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Coff-ay?
I read to Pix some nights. I wonder sometimes if she's using me to put her to sleep (cause I can think of better ways of doing *that*) but figure that hey, I'd be reading it anyway so why not read it aloud, its good practice for... uh... when I elope with Sophie Dahl to some South Pacific island and become the local storyteller.
As an aside, after reading Mostly Harmless when Arthur Dent became stranded on an alien planet and used the only skill he had, the ability to make sandwiches, to endear himself with the natives I realised that, hey, I could do that and were I ever to be stranded on an alien planet that's exactly what I'd do to gain their trust. I also know exactly what I'll do if and when I'm inexplicably sucked back through time to King Arthur's Court but that'd be an aside on an aside, so back to the bedtime stories.
So I look out for books that would make good bedtime reading: The Scratch and Sniff Rubaiyat, The Young Person's Pop-Up Kama Sutra, Women On Top with two pairs of 3D glasses...
Kidding.
We started Bill Bryson's Notes From a Big Country (which it would seem isn't available on Amazon.com... but that could be because its written by a Yank telling us why living in America is so fabulous and I'm sure Americans don't need a book to tell them that, do they?) a while back and despite the fact that we've both already read it seperately there's something about reading it to someone that ups the hillarity factor. On paragraphs that I just can't finish reading without bursting into fits of laughter I have to turn the book to her and point at the part of the page at which point neither of us can continue until the laughter dies out.
(wow this is a long one and I still haven't got to the point... ...I'm hungry)
I'll read three or four of the short articles and usually by that time she'll be asleep and I have to close the book and turn off the light and scoot down under the covers all without waking her up. (first person to go "aaaaw isn't that sweet" gets their two front teeth as stomach staples) Last night we read Bill's views on the wonder that is the domestic garbage disposal and the fun to be had putting all sorts of stuff down there.
Bill says: "Chopsticks give perhaps the liveliest response (this is not recommended, of course, but there comes a time with every piece of machinery when you just have to see what it can do), but cantaloup rinds make the richest, throatiest sound and results in less 'down time'. Coffee grounds in quantity are the most likely to provide a satisfying 'Vesuvius effect', though for obvious reasons it is best not to attempt this difficult feat until your wife has gone out for the day, and to have a mop and ladder standing by."
And I was struck by a dose of nostalgia almost as soon as the realisation that Bill and Miguel are in fact the same person or at least share genetic material. The nostalgia was back in my student days when I was filming a personal project called "Dark Coffee".
I had signed out the small but very expensive Sony DV videocamera for the evening and with a fellow student we set about setting up one climactic shot from an overhead perspective of a coffee cup breaking on the kitchen floor of my student flat. I stood on top of the table with a mug full of cold coffee in one hand and the mini-DV camera in the other. Kev sorted out the lighting rigs and we were ready to shoot. You already know what happened, don't you.
I dropped the mug from a height of maybe two metres hoping the impact would smash the mug and cause the coffee to splash out. I was filming at high speed so I could slow the footage down later and make it look really dramatic. I wasn't worried about cold coffee in the kitchen carpet, it was a dark blue and Kev was ready with kitchen towels to soak up any coffee that went any higher than the floor.
In an instant the cup hit the floor at the worst possible angle, practically flat on its base, and the impact acted as a firing mechanism for a cupful of cold coffee: straight up like a Claymore directional anti-personnel mine. BOOM
Camera: dripping wet. D: stinking of cold coffee. Kitchen carpet: bone dry.
Oh shit.
On the white-washed cieling of the kitchen, directly above the intended crash site was a very wide-spread array of tan brown splatters that had immediately soaked into the surface. Comically there was even a sort of D-shaped outline around the place I had masked with my upper body and outstretched camera.
The camera was fine. I had to take a shower. The kitchen cieling last time I saw it still had those strange yellow rings just above the table. I spent that last day hoping to God that the landlord would not look up and keep the deposit.
But when it came time to review the footage... that was the fun part. Very, very slowly the mug falls into frame, twisting slightly, the contents visible all the way down... until it strikes and the mug rolls away, but a large dark patch rushes towards the lens and obscures the whole view. All in glorious slow-mo. My tutor loved it but never did ask how we got the fade out effect in-camera. And we never told him how we had to get the coffee out-of-camera.
Apr.19.2002