Four Things

Cab Whistlers

I hate it when people whistle for cabs. During half of the year, the cabbies have their windows rolled up because it's hot outside and the AC is inside. During the other half of the year, the cabbies have their windows rolled up because it's cold outside and the heat is inside. In normal city traffic, it's too loud to hear a whistle anyway, and the outstretched hand (with optional snapping fingers) is enough of a signal. I have decided that cab-whistlers fall into four categories.

1. The newbies. These people have seen other people whistling for cabs, so they think that's how you do it.

2. The poseurs. These people want you to know they're calling a cab. Hey, look at me! I'm calling a cab. I'm important. I'm going somewhere. Enjoy your bus ride, loser. I'll be in air-conditioned cab comfort.

3. The employees. Outside of hotels, men with loud whistles summon cabs with annoying blasts. They're paid to call cabs, and the hotel knows that their patrons want to see a guy in a uniform with a loud whistle. It means service: he's whistling, and he's doing it for me.

If I know and like you, and you whistle for cabs, none of this applies to you. If you're thinking that there are better things to get annoyed about, you're probably right.

My Crane Movie

The shoot a couple of Sundays ago went really well. The actors hit it off; the crew worked well together. We got through most of the scenes featuring my costar, but we have three more to shoot before he moves to Arizona. Then I have to shoot the Evil Crane Woman scenes, and then it's down to chasing Shawn around town with a video camera.

Firefly

If you're a fan of Joss Whedon (creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer), a fan of sci-fi, or just a fan of good television, you should check out Firefly, his short-lived TV show (it lasted 14 episodes, only 11 of which aired). The movie Serenity, which is opening this Friday, is an outgrowth of the series. I started watching the show yesterday, because I want to have seen it before I see the movie. The show, set 500 years in the future, is about a transport spaceship crew that exists on the fringes of the law, taking questionable jobs and generally trying to stay under the galaxy-ruling Alliance's radar. Many of the crew members were part of an uprising against the Alliance a few years earlier. They take aboard a fugitive brother and sister, the latter of whom the Alliance desperately wants back because they've been doing some kind of experiments on her.

It's a mix of Western (meaning Wild West) and Eastern (meaning Chinese) themes, with a strong nautical feel. It's hard to describe, really. It's just really wonderful.

Mountolive

I started reading The Alexandria Quartet because it was on that MLA list of the 100 greatest novels of the 20th century. Lawrence Durrell was a British functionary stationed in Alexandria, Egypt, in the years leading up to WW2, and he transformed his experiences into one of the greatest sustained pieces of painfully beautiful writing that I've ever encountered. I'm on the third volume, Mountolive, now, and he just let slip a zinger about characters described in the first volume, Justine, that actually prompted me to say "Oh my god!" out loud on the bus this morning. I heartily recommend it, but you probably already know if it's the kind of thing you'd read or not.