STREAM.

As 2006 lumbers, imminently sundering from 2005, I'm reminded of the neurotic hold such signifiers have over the transit of the mind.

I've come to value the notion of a libration point between passing years, a temporary amnesty from anticipation and retrospection, a sort of four-dimensional neutral buoyancy. A grace period.

In lazy-speak: no recaps or resolutions.

(Yep, that's my big stinking cork-popping thought. I'd garnish it with a hug, but this is the internet.)

Posted by R. at 11:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Watching Syriana, I remember being bumped by Tim Blake Nelson's performance. In a movie marked by consummate, understated acting, his braying union jackass seemed to have wandered in off a Coen Brothers farce—an unpleasantly showy amalgam of Billy Bob Thornton, Danny DeVito and Yosemite Sam. I'm exaggerating because I'm mean, but the effect was distracting. Apparently, audiences where spared an additional morsel of chewed scenery.

Posted by R. at 02:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Travers's dreams of becoming a famous writer were realized because of Disney's movie, but its scope eclipsed everything else that she had or would achieve. She spent the rest of her long life (she died in 1996, at the age of ninety-six) linked artistically and personally to Mary Poppins. It was a persona—spinsterish children's author, creator of a spinsterish character—that overshadowed the more complicated identity she had devoted her life to creating."

Posted by R. at 10:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Bull's-eye: "Indicative of everything that stinks about SNL when it stinks, the least funny 90 minutes on TV this year had hammy host Dane Cook mugging it up as the rest of the cast tried to strain jokes from screechy, never-ending sketches. The show actually featured the fifth appearance (by my count) of the exact same satiric Morgan Stanley ad."

Posted by R. at 07:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This design dates back to the summer of '04—when, bored with the site's decline, I undertook the requisite diligence and half-baked some sibilantly semantic CSS. Imagine my horror and recalcitrance when no two browsers would render my assiduous XHTML-whatever consistently. I became irritated. I dropped it.

It's been eighteen months now. The year is winding down. Long-dormant vanity-site guilt is stirring. So I've spent a couple of days converting my circa-Bourne Supremacy style sheets to sacre-licious tables. My hands are dirty but my conscience is clear.

It will take a while for the layout to settle. It's uncomplicated but I have an unhealthy, unproductive obsession with pixel placement, so there will be tweaks. More to the point, hopefully, there will be posts.

It begins again.

Posted by R. at 12:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)