November 13, 1992
Dear Everyone:
Heads up, everybody! Christmas is
coming and the geese are getting fat. (I
know, I know, they're not the only ones.)
By the time you read this Letter, Christmas will be
less than six weeks away.
Ergo, I am once again attempting to find out what this motley crew wants
to do about the Holidays (i.e.., where to spend time, who spend money
on, etc., etc., etc.). With this
week's Letter, you will find a Holiday Questionnaire and a return
envelope. Please fill out the
former, stuff it into the latter and put it in the mail QLAB*.
(Please note that this questionnaire applies only to those people who
actually came out of our own little gene pool.
If you don't find a return
envelope with your copy of the Letter, please don't feel that you need
to complete the questionnaire, unless, of course, you
really want to.)
Thanks very much.
In
other news…
Things I've been meaning to mention:
One. Stephen
Seagal can't act his way out of a paper bag.
A few weeks ago, “Jeannie” and I
decided that what we really needed was some relatively mindless,
vicarious violence, so we went to see
Under Siege. Seagall plays
the typical one-man-against-an-army of bad guys.
In this case, he's a former
Navy
Seal, demoted to ship's cook on the
USS Missouri and he's the
"only" person who can stop the bad guys from stealing nuclear missiles
to sell to the highest bidder. Problem
is, no matter whether he's baking bread, breaking heads, or doing a
really dreadful
Elvis
impersonation, he has only one expression.
His face never changes.
He really is a martial arts
expert, having spent over 20 years in the Orient, gaining his expertise.
But an actor, he ain't.
Tommy Lee Jones, on the other hand, plays the villain with gusto,
chewing up the scenery and large chunks of the
Missouri with it.
He's great fun to watch, compared
to which, Seagall exhibits all the character-development of your average
shoe box.
Two. Coca-Cola®
bottles. One of the people I work
with, “Miranda”, originally came from
Bolivia.
A few weeks ago, her sister had
to go back to Bolivia on family business.
She returned with a Bolivian Coke bottle to add to my
collection. Then, “Miranda's”
husband was sent to Moscow (he's part of the team working on the
Kazakhstan Joint Venture Project). You
guessed it. “Miranda” gave orders
not to come back without a Coke bottle.
So
far, I have treasures from
Morocco,
Israel, People's Republic of
China,
France (?),
Yugoslavia,
Mexico, Bolivia and
Russia.
I
forgot to ask my hairdresser, “Yvonne”, to bring me one from
Australia.
Next time.
Three.
Vampires. You will no doubt have
noticed that a new film version of
Dracula opens in theaters today. Well,
I finally decided that after all of the movies I've seen,and in books
and stories I've read, that it was high time I actually read the
original Dracula by
Bram Stoker. I am
about one-third of the way through it.
So
far, I have found it to be a surprisingly
soothing book, especially
suited to bedtime reading. You
wouldn't think so, but it is. It
turns out that Stoker worked for many years as the acting manager of Sir
Henry Irving's
Lyceum theater where he was exposed to large quantities
of Shakespeare. This, combined
with the flowery prose prevalent in the
Victorian era (the book was
first published in 1897), results in long, elegant paragraphs of
description where a modern writer would more likely use a few pithy,
four-letter words, plus "Biff! Bam! Splat!"
In
the days before radio, movies and television, people had more time to
read and often, one person would read out loud while others in the room
worked quietly with their hands. Stoker's
work clearly fits into this category. Try
it. Really.
Now available in paperback.
Four.
The weather, despite a brief spot
of rain which only served to wet the streets (and whet our appetites),
continues to be its usual, relentlessly cheerful self. It has, however,
finally turned cooler. Overnight.
Literally.
It seems I bought that little
Black & Decker® room heater just at the right time.
It seems silly to heat the whole
apartment in the morning when I’m really only in one room.
With the little heater, the
bedroom stays toasty while icicles form on the living room lamps.
(Just kidding.
Technically, the inside
temperature hasn’t dropped below 62°. Yet.)
Love, as always,
Pete
PS.
Got that questionnaire in the
mail yet?
*QLAB = Quick Like A Bunny
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