Daily Blague

Having survived my bout with dentistry yesterday, I was consumed by a need - to go to the movies! Specifically, to go to see Paul Verhoeven's Black Book, which is playing at Lincoln Square. The film got an exceedingly snarky review in yesterday's Times. But I still wanted to see it, partly because Sebastian Koch, one of the stars of Das Leben des Anderen, is in it. I noted that, in a trilingual movie, Mr Koch spoke only German. (He spoke a little English, but no Nederlands.)

Going to the movies early on a weekday night was interesting - there was an audience! I came close to being unable to join it. I blithely took a taxi over to the West Side. It was only as I approached the box office that I examined the contents of my wallet: $22. How did that happen? It was enough to buy a ticket, and, more importantly, a tub of popcorn and a soda. But it meant that I'd be going home on mass transit.

Mass transit - hmmm. A taxi is so much nicer when you're going home! After the movie (which is, indeed, a tiny bit cartoonish, but very taut and exciting; plus, Carice van Houten, the star of the show, channels the platinum blonde of the Thirties with astonishing acuity) I called Kathleen, but she was already in her pyjamas. She said to ask the doorman to pay the taxi fare, on the understanding that I'd repay him in the morning. In my view, that's something that ladies can get away with far more easily then galoots the likes of me. Then I called Fossil Darling, because I was right outside his building. But he didn't answer. I figured that he'd already gone to bed (he was visiting neighbors, he tells me this morning).

So I took the 1 train and the M86 bus home. Ho. Hum.  

Don't miss Ralph Blumenthal's story, "Unusual Allies in a Legal Battle Over Texas Drivers' Gun Rights." The liberal/conservative polarity doesn't work in the context of this issue. The fight is, rather, lawful vs free (a/k/a "lawless").