I Like Killing Flies: Comfort Food Made With An Angry Kind Of Love

My brother once cooked at an awkwardly undersized breakfast place in the Greenwood neighborhood of Seattle that was once reviewed under the headline: The Unhappiest Place on Earth. The cafe featured cramped tables and mismatched furniture that looked more cheap than campy as well as a perfectly stereotypical, dim-witted, busy-body owner that just wouldn't leave diners alone to eat their meals, acting more as a nuisance and agitator than a hostess. The full-time indifference of the twenty-two year-old waitress was palpable in such a cramped space. The way I remember it, she'd suffered the loss her boyfriend in an automobile accident and although it had happened several years before breakfast, she was engrossed in such a profound and prolonged anguish that she just didn't feel up to bringing out toast or topping off coffee or really even taking orders in the first place. The short review also mentioned the visible anger of the cook, our hero, barking at the waitress's absent-minded, time-consuming mistakes and grumbling aloud from behind the pick-up window about every little break in his routine. The author of the review may even have suggested that he find another line of work. I'm pretty sure Corey would have agreed with him just before suggesting that he shove it up his ass.

Buffalo '66: Vincent Gallo & Christina Ricci Span Time

Even thoughtless jackasses secretly long to be loved. Take me, for instance. Or there is also the case of Billy Brown. Billy has just been released from prison on a cold, winter day and, after serving five years for a crime he didn’t commit, finds that there’s nobody waiting outside the gates to pick him up. He tries to shrug himself deeper into his jacket as he takes a seat at a nearby bus stop and promptly falls asleep. When he comes to, Billy needs to pee. He shuffles back to the prison gates to ask if he can use the facilities where he’s flatly turned down just as the last bus of the day pulls up. Billy then has to take a long, lonesome ride back to Buffalo with a painfully full bladder and the dreadful certainty of only one thing; that his day is going to get worse.

Wall Street Journal: Tim Burton Exhibit Opens at MOMA

While loitering about one corner of the web this afternoon, I came across this article in the WSJ about a new exhibit at New York's Museum of Modern Art featuring the work of multi-faceted, artistic behemoth Tim Burton, whose unique approach to everything from illustration to film has left an undeniable, if not slightly smudged fingerprint on the art world since his sudden emergence some three decades ago. Apart from his work as a film director and producer, Burton's book, The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories is a sentimental favorite of mine and contains a full compliment of his highly-stylized, mildly disturbing drawings which I often return to from time to time for both inspiration and/or a good cry. The body of Burton's illustration work alone is enviable, capable of tempting someone like myself into tossing a favored drawing implement into the nearest and deepest body of water and immediately taking up needlepoint. Bully for you should you find yourself in New York between now and April 26th and are able to see the exhibit up close.

Look for the gorgeous collection The Art of Tim Burton at your local independently-owned bookstore.

Hank and Mike: Thanks, Easter Bunny!

Back in the dark days of video rental, a person had little choice other than to travel to the video store and rub elbows with the public in order to rent a movie for the weekend. In an effort to avoid having to spend any more time than necessary at the nearby rental chain, I always kept a list of movies that I wanted to see close at hand which generally allowed us to get in and out of the store as quickly as possible rather than have to spend time browsing among the collective of ever-present mouth breathers and videogame vampires that didn’t seem to have homes to go back to. Unfortunately, there were a handful of times when I was overly excited about the trip to the smoothie joint adjacent to the video store and I’d leave my list behind, thereby condemning myself to the pathos of the browsing process and becoming that which I hate; a slump-shouldered box turner with bad posture and no apparent purpose.