Gina’s Neighborhood

The Olympics are now in full swing, what event(s) are you looking forward to watching the most?

I'm so happy that I've visited this Olympic city in my lifetime; they've seriously been preparing and perfecting the whole shebang for years now, anyone can tell. The events and ceremonies this year were organized with sheer artistic genius, enough to make me worried for London. It's a tough act to follow. Thus, seeing that the Opening Ceremonies alone blew my mind, I'm pretty much hooked on whatever event is on tv when I'm at home. Swimming, gymnastics, synchronized anything, water polo, weightlifting... Hmm, sounds like I'll watch any event where tight stretchy fabric is involved--I swear that is just a coincidence. Go World!

What part of your childhood do you miss the most?
Submitted by Maretta.

I miss the great, wide desert with its little animals--the horned toad, the smallest lizards in North America (educated guess), tiny rabbits, feral cats, the chickens in our coop that hatched the cutest little chicks ever, our dogs, our parrot, my cats, the cows we had one time... It was a Chihuahuan Desert menagerie. Of sorts. We never kept snakes or tarantulas, they came on their own along with centipedes and black beetles. The quail sightings were always followed by at least one member of our family quoting, "Good morning, little prince," from Bambi. There were the random roadrunners that looked nothing like the cartoon, and I mean absolutely nothing like it. It's weird living out in Chaparral you would think there would be ample opportunity to get a glimpse of coyotes. I have never seen a live coyote in my life. The only time I've ever seen the animal was kind of traumatizing. There were maybe five of them dangling lifeless from a chain-link fence outside of Bowen, a cattle ranch we passed every morning on my way to school. I don't miss that part. But everything else I mentioned, yeah, I miss it a lot.

Are you going to be amongst the first people to buy the iPhone 3G? If so, when do you plan on picking yours up and which one will you be purchasing?

I shan't be bothered with such sensationalized consumerism (geez, I'm such a brat). The network BROKE the first day it was out. Like many gigantor corporations, it looks as though Apple just wants us all to make them money and more money and continue to convince us to think that we all look cool doing it. Sure, yeah, iPods, crazy and awesome, but convenient? No. For one thing, batteries. For another thing, theft. And another thing, smugness (more evidence of said smugness may be found in the well-known commercials for Mac). I don't want to be listening to music 24/7. It's like a personal isolation chamber. I don't mean to sound like I'm from the stone age, but seriously. Get out and talk to each other, people! Face to face! Don't be the faceless silhouettes where your headphones are the only visible objects on you that can be defined!

So in essence, I guess I am somewhat anti-iPod (and even with all these rants, it would still be nice to get one for Christmas), but in regards to the iPhone, I think I can admit that I'm an iPhonophobe. It's just got too much stuff in it. Maybe it works for a New Yorker--it's a great urban tool-kit--but really now, how big is the tiny-movie watching, constant-music-listening (and downloading), global-tracking-device-using, photo-viewing, game-playing (yay, I can melt ice with my fingers!), text-messaging, picture-taking, calculator-using, article-reading, YouTube-loving, eBay-bidding, whole-life-in-your-pocket demographic, anyway? Oh, my God, I almost forgot that this machine can take phone calls.

So apparently,the number of interested parties is quite big. 

I shall digress into a previous reaction to an alarmingly similar QotD of yesteryear. I quote myself: "Wanna know what I think of the iPhone?" Hint: It is a subtle commentary on this device's absurdity. Speed it up one more time for us, Raffi!

It's funny when after about two years of being behind the counter on the inside looking out, I get the chance this morning to relish the fact that after hours (or in this case, before hours) the situation is utterly reversed and I get to be the consumer. Well, this morning, I decided to go to Starbucks to get some liquid refreshment before opening the book store. The dialog between barista and I is as follows:

Me: Hi.

Dude: Hey.

Me: (after waiting for him to ask me, "What can I get you," or something of that nature and hearing silence) Um, can I get an iced... green tea... unsweetened... grande? (because I still don't know how to order properly at these places)

Dude: ...Didn't I meet you the other day?

Me: Hmm?

Dude: Yeah, with Manny... and, Sarah?

Me: (wondering why he hasn't rung up my order) Uh, I don't know?

Dude: Yeah, I met you at a party with Manny! You were kind of, like, drunk. (He gives me this look that goes, "oh, yeah," a la Kool-Aid man, he nods, probably with his thumbs up from behind the register)

Me: (I should be appalled at this point) Uh, I'm not sure who you're talking about. (This statement addresses both me and the other two people he says I was with).

Dude: Gay Manny.

Me: Oh! Gay Manny. Ok. (Though I do know a Manny who is also gay, I doubt it's the same one as I rarely see him, much less go to parties where I become supposedly intoxicated with him and one named Sarah. I continue to be baffled)

Dude: That'll be two dollars.

(Finally.)

I give him the money. I wait.

Dude: Oh! Now I know where I know you from. (Oh, no. Here comes) I had you for class. Jewish-American Literature.

Me: (I begin to recognize him) Yeah, with Dr. Roth! I remember now! Thank you for just saving my reputation. (I actually said this, being the snob that I sometimes am)

He finally starts working on my order. He gives it to me and, since there is no one waiting behind me, figures that he can keep on talking.

Dude: So, how did you do in that class?

Me: Pretty good. I got an A.

Dude: Oh, I did okay, too. I mean, I didn't read any of the books or anything, but I passed. Barely. (He looked at me with a sense of accomplishment)

Me: That's great. I read all the books in that class. (I have a knack for making things really awkward, you can call it a gift)

Dude: Okay, well...

Me: (Taking his cue) Yeah, it was nice seeing you.

Upon going to the little fix-ins kiosk to get a straw, he is still staring at me. I can't make out his expression. Hatred? Dismay?  Admiration? Apology? Whataburger?

Walking to my car, I take a sip of the tea. Ugh, he forgot that I asked for it unsweetened.

Moral of the story? Having a conversation with someone you don't know is hard, especially if they put you on the spot, putting on the "don't I know you from somewhere" script five minutes before you have to be at work.

What's your favorite magazine? Least favorite?

Good.

Evil.

How are you celebrating the 4th of July?

Besides raising my hands in praise of the recovered Metropolis footage, I'm going to work. And then I'm begging the boss to close the store early. And then I'm going to a barbecue/swim party where my friends and I will celebrate the nation's birth with burgers and margaritas.

The lost Metropolis footage has been found. Take a deep breath.

I can hardly contain my excitement with this news. Here I was, checking IMDB, expecting the same ol' actor/director/trade news when the most surreal headline of all time appeared. "Lost Metropolis Footage Found." One can only hope that this new discovery will finally make the film sensical and fulfilling like I always dreamed it would be. Watching the currently existing cut is heartbreaking. Not because it's a tragic story, no. It's heartbreakingly void of real meaning. The icons of this meaning are all apparent, but the power is negated with its incompleteness. I hated watching those black marquees that tried to explain what would have been happening (based solely on the memories of the audience that first watched it). I feel like watching it again so I could better explain this because right now it feels like I just said nothing (my apologies, you just wasted some time).

But no, really, I am ecstatic with this news. Imagine finding those delicate pieces to that puzzle you never thought would be complete because your little brother who knows nothing of its importance drops all the pieces on the floor and you reconstruct it the best you can but you're still missing several pieces in the middle. So when you look at it, it's not a complete rolling landscape. And it will never be beautiful again. But now it can! Because you just found the pieces eighty-one years after you bought it! Behind a couch in Argentina!

Metropolis

What's your favorite soundtrack?

VELVET GOLDMINE! Runners-up: Trainspotting, Romeo + Juliet.

Ladytron

Thom Yorke with the Venus in Furs

What is a childhood memory that still haunts you?

Wow. I still think about this every now and then. Even though it's not so scary anymore, it frightened me for many years after I saw it when I was about five or six years old. It was the Thriller video with Michael Jackson. My mom and I were watching music videos one Saturday morning and then it came on. I was scared, but not absolutely terrified at first. The metamorphosis was creepy, the zombie dance was creepy, but really neat, but it wasn't until the very end of the video, when he comes in to tell his date that everything's all right and then Vincent Price's sinister laugh is heard over the most petrifying face. You remember which one. He gets the yellow werewolf eyes and looks SO, SO scary. I covered my face and jumped to my mom. That image stuck with me and resurfaced at random moments. In the car, on the way to the mall, or on the way home from school, if I wasn't thinking of anything in particular, suddenly that image would appear in my head. It gave me the chills every time.

Just When You Thought It Was Okay

Strangest of days. I was on my way to my grandma's house to drop of some paperwork for something, but that doesn't matter. What matters was that I was passing by Marty Robbins Park and saw that all the sprinklers were on. ALL of them, in the middle of the day. It was strange, usually they're on at night or at dawn. Instead, it's a quarter to two and a city park is going against water restrictions for some reason unknown to me. To make matters a little stranger (but not too surprising, since it's a scorching summer), hundreds of people were outside, dancing under the sprinklers, they were hula-hooping under them, kicking soccer balls under them, or just standing, holding their hands up in the air. Everyone's clothes were sopping wet if they weren't in bathing suits. Many more people were just getting out of their cars, little kids running fast toward the fountains of water spraying out from all over the park. It was as though they were experiencing a watery rapture. Everyone looked too free-spirited to be real. I only passed by for however fast I was driving so it wasn't more than a few seconds that I had to see such a spectacle. I would have stopped, but I was in too much of a hurry. I just kept thinking, "it's the middle of the day."

So I arrive at my grandma's house to drop off those papers really quick and then get to work on time. Before I left, my grandpa said, "Remember to splash around in some water today."

"What?" I asked.

"It's St. John the Baptist Day, el Dia de San Juan. Stand under some sprinklers or something."

And of course, the realization came. "So that's what everyone was doing at the park!" It's so cultural, and of course so spiritual, and it precedes city mandates apparently, it's like, "we're turning on the sprinklers, we're going to waste the water we've told everyone not to use except on specific days, with specific times of day, we don't care about the world, yet we do care about the world because we are honoring a tradition that was probably culminated from the earliest days of Spanish Catholic influence on the New World clashing and eventually intertwining with the ritualistic Aztec peoples that they conquered. We are so connected with our ancestors and religious background!"

That, or somebody convinced a custodian to turn all the sprinklers on. I'm putting my money on that theory.

It's Johnmas, a day I never knew about until today. Six months from Christmas Eve, it's the day of St. John's birth. Baptize yourself.