. This was Joseph Mankewitz's directorial debut, it was produced by Ernest Lubitch, and featured other Hollywood luminaries such as Alfred Newman and Arthur C. Miller. It also showcases a hair-raising performance by Connie Marshall as Vincent Price's daughter, who without a doubt has an impaired capacity for object relations.

Great date flick!