Actually make that "Greetings from Grey, Overcast, Threatening to Snow Staten Island!" to be precise. To be even more precise, "Greetings from the Muddy Cup cafe in Staten Island, which makes a mean hot chocolate but does not provide spoons." With the houses so close together, we were hoping that at least one of Georg's folks' neighbors would have unprotected wireless. But no such luck. At my friend Peggy's house in Austin, there were three unprotected networks and one heavily protected network. I guess the residents of Staten Island are either more computer savvy and have their networks all locked up, or much less computer savvy and don't have wireless.
The trip up was fairly uneventful andall we've done so far is relax and hang with the folks. We got there in time to watch the yule log on TV. I'd never even heard of it before but apparently it's a New York tradition. There was even an article about it in the Times yesterday. It's just film of a log burning, with Christmas carols playing, no talking or change of scene or anything. Apparently it's a 7 minute loop; they loop it so they can show the fire for 4 hours without having to stoke it or add more wood. It was originally filmed at the governor's mansion but a film crew set fire to the mansion in the 70s, so the log they show now was filmed in California.
I've been very much enjoying the book Georg gave me for Xmas about alchemical themes in the work of Max Ernst, but it's a dense book so I haven't gotten that far into it yet. Lest you think we're all highbrow or something, Georg also gave me a DVD of Mystery Science Theater 3000's treatment of Manos the Hands of Fate and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. Old school MST3K! TV's Frank! Whee!
Tomorrow we're going into Manhattan but I'm not sure yet what we're going to do. Maybe go to a museum, the MoMA just reopened although I hear that's exhausting because it's designed to make you walk through the whole thing. Tuesday I'm going to see my old friends Womzilla, Supergee and Nellorat. I most likely won't get another chance to post until we get back, so I hope you had a wonderful weekend and have a great week!
somewhere i've got a videotape of my mom's gas log fireplace burning. i used it as a sort of joke when i didn't have a fireplace. a fake fake fire.
the Yule Log is indeed a New York tradition. the NYTimes even did a story about it this year (which was way too snarky -- i didn't know the Times did snark...). But in between the snark, they mentioned that the original log film loop was shot at Gracie Mansion (residence of NYC mayor) in the late 1960s. Which is what i'd always thought was the Yule Log. But apparently that was the original black & white version. when they re-shot in color they did it at a soundstage in California.