Intermittence

I love food.

A lot.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m no gourmet, nor a ‘foodie’ (whatever that might be), but I loves me some good eatin’. Not just quantity (anybody can eat a lot of food) and not just quality (anybody can eat expensive food), but good food.

I’m talking about hole-in-the-wall Mexican, where the method of getting food to your mouth is a tortilla that was a blob of masa just seconds ago, and where even the fat that runs down the side of your hand is too delicious to let hit the floor. Read the rest of this entry »

(via Jason Kottke)

Film critic Jim Emerson recently made a list of 102 movies that you must see before you will be taken seriously in the film scene. I’ve reproduced the list below, marking the ones I’ve seen in bold…

2001: A Space Odyssey
The 400 Blows
8 1/2
Aguirre, the Wrath of God
Alien
All About Eve
Annie Hall
Apocalypse Now
Bambi
The Battleship Potemkin
The Best Years of Our Lives
The Big Red One
The Bicycle Thief
The Big Sleep
Blade Runner
Blowup
Blue Velvet
Bonnie and Clyde
Breathless
Bringing Up Baby
Carrie
Casablanca
Un Chien Andalou
Children of Paradise / Les Enfants du Paradis
Chinatown
Citizen Kane
A Clockwork Orange
The Crying Game
The Day the Earth Stood Still
Days of Heaven
Dirty Harry
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
Do the Right Thing
La Dolce Vita
Double Indemnity
Dr. Strangelove
Duck Soup
E.T.—The Extra-Terrestrial
Easy Rider
The Empire Strikes Back
The Exorcist
Fargo
Fight Club
Frankenstein
The General
The Godfather, The Godfather, Part II
Gone With the Wind
GoodFellas
The Graduate
Halloween
A Hard Day’s Night
Intolerance
It’s a Gift
It’s a Wonderful Life
Jaws
The Lady Eve
Lawrence of Arabia
M
Mad Max 2 / The Road Warrior
The Maltese Falcon
The Manchurian Candidate
Metropolis
Modern Times
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Nashville
The Night of the Hunter
Night of the Living Dead
North by Northwest
Nosferatu
On the Waterfront
Once Upon a Time in the West
Out of the Past
Persona
Pink Flamingos
Psycho
Pulp Fiction
Rashomon
Rear Window
Rebel Without a Cause
Red River
Repulsion
The Rules of the Game
Scarface
The Scarlet Empress
Schindler’s List
The Searchers
The Seven Samurai
Singin’ in the Rain
Some Like It Hot
A Star Is Born
A Streetcar Named Desire
Sunset Boulevard
Taxi Driver
The Third Man
Tokyo Story
Touch of Evil
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Trouble in Paradise
Vertigo
West Side Story
The Wild Bunch
The Wizard of Oz

That’s 43 out of 102—not too bad, I think…

...which does not normally bother me, but there are times when it clenches up, pulling my lungs together into a little ball, and I am forced to cough. This cough, if it is measured, only causes the point to tighten up even more, and I fear (without good cause) that I will asphyxiate and fall over. It feels like I have inhaled the thin plastic film of a grocery sack, even though the warnings are plain for all to see, printed there on each and every one. The coughs grow more wracked and painful until my entire chest rattles…and then it stops and I am allowed to inhale…

Exhale…

Inhale again, and wonder if I have stopped coughing for now.

This has been going on for the better part of the day, and I feel like I will be better soon. For now, though, it’s fairly horrible. I hope that you, whoever you are, never get sick.