We will eradicate Spies and Diversionists.

So updates:
I bought those frames I'd linked to. There was a bit of last minute agonizing, as I'm sure most glasses wearers can attest to, and I was briefly tempted by the Shuron Ronsirs they had in stock (even with the tapered temple), which are shockingly difficult to find in any opticians you care to walk into. But, despite these temptations, no, I went with my original impulse for bizarrely shaped gold aviator wire frames. Not particularly Paul Newman in The Color of Money, but as a co-worked pointed out, "Yeah, but he's Paul Newman. Anything looks good on him." Besides, I wouldn't have the chutzpah to get green tinted lenses, which I think would be incredibly annoying anyway. So now just to get the lenses put in, which Fabulous Fanny's has a Chinatown optician they recommend, with free eye exams and lenses in the $50 to $60 range. (I have a pretty light prescription. They might just turn Vern away at the door. Optical 88 at 116 Mott St, just North of Canal, in case anyone can avail themselves of inexpensive lenses as well.) So I'll try to swing down Monday before work, maybe, and see how it goes. And then sometime this week everyone can start telling me they're weird and they liked the old ones. But at least I won't have to be told I look like Drew Carey anymore. That never got old, did it?

I've caught myself studying that Newman screenshot with a bit more regularity and intensity than I find appropriate.


One of the Fabulous Fanny's owners seemed a bit surprised by my current Cutler & Gross frames. "Nice. Too expensive." Yeah, tell me about it. Also, they weren't interested in buying my atrocious pair of Versace sunglasses, purchased from a mall in Connecticut when I was still in high school. He actually seemed to blanch slightly, which I understand. They're hideous. Ebay, they said. Collectors. Original case. Etc. Maybe I can ask Shannon if she'd want to put them up for me and divvy proceeds, as I have zero Ebay experience, outside of once buying my two Wing Shya photo books, one from Happy Together and one for In the Mood for Love, from a presumably very pleased seller in Hong Kong. They were insanely overpriced, and are two of my most prized possessions, along with being perhaps the rarest as well.

On my way to go frames shopping I happened across the new (and last) Kim's Video on 1st Avenue. Impressions from my quick tour? Meh. There wasn't much to look at, although admittedly I didn't have time to trawl through the used CDs. If I had seen a cheap copy of Little Murders I might have briefly forgotten my rock solid embargo against ever giving another cent to Youngman Kim, that cube-headed douche, but alas I was spared the temptation. Conclusion? If you'd never seen an actual Kim's Video before you might be impressed, which I suppose could constitute a good review of sorts. I didn't get a chance to walk down St. Marks and scope out what business was squatting in Kim's old spot. Anything? Nothing? Just a huge For Rent sign? Who knows. There's nothing like the East Village to make you feel like five years ago was ancient history.


All of this could be edited away. See? If I don't post minutes after writing, it always turns into this.

Random note: there's a characteristic of light in videotape recordings from the mid 1980's that I rather like. It might just be the harshness of the lighting, but when there's a reflective surface that catches the hot lights it almost burns into the image, leaving slight, quickly fading streaks. I've grown to like many features of videotaped recordings; the dull colors, the greasy, unglamorous sheen of the actors' skin. It elicits an odd sort of comfortable nostalgia. Television nowadays is all either Hollywood-lite or hand-held Digicam pseudo-documentary. What happened to Jack Tripper's testicle? Where's Zack Morris's gargantuan cell phone? Is episodic television an embarrassment to networks these days? Fuck new TV. (Not really. Milch has a new series pending, and I quite enjoyed watching the second season of Flight of the Conchords.)


Been watching some small amount of Sandbaggers, a great dry bureaucratic British spy series (with exteriors and location work shot on 16mm film, lovely in its way, and interiors and studio work shot on videotape, with perfectly abrupt and indifferent transitions between the two), and nightly drifting-off-to-sleep sessions of Lovejoy, a ridiculous dramatization of a series of what I'd take to be rather trashy novels following the titular Lovejoy, a broke gallivanting antiques dealer in the English countryside. He investigates, forges, scams, wheels and deals, beds not terribly attractive guest actresses (none of whom ever appear again), and drinks almost constantly, large scotches, sherry, and gallons of tea. It is very, very good.