Readers of my website will note that I unregistered myself as a Democrat during the presidential campaign of 09. After seeing how ill-behaved and horrendously uncouth online democrats could be, I shied away from the group who justfied their brand of rabid finger-pointing hate-mongering as”self-righteous indignation.” I honestly don’t have a problem with people wanting to stab me in the back or teabag me at some tax rally, just ask nicely. If you don’t have manners in these modern times, what’s left but a bunch of people who’ve let themselves go with Andrea Dworkin hairdos, body odor, and hemp underwear…whom nobody can say a word against less they invoke wails of discrimination. What’s more frightening is the notion that anyone can teabag me, and if I were to muffle a comment that they should try shaving more closely, I’d be accused of being a Shavian.

Long ago, after having read William A. Henry’s In Defense of Elitism, I started listening to what other political groups have to say. I didn’t always agree with them, but I was willing to listen. And the best way to listen, was to not put up a fight, not ready to jump on top of the minutest opinion that was contradictory to mine. Who knows? I learned something. And that something was that the world is not segregated into binary form: not all of one is correct and righteous, and not all of the other is evil and …blond?

Having said that, I have to confess that I’m fascinated by prim people. Having been raised in a liberal environment and being constantly around friends, co-workers, and lovers who are loose and easy-going, I’m always wondering what the world outside my world is like. It may be my imagination running amok, but a part of me thinks that the prudes inherently have deeper waters in which we could drown. After all, you always hear people saying “wonder what she’s got up her ass?” or “What crawled up her ass and died?” However you want to interpret this startling inquisitiveness, one thing is clear: there’s a lot of activity, if not traffic, down in that area. The wild, partying libs are all show and little action (trust me, I’m around us 24/7). You’ll always find that the girls with the huge flaming devil tattoos, stripper heels, and biker boyfriends are secretly reading the Old Testament at home. They probably have to make a great show of the rebellion precisely because there was so much conservatism in their past.

Here’s an example. The U.S. Version of the tv series The Office features my all-time favorite tightass. Sure, I love Angela Martin’s prim, bow-tied blouses and buttoned-up-to-the-neck fashion. It’s great comedy that she’s the official “party-planning” girl at the office. But for all that stuffy, uptight “who me?!” posturing, she was also the only one who was banging two guys at once, doing it on the office tables, getting some out in the backyard, after work, at Jim’s party. See what I mean? It’s always the quiet ones.

I really considered becoming a registered Republican the day I saw the cartoon above. I know it’s meant to be an insult by the hip, feelgood, faultless liberals, who imagine their sworn enemies will be mocked and anyone who wants to assert their manhood will rush to join their team for fear of being labeled a “sissy’. (ask yourself who’s sounding like a conservative now?) But wearing a garter-belt, doing house-work in a pretty apron, with a big hairy beast stuck deep up between my legs?

That’s advertising that speaks to me! Where do I sign up!

I have been listening to the entire catalog of Scottish pop sweethearts Belle & Sebastian. Their album Storytelling was originally written as a score for Todd Solondz’s movie of the same name. After listening to it, I decided to revisit some of Solondz’s films. I loved Welcome to the Dollhouse (I think Heather Mattarazzo is a darling, even to this day), and never realized Dawn Wiener and her brother reappears in Palindromes. So I thought I watched that again as well. In my mind, the music of Belle & Sebastian has already interwoven itself into my perception of Solondz’s nihilistic, deadpan humor.

Alright, I admit it: I originally watched Palindromes to see a boy playing a girl’s role. For this task, Will Denton grudgingly acquiesces.

Upon rewatching it, I found Palindromes to be so much more than the dark comedy of Solondz. People like to use “disturbing,” “unsettling,” and “freaky” to describe his films. Unfortunately, based on this alone the art of Solondz often gets thrown together with the works of Harmony Korine, Larry Clark, and even Zak Penn. I think Solondz’s films, especially Palindromes, is closer in craft and spirit to the forefathers of these guys. Herzog, Jean Luc Godard, and even Wim Wenders. The main character in this film is played by eight different actors of different ages, race, gender, height, weight, etc. It’s not a gimmick. Godard may have used it as playful surrealism, but Solondz utilizes it here to extrapolate on a philosophical outlook the way Bunuel used it as political commentary in That Obscure Object of Desire. Witness the climax of the movie, when Dawn’s older brother, Mark Wiener, alledged but then acquitted ch*ld m*l*ter, strikes up a conversation with Aviva.

Aviva: Do I remind you of Dawn?
Mark Wiener: Yeah, a little, of course different. She was she, you are you. X is not equal to Y. People always end up the way they started out. No one ever changes. They think they do but they don’t. If you’re the depressed type now that’s the way you’ll always be. If you’re the mindless happy type now, that’s the way you’ll be when you grow up. You might lose some weight, your face may clear up, get a body tan, breast enlargement, a sex change, it makes no difference. Essentially, from in front, from behind. Whether you’re 13 or 50, you will always be the same.
Aviva: Are you the same?
Mark Wiener: Yeah.
Aviva: Are you glad you’re the same?
Mark Wiener: It doesn’t matter if I’m glad. There’s no freewill. I mean, I have no choice but to chose what I choose, to do what I do, to live as I live. Ultimately, we’re all just robots programmed abritrarily by nature’s genetic code
Aviva: Isn’t there any hope?
Mark Wiener: For what? We hope or despair because of the way we’ve been programmed. Genes and randomness, that’s all there is and none of it matters.
Aviva: Does that mean you’re never going get married and have children?
Mark Wiener: I have no innate desire to get married or have kids. But that’s beyond my control. Really, it makes no difference. Since the planet’s fast running out of natural resources and we won’t survive till the next century.
Aviva: What if you’re wrong? What if there is a God?
Mark Wiener: If that makes you feel better.

This scene had such an impact on me, I actually saved it to videotape the first time I saw it. It definitely fortified my views on what could and could NOT be changed when one transitioned from one gender to another. I guess Solondz’s cynicism was infectious, for to this day, I firmly believe there are many things no amount of hormones can change.

The scenes with Mama Sunshine’s Pro-Life family are priceless cinematic gems. According to IMDB, Solondz had to put up his entire life savings (this is after several films that critics all over the world went wild over, claiming prizes at film festivals everywhere) to make this film as no studios would back it. Personally the magic of Solondz is that he will go where no man has gone before, just to explore a new dramatic vehicle or narrative structure. Where else can you hope to hear a p*do’s side of the story, a sex maniac’s, a ultra religious pro-lifer’s, a violent lower class boy’s? And they are not always critical. Some are sympathetic. Of course, when his brand of humor hits, you are caught between laughing out loud, crying, wincing, or running off screaming wringing your hands. It’s like an oenophile stumped for a word to describe a Bordeaux.

Of course, it definitely helps that Todd Solondz is from Jersey (“CAUSE JERSEY’S WHERE AMERICA’S AT – YEAH!!!! YEAH!!!! YEAH!!!!). I always root for our boys when one of us makes good.

Plus…I think I may have developed a crush on Todd.

What I liked about it
1.) The entrance of 93 in the opening scene, dressed like the original No.6, but now as old as the late Patrick McGoohan would have been (conflicting reports abound on whether PM wanted to play that role or not). As 93 lays there dying, he says “tell them I made it! I finally found a way out!” It was a sentimental moment which would have been even more powerful if the late PM was still around and had agreed to play it.

2.) Ian McKellan plays No.2, who has to deal with a gay son- turning the hidden homosexuality, silence-is-death motif into a prison within a prison. Perhaps McKellan had a say in the script – given his openly gay activism -but I felt like, “Hey! We got one of our guys going to bat for us on this!”

3.) The allegorical motifs that asks “what is freedom?” (the twin towers) “what is memory?” (the fake brother) “Is love and attraction truly nothing but chemistry?” (the DNA gene swap) “What is religion?” (the speech No.2 gives at the church). “What is choice?” (Wraps is the only choice of food in the village) “What is entertainment? (6′s brother’s family enjoying tv violence when their own father is dead)

4.) The Borges’ device of one person dreaming an entire civilization of people and how the moment she stops dreaming, holes appear. (See Jorge Luis Borges’s “The Circular Ruins.”)

5.) It didn’t try to remake the original Prisoner. It sampled here and there, but it was more a reinterpretation than a mindless note-for-note remake, which would have been a monumental disaster. Imagine it this way: look at the concept of the Prisoner itself as a Elizabethan / Tudor music composition or a jazz standard. There are no dynamic markings or tempo suggestions (how loud or how fast to play the piece), it is left up to the performer to decide how he or she is going to interpret the piece. It gives a loose structure, or in jazz, the head, and you then have to decide how you’re going to take it to the end. I give the creators of the remake credit in that they at least tried to make something new.

6.) The friendship between the cabbie and No.6. It shows a humane side of No.6 and the village people.

7.) Jamie Campbell Bower as No.2′s fabulously androgynous and innocent son.

8.) Whether intentional or not, a hilarious, running meta-commentary on the production of the remake itself (I may be reading too much into it here): 1) The Old Prisoner (dressed like Patrick McGoohan, looked like what PM would have look like today if he were still around) dying at the beginning of the show, signifying that the original prisoner won’t be “in” the concept of this production. 2) The new No.6 rummaging through what appears to be a facsimile of the old No.6′s home….almost as if Caviezel is desperately searching for clues on how to play No.6. 3)The Penny Farthing bike, once an icon of the village – and employed by McGoohan to signify the obsolescence in a rapidly progressing technological world- has now been relegated to some dive sex bar where people view peep shows through a slot (us, watching the remake?) 4) The holes appearing referring to the holes in the plot?

9.) The opening theme music cleverly samples the three notes from the iconic original and hides it in the closing lines. Though certainly no where near Ron Granier’s piece, it at least makes the attempt to create something new, instead of another mindless Hollywood remake.

10.) Caviezel is a better runner than McGoohan.

What I didn’t like about it
The lack of energy in this No.6. Part of the problem is that the original No.6 was a secret service agent before he arrived at the village. He was debonair, urbane, fit, a man of physical action who paces his room like a wild animal in an undersized zoo cage. He is suspicious of everyone, beautiful girls and their tears have no effect on him and his determination to escape. On the other hand, the new No.6 holds a desk job as an analyst at an office. So you can see the inherent problems that arises when the main character is limited by who he is. The moment he finds a hottie at a dating service, he thinks about marriage and all but forgets about escaping.

The tiring slo-motion shots. It looks much like filler to stretch a 2 hour concept into a six-hour one, just for the sake of the number 6.

The interweaving shots to disorient you. In the old Prisoner, disorientation was achieved via the layout of Portmeiron and the violation of the 180 degree rule. The interweaving shots, combined with the slo-mo made many scenes look like music videos that sacrifice content for stylistic tic.

The feeble opening sequence. It looks like a car commercial at certain points. It didn’t have the fire, thunder, and passion of the original, that always drove one to wonder at the beginning of each episode “who is the new no.2 and how is s/he going to slug it out with No.6 this time around?” You watch the original and you tell yourself, “if there’s one guy who is going to fight in the name of individuality, this is the man for the job!”

If Caviezel had more energy, it could have made the whole thing gel better. As it were, it seemed totally out of character the one time he got mad and yelled at no.2′s gate.

It feels like multiple writers were involved (some creative counterparts pulled out during the project) and the way sex and romance keeps getting inserted haphazardly made me wonder if some bigwigs were demanding gratuitous scenes for ratings.

They didn’t have to use the Prisoner as a framework. It could have just been called, say “The Cure” or “Gates” and it would still have been able to tell it’s story. Using the Prisoner seemed like riding on the coat-tails of a classic just for hype’s sake.

o

I read somewhere that the American Film Institute voted Some Like It Hot as the funniest movie of all time. I’ve been hearing about it for so many years- given the subject matter of crossdressing – I finally decide to sit down and watch it. After all, movies do set some precedent for the rules of conduct in public. And movies have always told us that a man in a dress is a rip-roaring good time.

What this 1959 classic does do is to establish a set of jokes that have since been recycled to death in any comedies concerning men in dresses; you know, the dual identity fellow falling in love with a girl while in drag, then having to switch back and forth at last moment’s notice at the cusp of getting caught. Then there’s the inadvertent love interest where an older- seemingly clueless man – falls for the crossdresser lead, who then spends the entire movie pushing him away. Ladybugs, White Chicks, Sorority Boys, The Hot Chick. It’s all the same drill.

What is groundbreaking about Some Like It Hot is the proposition that Jack Lemmon’s character, Jerry/Daphne actually gets seduced into a world of crossdressing and being married to a rich man. Call it humor and laugh nervously if you need to, but no mainstream comedy movie since has dared to suggest that what started out as a tactic to evade evil gangsters, could become a way of life once our crossdressing hero got a bite of the forbidden fruit. Of course, the closing scene, when Osgood Fielding III, a rich man proposes to Daphne on his speedboat,

Jerry/Daphne: Oh, you don’t understand, Osgood! Ehhhh… I’m a man.
Osgood: Well, nobody’s perfect!

remains the only scene worthy of any lasting impression. Maybe Princeton does provide superior education after all. No Hollywood movies have handled the moment of disclosure with such aplomb. (2004′s White Chicks updated this scene with a modern (and vicious) brand of self-loathing racism. When Marcus revealed to Latrell that he was a black man pretending to be a white woman, Latrell, a black man countered with “Negro please. Didn’t any one tell you that this was an all white party, huh? Someone get this jiggaboo away from me!” Revealing as it may have been, it was far from being a happy ending.)

The social meta-commentary of Sugar Cane Kowalczyk – played by a caricature of femininity Marilyn Monroe herself – being the feminine prospective gold-digger is echoed by Jerry / Daphne’s speech on living the easy life of a kept woman. Surely if a man is to mimic a woman, let him pick the worst possible qualities to possess and amplify. Therein lies the precocious humor of Some Like it Hot. Take a look at any actual “tranny” personals online, and among those who seek men, you will see quite a few who want a generous good-looking, affluent single man who can provide for that special girl. Personally, I would like to know how someone possessing all those qualities can remain single this long.

Of course, Some Like It Hot gets me thinking about the code of conduct between trans* girls and their suitors. For years, I have noticed that many of our “admirers” tend to have a tit-for-tat approach to disclosure: If it’s okay for you to hide what’s under your skirt, it follows that it’s okay for me to hide the fact that I have a wife and kids waiting at home. Or, the variation “if I’m giving you the courtesy of pretending you are a woman, you can surely give me the courtesy of pretending I am single. or James Bond, or a millionaire, etc.” And who among us can ignore the worst one of them all: “I’m open-minded enough to be a man who wants to date a trans*girl…now you have to be open-minded enough to accept that I’ve wanted to try on your dresses all along and I am a crossdresser.”

Whatever it is, it’s basically one interpretation of truth for another. I guess the perception is “if you’re allowed to play games, so am I!”

There’s only one sure way to short-circuit this round-robin of deceit. That’s why my advice to trans*girls on their first date is the following: whip it out first chance you get…preferably during introductions. When a suitor asks for your hand, pull out your best hand and put an end to card game.

Lucy Montgomery as April, Matt Berry as Douglas

Click on the picture of click here to see the Youtube Clip

While I probably appear somber in my writings here at d332.com, I don’t take myself too seriously in real life. Time and again, people who meet me at parties would dial up my website only to be shocked by some incredibly dry pursuits I consider curiosities. If anything, the collective perception of transgender folk is that we take ourselves way too seriously. The slightest provocation, a misspelled trans-label, a slipped pronoun will supposedly propel us into a 5000-word blog entry.

I’ll be the first to say I laughed long and loud at the South Park episode where Mr. Garrison gets a sex change. When she b*tches about how men are pigs, or when she proudly and openly announces that time of the month are scenes of well-researched satire.

I found The IT Crowd, a British TV series about geeks who work in the I.T. Department of an office, when I googled “Movies and TV Shows with women in suits.” The episode from the third season “The Speech” has the hilarious sexist boss Douglas, hooking up with a news reporter who turns out to be post-op transgender. After they have sex, Douglas marvels, “Amazing! Just Amazing! You really know your way around that area!” What follows is a sequence of the lovebirds going out and doing “guy things” together: chugging pints at the pub, rooting for football teams, arm-wrestling, having pizza and beer in bed.

It’s a long way from the days of Monty Python, when a man in a dress could automatically evoke laughter. Thank heavens television’s sense of humor has matured, even if the general public’s remain stunted.

As a child, I was sent to bed at an hour when the tv programs turned towards adult matters. In my case, this would be those 70′s tv detective shows (i.e. Cannon, Columbo, Harry-O, Mannix, Hawaii Five-O). I loved Cannon best. Big fat dude who always delivers a crippling karate chop to his detractors the moment they threaten him with “listen fat man….I don’t like you sniffing around here- OOF!” It didn’t help he had a face of a bulldog.

Sandwiched between these Quinn Martin productions was a murky footage of some solitary man running through a beach at low-tide, being chased by a big white balloon.

“I HATE this show!” my dad would issue from the couch as I hid at the last step to the second floor where my bedroom was, stealing a peek from the shadows, hoping he won’t get up to change to the only other channel. “You can’t make heads or tails of it!”

How could I ever know – at the tender age of 7- that the series that elicited such venom from my guardians would be the most glorious cornerstone, the turning point, the bulwark that reinforced my sense of self!?

Patrick McGoohan and George Markstein’s The Prisoner spanned 17 episodes in 6 months from 1967-1968. In my young adult years, The Prisoner preceded my love of Jorge Luis Borges – creating a sense of meeting an old friend again- the day I would finish reading “The Circular Ruins.”

McGoohan’s masterpiece centers around a secret agent who resigns his post. When he is in the midst of leaving for a long vacation, he is kidnapped to an undisclosed village and assigned a number. For the duration of the 17 episode serial, No. 6 pits his indefatigable willpower against his captors to escape the village. His wardens go through a battery of tactics to break him in order to discover the reasons behind his early retirement. No.6 foils their plans on some episodes while they get the upper hand on others. There’s never a moment the Prisoner gives in to the pressure of his peers.

Never broken, always focused on freedom, No.6 and the Prisoner fortified a strong sense of self and identity within me. In the days of punk rock, it showed me that one could, indeed be a full out rebel while having a neat haircut and wearing pressed trousers and boat shoes: it had nothing to do with the Doc Martens, the mohawks, or the spiked collars, it was all about the strength of your inner voice and your willingness to listen to it. Certainly, it paved a solid surface for my road to a stalwart trans-identity.

Not only did The Prisoner alluded to the increasingly claustrophobic domain of modern technology, it was social satire and a grand allegory to conformity and the loss of the self.

In the 80s, I considered joining the Prisoner fan club known as the Six of One Society. Deep down however, a part of me questioned the notion of a club who shared the same fandom, worshipped the same idol – McGoohan in this case – and got together in Portmeiron, Wales each year to celebrate a similar interest, reenact Prisoner scenes, dress like Prisoner villagers, and discuss all things Prisoner.

That part of me asked, “wasn’t this exactly the sort of conformity that No. 6 himself was rebelling against? Wasn’t this the loss of individuality that McGoohan was shedding light on?”

Luckily, there’s someone who can say it better than me. Chris Gregory, the author of Be Seeing You: Decoding the Prisoner has provided an insightful essay to this tv classic: on his website From The Pen of Chris Gregory. AMC is showing the premier of their entire 6 episode mini-series remake of McGoohan’s original gem on November 15 – 17 Sunday 8pm. I have wanted a Prisoner book for years, and now I am going to buy Gregory’s book with the last penny to my name.

Prep yourself properly and go the Chris’s site and have a look around before Sunday. Be seeing you!

James Caviezel as the new Prisoner. I sense trouble already. Way too hunky to focus on idealogy and parables.

To the people who have known me for many years, my name will forever live in infamy as the biggest ice queen they know: I walked out of Terms of Endearment at a cinema. At the time, surrounded by the sobbing audience, I was thinking “what am I doing here?” Will I regret giving 2 hours of my life away to a celluloid death when what may be inevitable could happen in my real life years later? (Wise decision in retrospect: my father passed away of cancer some 15 years later)

Of course, it doesn’t help that I am trying to pitch a movie mashup for Hollywood to remake: Titanic meets Jaws.

When I was a young student, a favorite English teacher gave me the following nugget of advice: “to use death as a dramatic device to elicit strong emotions is an easy way out. A true writer will always have more creative resources than that to depend on.”

So I tried to think of movies that do get me teary eyed and emotional. Here they are:

1. Camera Buff (Amator) (Krzysztof Kieslowski 1979)
A Polish factory worker buys a cheap movie camera and starts filming everyday people around him. He enlists a midget co-worker to be the subject of his documentary, and gets criticized for exploiting a person as a freak for gawk value. The midget and his wife accommodates him, letting him into their lives, and Filip, the camera buff, doesn’t pay heed to his critics. When the short documentary is done, it airs on public television. He and his friends get together to watch it. What unfolds on the fuzzy black and white TV screen is a gorgeous, stately, and humane portrait of a man and his wife. The combination of video/audio/and narration in the tender sequence, with the midget leaving the room, overcomed with emotion, always makes me weep.

2. Dersu Uzala (Akira Kurosawa 1975)
A Russian military surveyor goes out into the woods with a merry band of soldiers on a peaceful mission. They run into a Nanai hunter who proceeds to guide them, and save the surveyor’s life. Dersu Uzala beautifully echoes a deep respect for nature. Nani’s are shamanistic. The scene where Dersu sings a plangent elegy into the river for his dead wife and child is a memorable moment, but when Vladimir Arsenyev asks what he can give the trapper for his troubles and services, the look of hesitation and je ne sais quoi on Maksim Munzuk’s face always has an emotional impact.

3. A Short Film on Killing (Krótki film o zabijaniu) (Krzysztof Kieslowski 1988)
One of Kieslowski’s 10 short films meditating on the ten commandments (Decalogue), a young loner goes about the city, acting like a jerk to everyone. He eventually goes for a taxi ride and murders the cabbie. He is caught and sentenced to death by hanging. The lawyer, hired by the State, assigned to defend him finds out that his past involves a little sister dying prematurely in a tractor accident.

I always tell people that Lars Von Trier’s Dancing In The Dark is a retelling of Kieslowski’s award-winning piece. The final scene where the lawyer Krzysztof Globisz drives out to the forest and desperately repeats “I abhor it, I abhor it” is something I always cherish as a statement that we humans are not yet completely evolved. We still have a lot of work to do to improve what we are.

4. The Circle (Dayareh) (Jafar Panahi 2000)
This expertly crafted Iranian film takes us through a day in the lives of eight Iranian women, superimposed masterfully like a fugue, labyrinthine like a Borges tale. The scene where a poor mother dresses up her little girl and pushes her on the street in hopes someone will take her in always brings tears to my eyes. The tearful child, dressed so adorably, and the wailing mother behind a car wracks me with pathos.

5. Patch of Blue (Guy Green 1965)
A blind white woman befriends a black man in the park. They both enjoy the companionship. Eventually, Sidney Poitier brings himself to tell her about his skin color. As he braces himself for her reaction, she’s like “dude, I’ve totally known all along, so what?” (ok, maybe not those exact words) The look on Poitier’s face is pure gold. Who in the world doesn’t want to be liked and appreciated for who he is and not what he looks like? The closing scene, where the blind girl gets in the taxi and Poitier runs down the stairs to give her something and just misses the taxi pulling away always gives me that end-of-the-movie teary eyedness. Year laters, I experienced the same strong emotion watching a play in Edinburgh Scotland. It was about golfers trying to find an elusive ball that had been hit off course. At the end of the play, they leave stage left, and the lone ball rolls in from stage right.

People who don’t judge you for your looks are so rare in our world, the thought of them not being able to meet one last time is always heartbreaking. Taking into account Elizabeth Hartman’s talented and tragic bio, there’s an added sense of loss to the scene.

6. Mirror (Zerkalo) (Andrei Tarkovski 1975)
I love the opening scene where a stuttering boy is cured of his handicap and gets his flow on. It’s a metaphor of the artist’s wall. The closing scene of Zerkalo is one I will always love. The allegory to the mystery of creation, the gorgeous interweaving of generations, and the tears of joy when Margarita Terekhova is asked by her husband whether she wants a boy or a girl is cinematic ecstasy. Throw in J.S. Bach’s St. John Passion Herr, unser Herrscher capped by the young boy shouting into the silence as a coda to the movie, and the increasing darkening of the forest is an entire lifetime in 5 minutes.

7. Dreams: The Peach Orchard (Akira Kurosawa 1990)
The sparse storytelling on Kurosawa, bound with traditional Japanese minimalism illustrates a sad dream of a boy who wanders into an old peach orchard that has been chopped down by the present generation. The traditional folk Japanese music giving birth to the sudden blossoms, which then turns into a field of stumps conveys a true appreciation of the cycle of life.

8. Fitzcarraldo (Werner Herzog 1982)
The reaction I get from people who have “tried” to watch Fitzcarraldo is “you mean that damn movie where they try to get the boat over the hill in the Amazons?” Klaus Kinski arrives at a posh opera house, filthy, fresh off the boat just to listen to his beloved music (it’s the only way to arrive at any opera, really). After going through an odyssey only to see his dreams shattered, he spends his last dollars to hire classical musicians in an ensemble to play A te o cara, amor talora on the mud banks of the Peruvian jungle. Just the big triumphant smile on his face and the sweet music always brings tears of joy to my eyes.

9. Immortal Beloved (Bernard Rose 1994)
Three women. Who is the one that Beethoven wrote a love letter to. After he dies, his assistant tries to unveil this mystery. The scene where Isabella Rossellini sits in the audience and watches Ludwig attempt Piano Concert No.5 only to meet with endless false starts (due to his hearing loss) is for me, the stateliest romantic movie moment. As an entire opera house of people laugh at his failure, she rises, walks upstage, takes him by the arm and walks him out of the room, head held up.

If you asked me what love is, I would point you to this scene in Immortal Beloved.

10. Waterworld (Kevin Reynolds 1995)
Of the ten movies, I wept longest and loudest at the closing of Kevin Costner’s Waterworld. The deluge of tears poured all over my face when I looked at my wristwatch and realized three precious hours had been mauled from my short life.

1800 watts of hot steaming sexy iron

I must confess that I read through almost all the reviews of the other Rowenta Irons, and was on my way to purchasing the Advancer when I saw this new model.

First off, for people who are familiar with Rowenta irons, the ones made in Germany (as this one is) tend to be larger in size than an average iron. If you don’t mind wielding a big iron, then you’ll be ok with this one. The water chamber is also larger, so that adds to the weight when filled.

Secondly, it makes a great deal of difference whether the Rowenta is made in China or Germany. Since this one is German-made, you will have less trouble. I tend to stay away from anything made in China, especially when it combines electronics with water. Simply put, China’s quality control still leaves a lot to be desired.

Third and most important: FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS! Rowenta goes to great lengths on their website and user manual to recommend the following: DO NOT USE DISTILLED WATER. DO NOT USE BRITA WATER FILTRATION SYSTEM. They recommend Bottled Spring Water. You may use regular tap water if water in your state is “soft” (lacking in minerals). If you have to use regular TAP Water and you are not sure whether your tap water is hard or soft, contact your town hall OR go to USGS website created by the US Govt to show the hardness of water in your state.

The harder your tap water (more minerals), the more you want to mix 50% of it with 50% “bottled spring water.” (Though I have seen the Spring water recommendation from Rowenta for all their earlier irons, the Steamium manual did not have it.) So I called up Rowenta and was advised that Bottled Spring Water is the only thing they recommend these days. Being a perfectionist when it comes to ironing, I use 100% bottled spring water to eliminate any doubt.

Why? Because unlike many regular irons, the higher end Rowentas have Anti-Calc features that break down the natural minerals in regular tap water. If you use distilled water, it goes against the mechanism and things start to go wrong.

Rowenta steam irons have been designed to operate using tap water, up to 12 grains of hardness per gallon (12 gr/gal or 205 mg/l or 2.05 mmol/litre)

The squarish platform in front of the handle (on the top) is a lit reading that shows you what setting you currently have it on. The light is green and it lights up the words “wool, linen, cotton, etc.”

There is a trigger on the bottom of the handle (where your index finger is if you hold the iron). When you iron, you can squeeze it to create what Rowenta calls “forced steam” which pushes 30% more steam into the fabric. The trigger sets off a pump that makes a fairly audible whirring mechanical noise. It’s important to note that if you have the iron plugged in and turned off, the trigger will still set the pump off. But it works. And it works very well.

The vertical steam also sets a nice burst of steam into your clothing. I notice that depending on the size of your hand, it is sometimes difficult to keep my finger off the forced steam trigger when I hold it vertically. However, if you accidentally press the trigger, it does not affect the burst of steam in any way. It’s good for 5-7 squeezes before it needs to reheat, which is only several seconds. If you find the unit too heavy to hold up (when it is filled and vertical), you can use your other hand to hold the rear of the iron’s handle for support.

The auto shut off works and stays blinking until you turn it off.

The auto shut off works and stays blinking until you pull the plug from the wall outlet and re-insert it. This resets the auto-shut-off mechanism for the next detection.

The item comes with a tall slim plastic water spouted “pitcher” to help you pour water neatly into the iron. The front tip of the iron is extra pointed for getting perfect creases on shirt and pleat corners (the Rowenta Advancer and Focus also features this pointed front tip)

Remember to empty the water chamber after you are done ironing. As long as you follow the guidelines for the type of water and keep the iron empty when in storage, I think you will have a durable product. I think the leaking and problems complained by users of other Rowentas come from the calcium / mineral residue buildup inside the unit when hard / distilled / filtered water is used over a long period of time.

your tardy chef-in-residence in action

Whenever I perkily announce, “I’ll make dinner tonight!” All the guys immediately stop what they are doing, look at each other with mouths agape, and employ telekinesis to decide how they are going to sneak out and get survival rations to make it to dinner time. I’ve never heard a complaint about my cooking, but whenever the topic of my prep time comes up, chairs fly and unfed tummies churn.

My announcement is usually followed by the question “what are you making?” dispatched in a voice of dread and apprehension. Most of the time, whatever I list is met with “oh I don’t like the sound of that at all. That sounds complicated.”

I’m not sure whether it was my 3-day prep-time Boeuf Bourguignon, combined with the 11 hour baguettes made from scratch, or the 2-day chicken soup with the 28 hour Popia and the 16 hr slow-cook Pot Roast that did it. My mom passed on to me a recipe that is 10 pages long, involving stock made from shrimp heads, roasted scallions, and Mexican turnips.

It’s not uncommon for people to sit and watch me work, asking “are you auditioning for Triathlon Chef?” I guess I’m just channeling my inner Stepford Wife in going after recipes that can only be executed by someone who stays at home and in the kitchen all day.

Not surprisingly, I was also responsible for the title to the song “Savor the Inconvenience” by the Ohio Alternative Rock/Folk band Jehova’s Waitresses. My Stepford ears heard it that way when the band members were discussing it in the recording studio while they were working on the album Perfect Impossible. After several months, they discovered I was referring to their song “Save Her The Inconvenience” incorrectly. They liked my title so much, it became the new title of the song.