Cine File: YOU-KNOW-WHAT

My work friend, A., a genius on all wordly matters, has turned me on to Fandango. I guess all those hours of seeing those damn commecials did not compute -- I was quite amazed to be printing out my ticket at home.

As I stared at my little paper that said "scan me print me" in Wonderland fashion along the sides, the words of the Church Lady ran through my mind: "How convenient. Who gave you that ticket? HMMMMMM. Was it -- SATAN?!"

Yes, indeed, some people indeed might think Satan put this ticket in my hand. I once had a student who couldn't read the book for religious reasons and I only found out because I used it as a read aloud one day and she was squirming in her seat. I felt so bad. Anyway.

Guess what I am headed?
To see in IMAX?

Don't hate -- Copulate!

Incident, 80 Years Later (a la Cullen)

Cruising through a rapidly gentrifying Baltimore this past balmy Sunday in the pleasant company of J., we passed through the neighborhood of Hamden. It has some cool shops and antique stores, and J. was taking me on a tour of Baltimore's "cool" neighborhoods.

However, despite the warmth of the day, I felt a chill. Just a feeling. As we turned down a residential street to go downtown towards the Inner Harbor, I turned to J. and asked, "Was this one of those white neighborhoods that, when you were a kid, you just didn't come to?"

"Well, yeah," said J., looking surprised. "I was actually just going to say something like that. But it's not like that anymore. It's changed. It's like one of those cool neighborhoods, but still sort of trashy --"

Just then, we were passing by a house where three white children, two girls and a boy about ten or eleven years old, were playing in the front yard. As we pulled even with them, they looked in the car, and the boy shouted quite clearly,

"NIGGER!"

The girls, laughing, joined in, "NIGGERS!"

J. turned to me, shaking her head. "What are you psychic?"

I shrugged. "Just racial intuition, I guess."

Incident (1925)

Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me, "Nigger."

I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That's all that I remember.

-- Countee Cullen