The Amazing...

I don't understand people well enough.  I met a man who called me "amigo" today because I helped him find a book he lost over a decade ago: "The Three Wars of Roy Benavidez."  I found it ten feet up, just under the ceiling on what I thought was a fool's errand and then ran down the stairs, hoping to catch the guy before he left the store and I did and he shook my hand.  I like helping peeps at the store.  This other guy asked me where Arthur Conan Doyle was today because it's not mixed in with the Mystery & Suspense section.  And I knew what I was doing.  I had just reorganized the Holmes section into 4 subsections: "Holmes Movies," "Holmesology,""Holmes, Various Authors," and "Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle."  I told him he might also find some of his stuff in the Sci-Fi section at the back of the store and that I had seen The Lost World there the last time I checked.  The guy seemed gratified.

When I went through Central America in 2005, I would tell people my name and they would often say, "Oh.  Peter Parker," and mime taking my photograph or shooting web at me from their palm.  I got the same thing from a guy I introduced myself to at work about a month ago, and he was Argentinian, so I wonder if there is some kind of connection Spiderman has with Latin America that I don't understand.

I like Sam Raimi's Spiderman 2 a whole lot.  I've been thinking about it lately.  Peter doesn't think he can handle being Spiderman anymore.  He has two jobs, an academic career, his relationships with Aunt May, Mary Jane, and Harry Osborne, and he has to save the city from the Doctor Octavious and its much too much.  Either he can be Spiderman and endure the suffering that entails or he can be the kind of guy who sits on his couch and watches Spiderman 2 on a Tuesday afternoon and take it easy.  In the end, he puts his suit back on and this actually saves his life and probably the entire city; he suffers a little and they all benefit.

I had a dream last night that I was on a a movie crew and we ran late on the schedule and they were going to shut down because we didn't have enough time to get all the shots we needed.  I asked the director what we needed and he answered "6 days."  I said "Well, why don't we make a shitty movie in 3 days?" and that was the end of the dream as far as I can remember it.

"That's your back," someone told a boy when he made a face while lifting a cinder block.  This was his first day of work in his life.  He was 15.  "It's gonna smart you for the next 40, 50 years."