Arctangential

Time for another book update, I guess. I finished Farmer’s World of Tiers series the other day, after a short delay because it turns out I had been missing the sixth book in the series and had mistakenly thought that the seventh book was the sixth. Overall I liked the series, but it was a little bit “out there” at times, and the last two volumes, written decades after the original books, were a great shift in tone that I didn’t find entirely agreeable. I’ve also now finished the first book (of 11) of Hugh Cook’s Chronicles of an Age of Darkness and I liked it quite a lot. I’m looking forward to reading the rest in the next few weeks.

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We stopped by IHoP this afternoon for a little bit of brunch, after a strenuous hour of shopping at Archie McPhee. IHoP has a new special menu in support of the Horton Hears a Who movie, featuring green eggs and ham (natch) and “Who Cakes”, as pictured here. Now, I can imagine a few different reactions to seeing this food item available; one might say “That’s gross.” One might think, “Kids would like that, but no good parent would let their child eat it.” One might even think, “That’s a good treat for kids.”

I, of course, had to have it. And I did, much to the waitress’s surprise and Marika’s chagrin. It was really good, although pairing a lollipop with pancakes, as it turns out, isn’t a great idea.

I’ve read 3 more books since my last update. They were small, but also I have been getting a lot more reading done by riding the bus. It’s also saving me money on gas. The last book I finished, On Directing Film, was really excellent. I’m not a huge fan of Mamet’s movies, and I thought this book wouldn’t be very good, but it’s actually a really remarkable treatise on how to construct a film optimally. He has really only one idea — that a film should be made of scenes, a scene of shots and that as each film has a reason, so does each scene and so does each shot. Each shot should be “uninflected” and the meaning of each shot should be understood through the cuts entering and leaving it. It’s a simple idea, and very well presented, mainly through Socratic dialogue. I’d recommend this book to anyone seriously interested in the construction of film. I might even enjoy Mamet’s movies more now that I know better his philosophy.

Anyways.

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Since I last posted about my book project progress, I’ve read 3 more books: two more of Farmer’s “World of Tiers” series, which is getting more and more interesting and fun, and Fight Club, which I enjoyed quite a bit, but for different reasons from those for which I enjoyed the film.

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For Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, Marika and I took a road trip down to Portland. Before we left, I printed out a bunch of spots from Roadside America and we took the kind of “long way around” to see some of them. They didn’t all work out; some were too hard to stop for, others we couldn’t find, some we found but they were lame. However, it was a really nice drive, and we did see some interesting things.

First, we drove down past Tacoma and drove past the Metal Cows, but we didn’t bother to stop and take pictures. Then it was on the Raymond, WA and the Town of Metal People:

Next we hit Long Beach, WA, home of both the World's Largest Frying Pan and the Marsh Free Museum:

We had lunch at a little place on the main drag there. I had been generally apprehensive about the quality of food we’d be able to acquire on this road trip, but this place was really good. I had one of the best hamburgers I’ve eaten, which came with a wonderful cold pasta salad.

Next it was down to Portland, via the Astoria Bridge, which goes across the mouth of the Columbia River and is for sure the longest bridge I’ve ever driven on. It was really pretty scary. Once in Portland, we had dinner at a place called Calypso, a really wonderful pirate-themed Caribbean place. I would absolutely recommend it for anyone living in or visiting Portland.

The next morning, we began with a breakfast at Zell’s. This place is small but very popular; we had to wait outside for about 10 minutes, then inside for another 10 minutes after some space on the indoor waiting bench opened up. By the time we were seated, there were probably 20 people waiting around outside. Considering the temperature out there, I think this speaks volumes about the quality of the food there. I had a “Reuben Scramble”, which was corned beef and cheese scrambled with eggs and served on rye toast with a horseradish sauce, with coleslaw and country potatoes next to it. It was wonderful. Exemplary. Marika had a mushroom and gorgonzola omelet which was also quite tasty.

We then drove around Portland a little bit, finding some roadside attractions and not finding others. We did find the Strip Club Shaped Like a Jug, the World's Smallest Park and the Chocolate Waterfall. We did not find the Velvet Museum nor the Grave of the Wonder Dog. On the drive back to Seattle, we failed to find the Jefferson Davis Highway Marker, but we did find the Squirrel Bridge:

We then had a bite to eat in a diner near said bridge. The food at the diner was… American. Not bad, neither good, but very simple, very homey. Maybe it was a little bit bad. But not terrible. While we ate, we overheard the waitress talking tot he people at the table behind us, explaining that the nice crust on whatever they were eating was because the cook had just discovered the broiler in the oven. She went on to say how he’d been cooking with hat oven for years and had only now realized it had a broiler. He was, I guess, really happy with it.

On the drive back to Seattle, we passed the very strange Gospodor Monument Park. And that was all.

I don’t know why this took me more than a month to write.