Random Thoughts

I'm not sure what it is about spending the summer in Austin, but it seems to be sapping my ability to write this blog. I just can't think of anything to say. Lately, I confess, I've been more interested in the presidential election than local Memphis issues - no doubt because I'm not in Memphis anyway, and this is a historic presidential election. Nonetheless, I hate to see this place lying dormant and gathering cobwebs for too long, so here's a collection of totally random thoughts I've had recently, some on the subject of cities, some not so much:

• It's hot as sin in Austin. It was hard to believe when we arrived here in May that already the temperature was skyrocketing into the upper 90s - at the time, it was still beautiful in Memphis, in the mid 70s. Now, the upper 90s are a reprieve, and it's frequently in the triple digits. So I thought that exercising outside would be an impossibility. I recall trying to go for an hour-long walk every day last August in Memphis, during the horrendous triple-digit heat wave when it didn't dip below 100 for nearly three straight weeks. I managed to do it, but it's a miracle I never passed out and rolled into the Mississippi River. I would come home and basically just lie on the floor in the crucifixion position with the air conditioner on full blast and pant like a dog. Not an experience I care to revisit. Nonetheless, I've been feeling like a complete sloth lately, so I decided to try going for a walk and see if it was a bad as I recalled - and, miracle of miracles, even though it's been at least 97 every day I've gone, it's really not that bad. Sure, it's hot, but at Town Lake, there are TREES EVERYWHERE casting SHADE over the ground. The sun doesn't beat down on you like the wrath of God. And there are WATER FOUNTAINS at regular intervals, for your drinking (or, I confess, bathing) pleasure. After a few days of walking, I even started (gasp) running, something I never imagined I could do in such blistering weather. Memphis, it's been said before, but it's worth saying again: PLANT SOME FRICKIN' TREES.


• My brilliant friend the field guide to memphis has been on an absolute roll lately, posting one dazzling post after another on the problems - and possible solutions - facing Memphis. My Texas-induced laziness has prevented me from even leaving a comment, but you've got no excuse. Read her last few posts and let her know what you think.


• Heads up: certified eccentric weirdo Crispin Glover is coming to Memphis! Thanks to the good folks at Black Lodge, he'll be screening films and answering questions at the Palace Cinema on August 5th, 6th, and 7th. For my money, Crispin Glover's most memorable moment came in the classic alienated-teenager flick River's Edge, a sadly forgotten little gem from the 80s which should be screened alongside Heathers as part of somebody's "The Kids Are Not All Right" film festival someday.


• Speaking of movies, the Orpheum is once again screening classic films all summer, and once again the list is thoroughly predictable and uninspired. I have no objection to including Casablanca and Gone With the Wind every summer, but if you're going to stray from the beaten path, must you do it with The First Wives' Club and Gladiator? Seriously? Look - I like American movies. My absolute favorite movie of all time, Chinatown, is not just an American film but in many ways a classic film about America. But America is not the only country ever to make movies. Couldn't we just once dare to show a foreign film during the series? Here are two random suggestions: Les Diaboliques and In the Mood for Love. The former, because it's a Hitchcockian thriller with a shocker of an ending that anyone can get sucked into - it's not arty, it's not slow, and there are no long takes on a man lying in bed pondering the universe while he smokes a post-coital cigarette, or whatever it is that we imagine happens in pretentious French films. And the latter, because it's absolutely beautiful and tragic and impossible to forget, but more importantly, because Wong Kar-Wai's latest film, My Blueberry Nights, was filmed partially in Memphis, so we might as well revisit some of his earlier classics.


• Skyrocketing gas prices, as frustrating as they are, might just be a good thing. Whenever I see a story about people in Los Angeles taking mass transit, I know the winds of change are blowing. (Oh god, did I just reference the Scorpions? I'm sorry... I hope you don't have that godawful whistling stuck in your head now too...) L.A., of course, is the poster child for car-dependency and terrible urban planning. Yet when I was there way back in 2002, staying all the way in Long Beach, I took public transportation everywhere. Light rail (yes, there is light rail!) and buses. If it's possible there, surely it's possible anywhere.


• Glenn Greenwald absolutely skewers Obama for his support of the wretched FISA compromise. And he's right: it's inexcusable. It smells like triangulation. And I doubt it's even politically necessary - while this is an issue that has electrified the netroots, so far as I can gather your Average Joe on the street is barely aware of its existence. I understand you simply can't take certain positions as a serious presidential candidate in this sometimes depressingly reactionary country, but this isn't one of those issues. This is just spineless.

All right, enough rambling. I've made my meaningless contribution to the blogosphere for the week. Allow me to leave you with something I never knew existed: Jeff Buckley's cover of Bob Dylan's "If You See Her, Say Hello" - as far as I'm concerned, one of the saddest of sad songs. I had no idea Buckley had covered it:



OK, so it's not as spine-chillingly perfect as his cover of Hallelujah, but it's worth a listen.