Books Lying Open
¤ The Complete Tales and Poems, Edgar Allen Poe
¤ Shelters of Stone, Jean M. Auel
¤ Abarat, Clive Barker
¤ Hearts in Atlantis, Steven King
¤ Everything's Eventual, Steven King

Soul-Devouring Worry
¤ Not always being fascinated and supportive of every single thing your sweetie enjoys.

Curse of the Day:
¤ May you have a case of wine and and unwilling drinking partner.

Phrase of the Moment:
¤ Phrase: I don't like that at all.
¤ Usage: "I didn't like that at all."
¤ Synonyms: That forcibly removed me from my happy place.
¤ Deviations: "I didn't like that at all."
¤ Origin: Malaya-ism.
¤ Notes: Best issued after a seemingly minor setback, delivered in a sad little voice, over a pouty lower lip.  Provokes amusement and sympathy in the heart of a sympathetic listener. -- August 19, 2003

¤ Amusing and apparently scandalous news here.

ROME (Reuters) - A church in central Italy may need reconsecrating after police discovered it had been the location for a pornographic film, Italian media reported Thursday.

The local priest said the film crew told him they were shooting a wedding scene in the church. But actually, a man dressed as a priest was filmed having sex with a woman playing the bride.

My reaction would be a big, "So?"  So some people had sex in the church. So what?  I'm sure the church would be annoyed, but hey, the movie people paid good money to rent the room; can't they pretty well do what they want while they're renting it? Damage deposit and all.  Apparently not.

The priest of nearby Gioia dei Marsi said that under canon (church) law the Bishop of Marsi, Lucio Renna, would have to re-bless all services held in San Vicenzo, east of Rome, since the film was shot in 1998.

That's pretty funny, in a "thank god it's not me." sort of way. So they've got to hunt up like 50 wedding parties, three dozen funerals, etc, and re-bless all of them? I take it the people who were married there are still legally married?  And they don't have to dig up grandma and sprinkle holy water on her coffin or anything?  And I guess that the molesting of an altar boy in the vestibule isn't something that requires a reconsecration, or it would be a monthly problem at most churches in the US.

¤ Cabin Fever, a new horror movie, is opening this weekend.  I didn't think much of the teaser, mentally writing it off as another cheesy horror movie, but when I glanced at Rotten Tomatoes a couple of days ago I was surprised to see that Cabin Fever had overall very positive reviews.  Something that almost never happens for horror movies.  The percentage positive has declined a bit, but it's still overall positive, holding at 71%, with 61 reviews counted as of Friday afternoon.

Most of the people who like the movie are very positive, and say it's smart and offbeat and very, very funny.  Very gory, somewhat scary, well directed and written, etc.  Not things you often hear about a horror movie. I've read about a dozen reviews, mostly positive ones, and it does sound like something I'd find amusing.  The interesting thing to me is how much some critics disagree.

Friday morning Ebert's weekend reviews go online, and I was curious to see what he thought about it.  I don't track things well enough to see if his movie preferences overlap my own, but he's the best writer of all the film critics I know of, and often his reviews are long and very funny.  In the case of Cabin Fever, he gave it 1.5 stars, and clearly just did not get it.  He criticizes the offbeat wacky weirdness that most other critics applaud, and just generally seems offended and bored by the movie and it's jump around attempts at humor. Ebert:

The film could develop its plague story in a serious way, like a George Romero picture or "28 Days Later," but it keeps breaking the mood with weird humor involving the locals. Everyone at the corner general store seems seriously demented, and the bearded old coot behind the counter seems like a racist (when at the end we discover that he isn't, the payoff is more offensive than his original offense).

That same humor and wit is what so many of the other critics applauded and enjoyed, and the end of the movie payoff to the "This rifle is for niggers." remark that the corner store coot makes was quoted by half a dozen other reviews as one of the funniest things in the movie, while Ebert singles it out for the opposite reason.

If you read half a dozen reviews, you'll see various critics singling things out from the movie, and often disagreeing on them. Several say the party-happy town cop is hilarious, while others say his character is death. Here's Ebert again:

There's a deputy sheriff named Winston (Giuseppe Andrews) who is a seriously counterproductive character; the movie grinds to an incredulous halt every time he's onscreen.

And yes, several other reviewers say he's hilarious.

I had given no consideration to seeing Cabin Fever before seeing the positive reviews.  Once I saw them I was curious and thinking "maybe?"  Now that I've seen Ebert's review, which so perfectly encapsulates all of the other "I didn't like it very much." reviews, I'm even more curious, since I want to see how I react to the apparently divisive elements that are splitting so many reviews into love vs. loathe camps. It's just a matter of convincing Malaya to let me drag her along.  Since she likes horror movies and dragged me to see Freddy vs. Jason, that probably won't be too great a chore.  And I will, of course, blog about it if I do go see it.

I'm also leaning towards seeing Once Upon A Time in Mexico, just because they blow a lot of stuff up and shoot each other and it's got a lot of good looking movie stars in it, and I've long heard that the first two movies in the trilogy are pretty good, despite their low budget, semi-home movie origins. Critical mass is mixed on it, with an overall 64% positive, and most of the recommending reviews are of the, "it's pretty good, despite..." type.

I'd say the odds are about 60% that we'll see Cabin Fever, and 45% Once Upon A Time In Mexico.  But then again, I'm not a betting man.

So we were walking towards the restaurant and as we got to the door, I noticed another couple walking towards us.  The man was unremarkable, early 40's or so, wearing jeans and a polo shirt.  The woman I did notice a bit, since she was short and very skinny, and wearing what appeared to be scandalously short skirt. I figured they had to be shorts, or maybe the dreaded "skorts" which is a garment that is shorts, with a sort of sweeping panel that goes around from one hip to the other, but only in the front.  So the woman appears to be wearing shorts from behind, but a mini skirt from the front.

Inside the restaurant Malaya and I went around to the right side of the big central salad bar, and when the other couple got there a minute later they went around to the left, so we were across from each other.  As we worked out way down, picking salad stuff out, Malaya and I began to eye the other two, trying to figure out what was up with them.

Besides the woman's very short skirt (which we couldn't see over the salad bar anyway) she looked to be about 18, 21 tops, while the guy was at least 40, and possibly 45+.  My first thought was father/daughter, but they had a sort of couple vibe about them, and by the time we got to the cherry tomatoes and cucumbers he had stroked her neck once, and by the time we got to the salad dressings, they had exchanged a little peck on the lips.

At that point I was hoping they were a couple, and not related (unless by marriage) for obvious reasons.

They continued to touch each other, though actually it seemed to be a lot more of him touching her, but as Malaya and me got through the cashier sooner, we lost sight of them when we went to get soup and muffins and such, and had mostly forgotten them by the time we sat down.

However we had done little more than take a few bites of salad before I saw them walking towards us.  They turned to the left and took a booth along the wall, both sitting on the same side, with the girl (woman?) sliding in first, and thus effectively being trapped by her husband/boyfriend/captor.

We also got a look at the girl's skirt as she walked towards the table, and I thought it was a skirt, and Malaya agreed, which made me wonder how she was going to sit down.  Answer, very quickly, followed by sliding over to the wall with equal alacrity.

I don't ordinarily notice a mini skirt, so let me assure you this one was short.  I'm talking hot pants length, though not that tight.  It wasn't this short, or everyone in the restaurant would have been looking.  But it was short, more like this, maybe. And no, it wasn't metallic glitter red, or anything like that.  Dark blue or black stretch material, I believe.  I only remember it at all since she had those very skinny coltish legs, to the point of looking knock-kneed.  There were several inches of space between her thighs as she walked, which just made the skirt look even shorter.

I had been making "Date or kidnapping?" jokes to Malaya since we were in line and noticed that the man was at least double her age, and we continued to amuse ourselves along that theme during the meal.  We were also waiting for them to go by again, since the whole point in eating at Sweet Tomatoes is that you can get endless refills of everything.  No one goes there and gets everything in one trip; you get salad and maybe a soup and some bread, and then you go get more soup and a different kind of muffin, or some pasta, or fresh fruit, or yogurt dessert, or whatever.  More than you can carry at once, plus you want to get it fresh, not eat it after it's been sitting on your plate for 15 minutes.

Well, our happy couple proved the exception to this rule, as they never budged from their seats during the time it took Malaya and me to eat our first course, go get more, and return.  As we were working on the second round of nums, the mystery couple got up and walked out together, and that was that.  I kept my eye on their booth to see if they'd return, but a busboy came by and cleared out their trays and dishes shortly after they got up, and that was that.

So yeah, this story has a rather anticlimactic ending.  We never got a face to face look at them to judge their ages more accurately (though we were less than 10 feet away over the salad bar, with good lighting, so I'd have no problem sticking to my 18/50ish age estimates in a court of law), and never got a close look at the girl to see if it really was a skirt that she was wearing so short.

Any one of the odd things about them wouldn't have prompted a blog entry, but when you put her skirt, their age differences, them eating only one course and leaving quickly, and their weird body language in line, it's been poking at my mind to write about it for a week. I was put in mind of the whole Elizabeth Smart situation, where some very young girl ended up with this older Svengali kook, and followed him around for over a year, apparently willingly filling a role as his second wife, or first mistress, depending on how you look at it.

Possibly I'm all wrong and they are happy together and don't see why the rest of us gots to persecute their February/October romance.  And if she's going to stay that skinny of course she's only eating one course at Sweet Tomatoes, and if she's that skinny she might as well wear ridiculously short skirts.

And it's all in my head that it just looked like he maybe didn't want to let her wander off alone, in case she grabbed someone's cell phone and dialed 911, or just tried to crawl out the ladies room window.

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