980208 Brementown Board

8 February 1998: Brementown Board

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And that's how you can be skiing and falling at the same time

Saturday we skied. I did okay, surprising myself. For the first time I believed RDC when he told me I was doing well, because I could feel the difference. My stance was better: not letting my butt droop was easier, I shifted my weight better, and overall I stayed more erect. I have no problem on greens now and did okay on blues, didn't fall, didn't cross my tips more than thrice. So that was okay. RDC did say that my next task is to make use of my poles; currently, he claims, they do me as much good as Blake's wings do him.

Someone had the Brementown musicians on the bottom of her snowboard. They were unmistakable: a donkey, a dog, a cat, and a rooster, stacked on each other's backs from largest to smallest. I exclaimed, "The Brementown musicians!" and the woman asked "What?" She didn't know the story. What a pity: you've got this way cool board with such potent totems as the Brementown musicians in its design and you've never heard the story? never been curious about why your board has these particular animals on it?

The best thing about skiing, except for skiing on brilliantly sunny days over brilliantly snowy mountains (and Saturday it snowed) is taking off my boots afterward. JGW says if you don't fall, you're not pushing yourself; I say if I don't fall doing the same sorts of runs I've always done, then I must be improving. And I pushed myself enough to be exhausted when we got home. RDC went out with Stuart and I stayed home and did my impression of Lady Bertram.

Lady Bertram

Without a poor relation to wait on me or a dog to wait on myself, my impression could be but limited; but the slothing about on a sopha [sic; read your Jane Austen] part I excelled at. I started watching "Willow" before RDC even left. Then I saw that "Ghost" would be on. I called HAO to tell her about the depths of my television-watching plans. She was disgusted. Channel-hopping, I watched those two and "Parent Trap." Really disgusting. I was spared complete shame only by not eating dessert; I didn't eat dessert because there wasn't any in the house and I didn't want to walk the quarter or half mile to Safeway. Spared what shame?

Allusion, allusion, everywhere, nor any degree to think

HAO told me she was writing a presentation on Redburn, Melville's novel just before Moby-Dick. "Is it about a smaller whale?" I inquired. I found this gaspingly funny; luckily, so did she. I told her my other recent English professor manquée joke: a recent "South Park" episode featured Carmen trying to convince someone not to forfeit a fight using an argument based on Nancy Kerrigan's never giving up until she got the gold, an argument that falls apart given that she got the silver in 1994 in Lillehammer. RDC asked who got the gold. "Oksana Baiul [spelling?]," I told him, "the Margery Kempe of the skating world."

This is probably why my jokes so often collapse. RDC and RJH are probably the only people I know who would get that joke, people versed enough in English literature to know who Margery Kempe is but not so removed from current life they don't know who Oksana Baiul is.

Also during that conversation HAO told me I had to watch "Pinky and the Brain." She gave me a hint why. "Pinky wears a red T-shirt."

"He's Pooh," I surmised.

"And Pinky wears a scarf."

"He's Piglet," I supplied.

"And they have a human friend, Christopher Walken."

More hysteria.

Then I went back to channel hopping.

Connecting the bookcase comment and the television bit (you know all my tangents tie up, given enough rope), was an interior design show I channel hopped through. The design mixed books and knickknacks in segments of her client's bookcase. Balance, she called it. Where's the client going to put the rest of her books? I want to know. When the designer strewed additional stupid little figurines on top of a large book, I realized that the client probably considered the books just as other knickknacks. Which is when I went back to watching "The Parent Trap." Honestly. When I'm a couch potato, I have no shame. Zip.

So after CBS Sunday morning, I did watch "Pinky and the Brain." Now I sing "Brainy the Pooh." Al Gore as Eeyore was weak, but Mick Jagger as Tigger (Jagger is to Jaguar as Tigger is to tiger) was great. "The wonderful thing about Jagger is that I'm so old." I haven't seen "Manhattan," I guess, because I don't remember Christopher Walken's speech. The Animaniacs madden RDC--they squeal too much, quoth he--but I think he would really like Pinky and the Brain if he gave them a chance. They allude to everything. He admitted that in a discussion of such referential shows as "The Simpsons," one of his students mentioned "Pinky and the Brain." Certainly it's better than "Beavis and Butthead."

Salsa Shark

Then HAO and I walked. I had to walk, much as I didn't want to, because if I didn't I'd turn to stone; but she agreed to a curtailed walk--something over three miles instead of the full 5.2. Then the mandatory stop at Alfalfa's, and then back to HAO's by way of BB to fetch "Clerks."

I have two words to say about "Clerks."

Salsa shark.

Well, more than two. Despite the backyard bad or absent acting, the dialogue was great--credit to the screenwriters, not to the actors. I liked it.

And home. I slept during "60 Minutes," which is often the best thing to do during that show and probably a popular activity given its mostly geriatric demographic. "The Simpsons" amused, "King of the Hill" didn't disappoint, and "The X-Files" was, almost of course, stupid. Like the sunset over the coast of Maine. Yep.

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Last modified 13 February 1998