What I Watched -- Ghost Image

I discovered recently that one of my neighbors had a bit part as an extra in the movie Ghost Image. What, you've never heard of it. I'm not surprised.

Far and away the most exciting part of the movie is the fact that Stacey Dash is in it, but I just couldn't take her seriously because she will always be, to me, Dionne from Clueless.  I mean, how do you top this?

Regardless of the movie's quality, a group of us decided to celebrate our nearly-famous friend C by throwing a bash for him.  There were decorations, candy, drinks, popcorn, and lots of replaying the 13 seconds of the movie that he was in.

Bottom line: a good time was had by all!  As for the movie, it's not good, but I've seen way worse.  And those 13 seconds were Oscar-worth (obviously).

Cafe Osage

Grandma's birthday was a few weeks ago, to G&G, cousin M, S, and I all went out to celebrate at Cafe Osage in the Central West End.  The setup of the restaurant is a bit funny.  I think there's a regular restaurant in there somewhere, but there's a "balcony" which is not outside but actually in the shop.  The balcony is the main entry to the restaurant.  We were seated on the balcony, and as a consequence, we never actually saw the restaurant.

But no matter.  It was a beautiful, sunny morning, and the shop is a huge, light-filled space (formerly used for auto repair, among other things).

Our food was delicious, the brunch cocktails (which they have even on Saturday - love it!) were pretty good, and the shop (which I spent a fair amount of time in) was adorable.

All in all, definitely a win for a sunny brunch!

What I Watched -- The Ranch

S was killing time on Netflix a couple weeks ago, and happened upon a sitcom called The Ranch.  I'm not much for sitcoms, but this one isn't bad.  It employs a lot of the usual sitcom tropes, but it's made me laugh out loud on several occasions.  I especially like Sam Elliott, who plays Beau Bennett, the father of our main character.  The lead is played by Ashton Kutcher, who is funnier than I had ever given him credit for.  Also stars Debra Winger (yes, that Debra Winger).

All in all, it's way more entertaining than I expected, and I'm very much enjoying it.

Pink Martini

One Monday a couple of weeks back, I did something that has never happened before in St. Louis: I went to a Pink Martini concert!  How can a band that has been touring for 20 years never have played a show in St. Louis?! That was finally rectified recently at the Sheldon.

It's hard to describe Pink Martini's music.  If you don't know it, you might be best off just to listen to some of it here.  If you are not so inclined, however, I will describe it thus: much of it is jazz, Afro-Caribbean, or bossa nova-inspired.  They sing in at least a dozen and a half different languages.  Most of their music is fairly upbeat, but certainly not all of it.

All of it, though, was great to see live.  Somehow they jammed 13 musicians, two drum sets, a piano, and various other instruments onto that little stage at the Sheldon, and the show was phenomenal - just one of those toe-tappin', head-bobbin' performances, from start to finish.

Go see them if you get the chance!

Bar Les Freres

I have written about Bar Les Freres before, a few times (here, here, here). I adore it! Or perhaps I should say, je l'adore!

I went again last night with L, one of my bosses, and one of her bosses. We had some delicious apps and cocktails! I especially liked this one, the Aviation.

When the bosses left, S joined us for dinner, and I had bone marrow for the second time ever! S described it as being like eating oysters. I can get on board with that description for the texture, but I think oysters are way more salty. But one thing the menu certainly was: interesting!

What I Watched -- Inglorious Basterds

S and I watched Inglorious Basterds over the course of a couple days while we were working out. The things I knew about it before it started were as follows:
- It's a Quentin Tarantino film;
- It's set in World War II Germany;
- It stars Brad Pitt and Christoph Waltz.

I assumed (due to Quentin Tarantino's heavy-handedness) that there would be lots of bloodshed.  Turns out I was right about that.

Christoph Waltz plays Colonel Hans Landa, the despicable German, the "Jew Hunter."  Brad Pitt plays Lieutenant Aldo Raine, the American, despicable in his own war-hero way.  He was called "The Apache," for scalping the Nazis he killed.  The unknown-to-Americans actress Melanie Laurent plays a key role in the film, as a Jew-in-hiding in Paris.

As you can probably guess, there is lots of grandstanding by the lead actor, lots of scheming by the lead villain, and lots of gory death.

Bottom line: about what you'd expect.

Ella Minnow Pea -- Take 2

I finished up Ella Minnow Pea a couple of weeks ago, and I have nothing but good things to say about it!

I love epistolary novels.  Check.
I love clever use of language.  Check.
I love short novels (on account of my total lack of free time at present).  Check.

This is the tale of a fictional island nation off the coast of the U.S. named Nollopton, after the man who crafted the uses-all-26-letters sentence, "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog."  When tiles containing the letters in that famous sentence start to drop from Nollop's statue in the town square, the Nollopton residents are forbidden from using said letter any more.

The story is told in the form of correspondence mainly between two cousins, but with assorted others added in as the story goes along.

I was a bit concerned as I got 2/3 of the way into the book and the correspondence was a bit roundabout, but not too extreme in terms of working around the missing letters.  Then the vital letters started to fall, and the correspondence got extremely clever - and also somewhat difficult to read!  Now I see why the author didn't take us there earlier in the book.  Tip: it helps to pretend to read it out loud - it's a bit like poetry that way.

All in all, an enjoyable read.

My New Mountain Bike!

I pseudo-inherited a mountain bike last fall.  That is a rough time to get any new type of bike besides CX bike, because that is all I'm going to do until it's too cold to ride.  But I finally got out on my "new" bike about three weeks ago - on a trail (or several) in Quail Ridge Park.

Here's the trouble that I discovered with Quail Ridge Park: the trails are a nightmare.  It took half a dozen random "let's-go-this-way's" before we ever actually saw a trail marker, and even then, they didn't make a damn bit of sense.  We turned onto a trail named X, and by the time we got to the next marker, it turns out the trail we were in was named Y. And none of the maps were properly oriented. Useless.

Nevertheless, it was a fun day of crashing around and trying to break things. And it was the first time I used my fancy new Garmin GPS bike computer, so that was a ton of fun!  Can't think of a better way to spend the weekend!