whipping up waterworks

Amy and I caught one of the iterations of A Christmas Story on TBS after opening our gifts on Christmas Eve. Even before TBS started running it into the ground, I loved this movie. I know it did nothing at the box office in the early 80s when it came out and lingered at cult status for a long time before cementing its position as a Christmas classic, but we were charter members of the cult - we had it on VHS back in the day.

So there's one moment where I always tear up, I'm afraid to say. It's the moment after all the Christmas presents have been opened and Ralphie hadn't received the BB gun he lusted after so desperately. And then (spoiler alert: but if you haven't seen the movie, you've clearly been celebrating Kwanzaa on Jupiter for the last 25 years) Ralphie's gruff Dad gives him the gift - from out of nowhere. It's just amazing in that scene to watch the Dad, the late Darren McGavin (of Kolchak: The Night Stalker fame): you can see him reliving his childhood and feeling the sense of wonder about the gift even more than Ralphie, somehow. And that's how I am, I've found out: getting gifts is great, but what I really revel in is the giving. When I see the look of surprise and delight in someone's eye when they open a gift I gave them, that's what I live for this time of year.

And that scene will always get to me.

yule be bored

A quick Xmas update, then.

Amy and I spend the holidays alone. We ship out two boxes of gifts to our immediate families just in time for them to be under the tree. Amy's folks open presents on Christmas Eve; I and my folks always opened our whole slate of gifts on Christmas day morning, but Amy and I do ours on Christmas Eve. I've never really pushed the issue - and that's a good thing, as I've heard stories about just how obstinate Amy can be about this.

This year, we actually stuck to what we frequently plan but hardly ever do: wait to open our stockings until Christmas morning. I really push for this, given all my cherished childhood memories of that morning looming so magically in my mind. So there was something to look forward to even after the main cache of presents had been opened (and the jigsaw puzzle lover in me was utterly satisfied). It was a good haul this year: even the dogs fared well. Of course, Amy was sick throughout the whole affair, so she slept for about 80% of the Christmas festivities, only waking up to make the Christmas meatloaf (not a tradition, just what we were in the mood for). And I was slaving away all afternoon trying to whip up a batch of peppermint bark (my 2nd in as many weeks), but the white chocolate seized on me...a horrible experience. So, I'll have to try again tomorrow to get the top layer of my peppermint bark taken care of, but if that turns out to be the worst thing that happened this time 'round, then this one goes into the books as a success.

retail details

And I first extend my welcome to Sparx (or Sparxafire or whatever she'd prefer to be called - she's my mother, Susan Parker, at any rate). Given her participation in this blog, it seems we'll have to change the name. If anyone has any suggestions, do comment and drop them off here...otherwise, I'm liable to choose a moniker even worse than "thegrantlander." Shudder.

As for the health of our retail institutions this holiday season, I'm afraid I have to muddy the waters further and say that the bookseller I work for is raking it in hand over fist. Today, we actually ran out of singles because we were doing so many cash transactions. Couple that with the fact that they're hiring shiftless drifters like me well into the December doldrums and it adds up to evidence (albeit anecdotal) that the economy is not quite in the shambles of which we are constantly convinced. On the other hand, maybe it just means that despite our evaporating wealth, we're continuing to spend like Michael Jackson at FAO Schwartz.

And the cherry on top is that the store I work at that's doing so well is located at the area's scrabblous mall. That seems to be the coded question in America that thin-slices your class: what mall do you shop at? Here, the upscale shopping center is Short Hills mall: Jimmy Choo, Burberry, professional singers caroling in Dickensian regalia, etc. But if you spend much time at the mall where both of my jobs are located, chances are you rode the bus there (and, hence, carry the fragrance of body odor aloft with you) and that you're strapped or at least have your blade on if you're prowling around the food court after sundown. So, a robust retail season just means roving gangs have more cars to break into this time o'year. Tis the season!

Sweatin' Bullets

Firstly, may I extend a humble welcome to myself and thanks to thegrantlander for inviting me to post herein.

OK. So, I ghostwrite the "publisher's letter" for a national trade magazine. The January letter was due on Dec. 11, and my message hinges on the fact that we (the U.S. retail community) had a crummy holiday shopping season. So now, I find myself in the acutely uncomfortable position of having to root for just that -- dismal retail numbers and stores going out of business and whatnot. Otherwise, when the magazine arrives in the subscriber's mailbox during the first week of January, the publisher will look like an idiot. I was dismayed when the venerable Ben Stein (...Buehler.... Buehler...) opined on TV's CBS Sunday Morning that the rich should spend like drunken sailors over the holidays to help make up for the poor peoples' inability to spend. NOT! As if I should worry too much about rich peoples' spending behaviors! I DO feel sorry for my publisher.

a nickel for your thoughts

So, learning to work the register at my new gig, I've already settled on the thing that most annoys me: people who pay with cash and parcel out specific amounts of change over the total.

Now I'm not annoyed by everyone who does this: in fact, back when I used to pay cash (um, before debit cards - a belated welcome to the 21st century, people), I used to give extra coin to get a round number of change back from time to time. But often people end up giving me unexpected amounts. For example, I rang up a transaction the other day in which the total was something like $13.06. So instead of giving me $14, the lady rooted around in her purse and finally emerged with two coins on top of her $13. Not scrutinizing the offering too closely, I took her two coins as exact change and rang her up, ending the transaction. However, what I failed to realize was that she had given me a dime and a penny instead of the nickel and penny I had expected. So, she wasn't just going to avoid receiving 94 cents, she was going to avoid receiving 4 pennies by adding a penny to get that fat nickel. Problem was, I closed the register and needed to call a manager in the event I had to reopen it. After I explained this to her, she refused to backpeddle one bit (or even half a bit, which is still technically more than 5 cents). So we waited around 5 minutes (with her glowering at me the whole time) for a manager to arrive and open my register to Retrieve. Her. Nickel.

Think of all the time spent for this nickel: her rifling through her purse for loose change (which is probably the most annoying waste of time when a busy line wraps behind a customer), me putting the change into the till, the combined payroll for myself and the manager torn away from our other duties to attend to this nickel and the paperwork printed by the register when it's opened apart from a cash transaction, which is signed by the manager and myself, filed and then processed by somebody at corporate. Add to that the time spent in writing this increasingly boring blog entry (including this clause right here; and this one too - this could go on forever) and this lady's nickel has cost everyone involved about $98.22 (Canadian) in wasted time.

Think of all the time spent wrangling with cash - and the coins in particular. Now the call to abolish the penny makes more sense to me than ever (I saw the guy on Colbert). Though it probably won't happen with a President who most recently represented the Land of Lincoln. On this issue, he won't give us the change we believe in (get it...change? I'll stop now). Or better yet, just use the debit whenever you can and leave some cash in reserve for when you absolutely need it. Of course, Amy has a pathological dependance about using cash, so I constantly have to replenish the supply for her purse and the car. My thinking is that I should be paid for that work, too: how about a nickel per hour?

adventures in bookselling

So, the posts have been sparse lately because I just started a job (actually, two jobs, but they only actually add up to like .75 of 1 job). I'm working for a bookstore that you've definitely heard of before: here's the first of a number of anecdotes from the world of the written word (and its wares).

Working at the register the other day, who else should walk up to be checked out but celebrated character actor Andre Braugher?

When he got to the register, I immediately recognized him and said, "Are you Andre Braugher?" I then told him I loved him in Homicide: Life on the Street, which happens to be based on a book by David Simon, the Baltimore journalist who went on to create The Wire. Bonus tidbit: when my car broke down in St. Louis one year I was coming home from college, I waited with a cop for the tow truck. I asked if he liked any cop shows, and he sang the praises of "Homicide" while dogging on NYPD Blue and the Law & Order constellation.

So, what's the bottom line of my latest brush with fame? It turns out that Andre Braugher is a super nice guy. He was more than gracious as I stumbled through the transaction. And I'm glad I didn't bring it up, but it's funny that I saw him because Amy and I had just talked about him a few days before, totally out of the blue. Amy loves the karaoke movie Duets and she even bought the soundtrack - but I had noticed some time ago that most everyone in the movie does their own singing, but Andre Braugher does not (I guess he was cast solely on the basis of acting, radical as that idea may be). So I really burst her bubble pointing out that he didn't do his own singing.

Perhaps I should have asked him to regale me with a few bars in the store...

mold school

So, I was having a conversation with my only reader the other day (I won't reveal their identity, but let's just say it was a person who gave birth to me) and we were discussing some telltale signs of getting older. When a guy gets really old, for example, he starts to look and sound like Andy Rooney and shake his fist furiously at whippersnappers cutting through his acreage.

But what about the earlier transition from young person to middle aged? Sure, there are physical signs like the strangeness of seeing your father in the bathroom mirror one day or even the double whammy of finding a gray hair...in your ear. But what about the social situation where you realize you've gotten old(er). Here's one.

Awhile ago, I was accompanying my wife as she shopped for clothes (yes, it's already a dismal life situation). However, in a desperate attempt to cling to some youth cred, I ducked out and headed a few storefronts down the strip mall to play some of that guitar game at the video game store. So, I was rockin' out (do the kids still say that?) in the middle of an Aerosmith jam when I was rudely interrupted with a call of, "Sir?" Ouch - Sir. The handwriting's on the wall at that point...and the letters are shaky due to arthritic hands. Anyway, if this weren't bad enough, I was being hailed because a lady had found a $20 bill on the floor, brought it to the clerk's attention and they were asking if I had dropped this cheese. And what did I respond in that split second: "Duh, no." Man, that's weak: a hip, young person knows that you claim money first and ask questions never. But my first instinct was to tell the truth and make the prudent choice. I'm disgusted at myself, too.

the lonely lasagna

I don't even remember where I first read about this site, but it's Garfield minus Garfield. This guy airbrushed Garfield out of all the Garfield comics, rendering it the depressing and desperate story of Jon Arbuckle. I'm now seeing on the web that the site is just now turning the corner from web sensation to book. So, next we should get ready for Ziggy minus Ziggy, I suppose: coming to a bookseller near you...

the worst line

Oh wait, here's the worst line from the Maureen Dowd profile of Tina Fey:

"She looks like a really pretty graduate student, and she has a soft voice and reserve that Matthew Broderick says cause people to 'lean in to her.' (Like Daisy Buchanan, except her voice is full of funny rather than money)."

Vanity Fair indeed...

gimme tina, hold the ike

So...

I've had a busy few weeks: a trip to Boston, good news about a couple of exams, planning for a couple more, etc. But it doesn't bother me that much - if you really were clicking this page incessantly with bated breath, I am truly sorry, but I get the sinking feeling that my mom is the only one who reads this blog. So, sorry Mom...can we get down to business now?

Anyway, Tina Fey is my "Dear Diary" crush (just as she claims the same thing about Jon Stewart). Indeed, she is, according to New Yorker writer Michael Specter, "the sex symbol for every man who reads without moving his lips." That quote is one of the better lines in this piece about Fey by Maureen Dowd in Vanity Fair. I love Tina Fey, I've read a number of profiles about her--and this article has a lot to love about it--but I just cringed reading it a few times because of Maureen Dowd (sample: "[I]t was a dazzling Cinderella moment...She got her own slipper, writing and willing herself into the role, and the shoe wasn't glass. It was a silver Manolo Blanhik."). Apparently, she's the kind of writer who can't get out of the way of the writing: the prose will leap off the page...and kick you in the groin. It's like Maureen Dowd doing an impression of Tom Wolfe doing an impression of...well, Tom Wolfe.

Wrap your head around that one. But read the article first.

here comes the groom

The dog groomers always scold me when I drop off Elliott (the black terrier) and Gipper (the white poodle) because, as an inveterate cheapskate, I wait so long between groomings that they both look like Cousin It. But it's hard to argue with these gorgeous results...

joe turncoat

So, Senate Democrats voted to allow Joe Lieberman to hang onto his chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee. Forgive me if I'm not bursting with enthusiasm. In fact, when I had picked all the low-hanging fruit this summer reading about Obama and Hillary slugging it out in the primary, I went off in search of some unflattering stories about Lieberman. I wasn't disappointed (click the link and read a doozy: I wish I could have been there to witness journalist Matt Taibbi unintentionally laughing out loud in the middle of a Lieberman speech and the resultant confrontation with Lieberman supporters).

Marc Ambinder in The Atlantic interprets the slap on Lieberman's wrist in light of the Democratic sweep in the election: the Democratic party has a mandate and Obama tends not to waste time and resources on paltry infighting in favor of focusing on the big goals. And keeping Lieberman in the caucus helps reach those goals. Ironically, the claims about a political party being "a big tent" usually come from Republicans - perhaps because they have a lot of convincing to do on this question. The Democratic party, obviously, is more of a big tent (at best a microcosm of America as a whole and at worst a fractured coalition of feuding interest groups), but the tent gets a bit smaller if Lieberman is essentially kicked out of it.

So, in the favor of the government actually getting things accomplished and having any chance to transcend (or at least curtail) partisan gridlock over the next four/eight years, I guess I'll have to tolerate Turncoat Joe as a quasi-Democrat for awhile...until I move to Connecticut just in time to register to vote so I can help bounce him out of the Senate in 2012.

bust-mart

Just read an interesting slide show in Slate by Julia Christensen about retail big-box store locations that are then used as civic buildings, churches and other stores. I particularly like the Kmart location in Minnesota that was converted into a Spam museum (not the email kind).

Though one has to look far and wide to find a Wal-Mart here in Jersey (much less a Wal-Mart Supercenter; I'm not even sure we have those), Lakeland, Florida, where I went to college, was what I call a 2 Wal-Mart town. This designation applies to third-tier cities (think regional airport) in flyover country that are just big enough to sustain two Wal-Marts. And this dynamic is somehow always the same: one Wal-Mart was average and one was cruddy (yes, cruddy even by Wal-Mart standards). Curiously, in Lakeland, when the cruddy Wal-Mart by the mall closed down in favor of a new Supercenter down the road, the other one across town, which had been the nicer one, went to pot...and fast. It's like the universe balances itself someway.

But all this to say: in spite of its drawbacks, I'm now thoroughly pleased to live in a 0 Wal-Mart town.

don't quote me

Just watched Sir David Frost on The Daily Show and a quote sprang to mind - actually, it's a sort of non-quote because it nullifies an existing cliche:

"Time doesn't heal all wounds. It simply makes people more willing to reopen them."

-Grantlander

And who will play David Frost to George W. Bush? Um, is Tom Snyder still alive? No? Then get me Mike Douglas...

collateral damage

I was just at the gas station getting gas. Well, I wasn't getting it, exactly - Jersey has a peculiar law that you can't pump your own gas, so every station is full service. I've read it adds about a nickel to the gallon price, but we still enjoy some of the cheapest gas in the nation (today it was $1.99).

Anyway, while I was sitting in my car not pumping my gas, the guy who was filling up the tank was having a conversation with a customer about the spelling of "collateral." Eventually, my attendant was persuaded by the guy that it was spelled: collitoarl. (Isn't that a medical condition, by the way?). And he became so convinced that he yelled across the lot, "Jake, you forgot the 'i'!"

I sincerely hope Jake wasn't filling out a loan application and listing his collitoarl. That just might disqualify you with several lenders in this financial climate. Of course, if Jake was looking for a loan last year, he certeinleey would have got it. Maybe that's why we're in this mess. Thanks a lot, Jake!

last time...I promise

Sorry to run this Hillary thing into the ground, but I just read a brief but characteristically great blog post on Slate's XX Factor blog by The Atlantic's brilliant Hanna Rosin (an excerpt):

One brave, path-breaking Hillary rewarded for a lifetime of hard work and suffering, I can handle. But the whole lot of them colonizing the transition is too much. The Clintonites are not dreamers. They came to power during a Republican era and have a constricted view of what they can accomplish. Over the years, they have lost whatever blue-sky instincts they once had and have turned into schemers and professionals.

Indeed. I do think it's prudent, though, that Obama is stacking his administration with seasoned players who have gotten stuff done in Washington in the past, despite his mantle that's supposed to be all about change. I guess he learned from Bush in 2000, who ran as an outsider (a "reformer with results" - remember those callow days?) and brought a truckful of outsiders with him who were able to accomplish...well, nothing good. Looking back, how I wish it would have been: nothing. Good!

doubling down

So, my Google homepage loaded up this morning with a CNN story on the wire about Obama's transition team setting up meetings. Then, in a "meanwhile," it goes onto mention that several Republicans are praising the idea of Hillary for Secretary of State:

Meanwhile, Republicans praised the prospect of Sen. Hillary Clinton becoming secretary of state. Sources told CNN on Friday that Obama has spoken about that job with Clinton and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, another former rival for the presidential nomination.

Former Nixon and Ford Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said Clinton would be an "outstanding" selection, Bloomberg News reported.

GOP Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona told Fox News: "She's got the experience; she's got the temperament for it." And California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger told ABC it would be a "great move."

Does anyone else see this as a cynical doubling down of the Republicans' support of Hillary in the Democratic primary? It seemed like Republicans were falling all over themselves to offer backhanded support to Hillary, especially after it was clear to everyone (but Hillary) that she wouldn't win the primary. It makes sense: Hillary was clearly the candidate Republicans wanted to run against. One can imagine entire warehouses of anti-Hillary pamphlets printed up by the RNC just sitting there, yellowing away somewhere in Secaucus, NJ (ah, the scenic warehouse district). Once Hillary officially lost the nominations, Republicans simply downshifted into supporting Hillary for veep, practically daring Obama to put her on the ticket. But, alas, Obama didn't want to take Hillary's negatives aboard and didn't want to deal with the drama Bill Clinton would have brought along to the ticket.

So, now Republicans are pushing for Hillary for Secretary of State. I wonder if these Republican "endorsements" aren't laden with a similar cynicism with an ultimate goal of trying to woo female support away from Democrats? But then again, they've never tried to do that before, have they?

team of hillarys

So, when I heard the news that Hillary Clinton was being considered for Secretary of State, I threw up in my mouth just a little bit. Not because I don't think Hillary would do a good job as SecState, but because I've grown so weary of her on the national stage. But then I thought about it a bit more, and here's what I now have to say about it.

When she (finally) conceded defeat in the democratic primary, I was so ready to not hear from Hillary for a long time. Though all politicians do it, I just couldn't take hearing Hillary's stump speech one more time where she offered a few different versions of the "rhetorical relationship" gag, where she highlights one of us peasants in a forced-sounding anecdote: Just like Hazel Simonton, a seamstress from Knoxville, Tennessee, who told me she was counting on me as she sewed stars on American flags bound for the middle east to be burned in anti-American protests...

I was so glad that Hillary was out of the picture. For a few days. Then I began to thirst for a renewal of HillaryNews: was she out there campaigning for Obama? Was she still raising money and siphoning her donors to the winning team? Did she show off any new pantsuits? It was then that I realized I kind of missed Hillary. Now that she is being considered for a place in Obama's administration (maybe State, maybe nothing...we'll see), I'm able to come to terms with the fact that Hillary might still be a major player with mucho national profile (and not merely one in a chorus line of 100 senators). And if she is being considered for State, props to Obama to consider including someone who disagreed (disagrees?!) with him so pointedly on foreign policy matters. This is what a team of rivals would really look like, I guess.

It looks like Maureen Dowd made a similar point in her column (of course, it was mixed in with a heavy dose of Bill Clinton-ness; ah, an oldie but a goodie). Perhaps we will have Hillary to kick around anymore.

things 'n things

So, my wife and I schlepped to Linens 'N Things on Sunday to get some linens...and, also, some things. We went because the store is going out of business, a casualty of the tanking economy (and as a result of the store's overall crumminess). We had a decent-ish experience rooting through the spoils at 20% off, but we were bombarded constantly by dire announcements over the PA that coupons would no longer be accepted. This leads me to a story a friend of ours told us.

Apparently, the week before, the desperation markdown was only 10% off. But Linens 'N Things is a store heavily dependent upon the coupons with which they carpet bomb consumers, just like Bed, Bath and Beyond (though, amazingly, we were the only household in North America not to receive BB&B coupons, despite me registering for their horrible newsletter just to try to snag the discounts; ultimately, it's not worth it if you're only able to stomach shopping there once a year). Anyway, when our friend was there, people were trying to pay with their 20% off coupons, but the coupons weren't being accepted because of the going out of business discount...of 10% off. So people were saying (screaming), I came here for a going out of business sale, and the 'sale' you're offering me is less of a deal that than the staying-in-business sale I usually get?

It's a wonder why the company is going under...

in name only

A brief word on the name of this blog: thegrantlander...

The name "grantlander" was a moniker I chose when posting photographs on the web. It's derived from the legendary photographer Lee Friedlander. After reading an article about Friedlander in Newsweek (not available for free on the web - just one reason I no longer subscribe to that glossy rag) and seeing his exhibition at MoMA with my wife and my Mom, I decided to appropriate the -lander suffix. Of course, my wife pointed out that the name is also reminiscent of Zoolander, a celebrated artifact of the American cinema that includes the immortal line: "Hansel...so hot right now...Hansel."

So, the name has both high- and low-culture appeal. And "grantlander" was already taken as a blog address (it's some ranch where they shoot wooly mammoths from helicopters, I think), so this blog became "thegrantlander".

My only goal was to find a name my wife didn't absolutely hate or giggle uncontrollably when hearing. So, mission accomplished (for the time being, at least)...

wipe the slate clean

So, I've resolved to avoid the mistake I made in earlier blogs and whatnots to do my thinking in isolation. It turns out that I missed out on so many rich opportunities for mudslinging, invective, flamethrowing, culture wars, personal attacks and mini-muffin baskets.

I plan to remedy this by linking to other blogs and sites that I enjoy or enjoy hating. In that spirit, here's the best of the best, the site that I would hook to my veins, were it physically possible: the online magazine Slate.

I digest other magazines (The New Yorker, New York, News about New's Yorky in New York While Yorking the New, and Cat Fancy), but Slate fits me perfectly. It has the perfect mixture of snark, analysis and a refusal to apologize for its appeal to intelligent people that appeals to me. Granted, it's pretty left-brain and needs to be supplemented with something that nurtures the soul, but it's an indispensable resource for me.

We all deserve one slice of media that suits us perfectly and serves as our portal to the world. Well, besides Cat Fancy.

why he blogs

Why cram another blog into the white noise of the net? Good question. I've taken a few stabs at this kind of thing before (armchairperson.com - now defunct; also, a contender for the worst Blogspot name ever, Detrital Omnibus), but there's no reason to wait around for things like...having something worthwhile to say, a new Celine Dion album to drop, etc.

In short, what motivated me to launch this latest attempt at self-expression is this article in the Atlantic by Andrew Sullivan, entitled "Why I Blog." He also has a magnificent blog called The Daily Dish. If you read the article, you might get an idea of why I'm rolling out this blog, though it will still give you little/no idea what my blog will be about.

Well, that makes two of us (and, making an educated guess about who might be interested in this blog, it's probably closer to one of us). We'll navigate those uncharted waters together. What fun.