Ran afoul of one of the new coffee pot's problem areas to-day. My grandmother keeps buying new coffee pots that are slightly more fragile or prone to malfunction than the last--there was the white one that didn't make coffee hot enough for her, so it was replaced with a black one which switched off automatically after a couple minutes, occasionally puked up from its top black sludge it'd digested from the grounds and water, and made coffee not hot enough for my grandmother. This new one seemed okay, but my grandmother told me the base could not be wet under any circumstances. To-day I discovered the tiniest bit of water causes trouble--as in, what remained after I'd rinsed off the interior, had gotten a tiny splash on the exterior that I thought I'd wiped off with sufficient thoroughness with a paper towel. Not sufficient thoroughness according to the smoke and frightful gurgling noises like a drowning hyena produced by the pot moments later.
I love the sounds coffee pots make. They're comforting and sinister at the same time--slightly like cymbals lightly brushed for jazz with more bass combined with a wet popping. I like how David Lynch used it in Mulholland Drive.
I saw a couple days ago that David Lynch finally has coffee in stock again. If you're wondering if it could possibly be any good, I tell you, yes and jump on it before it's out of stock again for ages. Don't expect to see him going out of his way to plug it in his movies, though;
I read the new issue of Caitlin's Sirenia Digest while eating breakfast to-day, featuring a 2005 story of hers called "From Cabinet 34, Drawer 6" and a new vignette called "The Bone's Prayer". The juxtaposition of the two pieces highlights some of the differences between what has become typical of the Sirenia vignettes and Caitlin's longer stories. "From Cabinet 34, Drawer 6" spends more energy in conveying distinctive personality through the reactions characters have to things--it feels more like a story of these people and the mystery they're involved in is an exterior thing, making it a slightly more unnerving tale than "The Bone's Prayer", which focuses less on character and more on sensation. Most of the characters in the Sirenia Digest stories are essentially interchangeable, far more importance being placed on the experience than on the people doing the experiencing. This does give "The Bone's Prayer" the freedom of having a more static, colder beauty. "From Cabinet 34, Drawer 6" strives to create Hitchcockian tension with the strange people its protagonist meets on the train frightening her before the actual villainous figures apprehend her--a tension dispelled somewhat when one wonders why the priest didn't try to speak more to her sooner on the train ride. It doesn't make sense, much as Lacey's unquestioning complicity in the mystery's secrecy at the end of the story doesn't make sense, but that doesn't really matter, since Caitlin's more interested in constructing atmosphere and mood. So one could say she's freed herself over the course of the last four years from some devices that constrained her.
I couldn't help thinking of the sushi restaurant I ate at yesterday at around 5pm. I had a massive pile of vegetable tempura that was supposed to be an appetiser but nonetheless left me more than sated for the rest of the day.
I choked down spaghetti at 1am while I watched the season finale of Battlestar Galactica's third season. Colonel Tigh . . . Oh, the poor bastard. The guy who's wrong about everything, of course he wouldn't even be right about his own species. Though I'm not quite sure how four people hearing a lousy cover of "All Along the Watchtower" is supposed to make them absolutely certain they're Cylons. In a universe where the President can have visions that lead her to the Tomb of Athena, surely there's more than one possible explanation for this sort of thing, at least enough to make the typically obstinate Tigh doubt it.
I guess I liked the story of Baltar's trial. Lee's speech was great--yes, he was pointing out a lot of really obvious things, but think of all the really obvious wrongs the Bush administration committed that no-one called them on. But I wished Baltar had gone on the stand once and the Six as well.
Maybe Roslin's a Cylon, too? I loved how the scene of her and Athena confronting the Six about their shared dream abruptly ended after the Six said, "It's not possible!" I like to imagine how it concluded;
SIX: It's not possible!
ATHENA: And yet it happened.
ROSLIN: Either of you know why?
ATHENA: No.
SIX: Nope.
ROSLIN: Ah. Well. Gotta go.
I got the feeling we were really supposed to see Baltar as more cowardly than the other characters, though. What cowardly behaviour was he actually displaying? Being afraid of getting shot when he was no longer under guard after the trial? Jeez, who wouldn't be in his position? I think the writers must have realised part way through season 3 we were getting too close to Baltar--as I said, the fact that we see inside his mind a lot automatically puts him as the show's POV. After I realised this, I noticed there were a bunch of episodes that made us privy to dreams or hallucinations of Adama and Starbuck. Trying to put the Baltar back in the box, eh? Good luck, guys. He's one of the best and most complex characters on the show, whether you like it or not.
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