PJ and I love Lucinda Williams’s music, so I was delighted when I stumbled across a new song from her, “Kiss Like Your Kiss,” which features Elvis Costello:
This song is off the anthology album True Blood: Music from the Original HBO Series Vol. 2. I love the show, but I hadn’t paid attention to the album coming out — it’s been out since May. It also has songs by M.Ward, Jakob Dylan, Jace Everett, and Eels that I like.
“Kiss Like Your Kiss” is a beautiful love song, though it’s rather mournful and dark, as I suppose is appropriate for True Blood. It’s immediately become one of my favorite songs of the year!
Yesterday, PJ and I went to Columbus to do a little sales shopping. Mostly, we bought clothes. PJ’s recently gotten back into reading Agatha Christie novels, and at some point while we were shopping he mentioned something about Hercule Poirot and Death on the Nile. This started us off on a quest to find a DVD of it.
Back in the late ’80s and early ’90s, my family enjoyed watching the Joan Hickson Miss Marple series and then the David Suchet Hercule Poirot series. So, I was particularly desirous of finding the Suchet version of Death on the Nile, which I had never seen (at least that I can remember). While looking at Barnes and Nobles, we found a multi-disk collection of the episodes for about $100, which seemed like a lot more than we really wanted to pay. But then PJ pointed out that, if we were really going to watch all of the episodes, then it would be worth purchasing. So we did.
So, last night we watched Death on the Nile, which I thought was wonderful. Death takes place mostly on a cruise on the Nile. Simon Doyle and Linnet Ridgeway are celebrating their honeymoon. The couple would be perfectly happy if it weren’t for one little problem: Linnet’s former friend (and until quite recently Simon’s former fiancée) Jackie is hounding them in revenge for Linnet stealing her man. Every where they go, she pops up to torment the new couple. And her taunts and jeers seem to be getting increasingly irrational and potentially violent. Everything comes to a head when a murderer strikes during the cruise.
I had seen the 1978 movie version, which starred Peter Ustinov, Bette Davis, Angela Lansbury, Mia Farrow, Maggie Smith, and David Niven. Here’s a clip from that adaptation:
This version is rather campy and even comical, but it’s also fun and engaging.
This is Jake and Eddie. Jake is the little gray and white kitty; Eddie is the black one. They’re the newest editions to our family.
Even before Marlowe died, it was clear to me and PJ that Paisley doesn’t like to be alone. She’s a very sociable cat, and she likes feline companionship. While we were at the vet with Marlowe, we saw a little black female kitten, which PJ really took a shine to. He especially liked the potential symmetry of meeting a new cat as we said goodbye to our little boy.
We filled out the application to adopt her from our local humane society, but unfortunately she was adopted by someone else that same day. She has a little brother, who is also black, so we decided that we would adopt him instead. PJ really wanted a black cat.
We were then told by the humane society that it could take up to two weeks to adopt him, which made no sense to me at all. The woman who was fostering him also thought that it sounded unreasonable. We decided not to wait. On the one hand,we were missing Marlowe terribly and needed something to help ease the pain. On the other hand, Paisley was also acting severely lonely. What especially got me was when she would go out onto the back deck and sit in her usual spot, where she’s wait for him to come up the back steps. She was clearly waiting, and Marlowe wasn’t ever going to come up the stairs again. So, PJ and I decided that we needed to get another cat as quickly as possible — for our sakes, if not for hers.
PJ made this delicious pie totally from scratch to take with us to Thanksgiving dinner, which we had with our friends Rick and Nicole and their friends. This was our first attempt at making pie crust, which came out wonderfully! He wanted it to look rustic, and the crust thin and delicate. I think we probably should have cooked it about 10-20 minutes longer, but it tasted delicious, and now we know how to make crust.
Having Thanksgiving with people we barely knew turned out to be more fun than I had expected. The other three couples all have children the same age, which is how they all know each other. Dinner was delicious, and the three courses of wines were an education in and of themselves. And having three six-year-olds and two babies around reminded me how lucky we gays are that we don’t have to worry about pregnancy or raising children unless we really want to!
Recently PJ and I watched a documentary titled Theater of War, which is about The Public Theater’s 2006 production of Mother Courage and Her Children starring Meryl Streep. The stage production was directed by George C. Wolfe and was newly translated into English by Tony Kushner.
Here’s a clip about the production that I found on YouTube:
We had just received our Netflix for Wii and wanted to watch something just to try it out. Of course anything starring Streep was going to catch our eye, and we both love the theater and Bertolt Brecht’s work in particular. Theater of War turns out to be an excellent and engrossing documentary that covers a lot more than just this one production.
This week’s song of the week is Bob Schneider’s “Changing Your Mind,” which was featured in the movie Harmony and Me. Here’s a live version I found on YouTube:
This song is great in the movie, but it’s also just a great song. I didn’t know anything about Schneider’s music before now, but I definitely want to check more of it out. What I’ve learned so far is that he’s an Austin-based musician, which speaks well of him in my book. Also, his newest album includes a version of this song with Patty Griffin, also a plus.
I think the sense of sad resignation in “Changing Your Mind” is what appeals to me most. There are times in life when someone in your life makes a decision that drastically affects or perhaps even ends your relationship and there’s nothing you can do about it. This song captures that moment really well, I think.
But it’s also kind of upbeat. The last verse recalls what appealed to you about that person in the first place. And even if the person is gone, at least you have the memories of what was. In other words, to quote a song from Tina Turner, something beautiful remains.
On Friday, PJ and I watched Harmony and Me on Netflix for Wii. This was my first time watching a movie through Wii, and I thought it worked really well. Soon, there will no longer be a need for DVDs!
Harmony and Me stars Justin Rice as Harmony, a barely employed musician whose girlfriend has recently broken up with him. This relatively short film — it’s just a little over an hour long, follows Harmony as he tries to recover from this heartbreak. As Harmony keeps telling everyone, she’s still breaking his heart, since she hasn’t finished the job yet.
Here’s the trailer:
I love mumblecore as a genre, and we initially started watching this movie in part because we thought it was a mumblecore movie, but it really isn’t. While the film clearly borrows from the techniques of mumblecore — the documentary realness of the cinematography, the dialogue, and the plot — it is more heavily plotted than the primary examples of that genre.
This morning, PJ and I decided it was time to take our little buddy, Marlowe, to the vet for his final visit.
He had been diagnosed with fibrosarcoma, a very aggressive form of cancer, back in February. The cancer was growing in his right jaw and cheek. He underwent surgery in late February to remove as much of the tumor as possible. But we knew then that the chances of getting it all were slight. While the vet had done her best, the cancer returned, and the past eight months have largely been waiting for this day to come.
I can’t say enough about how much we loved him. He was a very special and loving companion for us and our other cat Paisley. He was always PJ’s cat, enjoying time almost every morning sitting in PJ’s lap while he sat at his desk. As PJ noted today, no one (or nothing else) will ever look at him with such complete adoration as Marlowe looked at him. And while Marlowe never looked at me that way, I’m glad that over these last few weeks he had begun to sit on my lap for up to a half hour at a time. I am grateful to have had this time with him.
Marlowe first entered our lives in November 2002 when he suddenly appeared in the back yard of some friends of ours. He was apparently dumped or got separated from his mother, and he decided that our friends should adopt him. They were unable to do so, so they started looking for a home for him. Due to a couple of factors, we weren’t able to take him until January. No one else adopted him in the intervening time, so he joined our family shortly after the New Year. PJ and I are incredibly grateful that he did.
Since today is National Coming Out Day, I especially wanted to blog about last week’s episode of Glee, which is one of my favorite shows. Chris Colfer was particularly wonderful in this episode, in which Kurt’s father has a heart attack and is left in a coma. While his father is in the hospital, Kurt sings The Beatles’ “I Want to Hold Your Hand” in Glee Club:
This song is very affecting in this episode, but what I like most about it is its potential as a queer song. This song is all about longing and wanting to love another person in this really simple way: to hold their hand.
Ultimately, I think that’s what all gay rights issues are really about: we want to hold the hand of our beloved openly and fearlessly, to be able to acknowledge who we are and who we love and share our lives with. This song sums that up for me, especially with a gay actor singing it.
Colfer’s version of the song is so simply beautiful. After hearing it for the first time, I told PJ that someday, when we’re allowed to marry legally and have a ceremony, I want this version of the song to be sung at our wedding. I think it would be beautiful.
So, I’ve downloaded it from iTunes, and I’m dreaming of the day when I’ll get married to the man I love. I can’t wait.
Cazwell’s “Ice Cream Truck” has been on YouTube for a couple of months now. It was definitely the queer song of the summer!
In general, I enjoy Cazwell’s provocatively queer sexual imagery. This video is less lyrically sexually explicit and a little more explicit in its imagery than some of his past videos/singles. But I think it’s catchy and fun! It’s also definitely easy on the eyes.
This is Jake and Eddie. Jake is the little gray and white kitty; Eddie is the black one. They’re the newest editions to our family.
decided it was time to take our little buddy, Marlowe, to the vet for his final visit.
![IMG_8341[1]](https://live.staticflickr.com/8644/27753735444_2ca20d29d0_s.jpg "IMG_8341[1]")
This Gaudy Gilded Stage 