Agatha Christie's Murder at the Bellagio

After the Holidays in the Mission

Too Bad for Ewe

Such a Shame About Little Ouida

Standing in line with her bottle of Chardonnay at the Valu-Rite Market in Nyack, Ouida was reminded of that old line “A bottle of wine has as many calories as three cups of gravy.” Which doctor was it that always said that? Or was it from one of those wretched encounter groups with the promise to empower you to "take charge of your life"? Of all the abuse Ouida had endured in her life, nothing was worse than these groups where she had to sit in a circle and hear a bunch of self absorbed losers recount the tedious details of their boring, pointless lives. She started to turn and take the wine back to the refrigerated aisles with rows of Samuel Adams and enormous bottles of Kenwood but she halted. Maybe she might go back and grab some Easy Gravy Mix just out of spite.

Perhaps we should go back to where it all started at Dr. Baumgartner’s clinic in Utica where he studied Quida and Frieda for four years. Having written extensively about sibling confliction, Dr. Baumgartner said nothing equaled the Vogle sisters. Quida would turn scarlet red when Frieda was introduced as her “twin”.

Storming out of the room, Quida would scream “We are nothing alike!” And, indeed, only into his third year of research did Dr. Baumgartner learn that this was, in fact, true and that Ouida and Frieda were not twins but surviving triplets, their sister Lita having died mysteriously in a bathing incident involving choking with multiple rubber duckies.

Determining Ouida’s role in this was always murky, and Dr. Baumgartner chose to overlook it and instead focused on trying to break through Ouida’s rages and hysteria. When she took up an interest in gardening, it seemed there had been something of a breakthrough. The fact that her two favorite flowers – foxglove and oleander – were potently poisonous seemed to escape Dr. Baumgartner.

Mrs. Vogle took it as a sign of great progress at the girls’ ninth birthday party when Ouida burst onto the dance floor with Dr. Baumgartner in a joyous twist as “Under the Boardwalk” played at full volume. Mrs. Vogle was less excited, six months later when she found Ouida snuggled next to the doctor in his bed.

Things took a turn for the worse when Frieda turned violently ill after drinking a cup of hot chocolate Ouida had prepared for her. Only after returning from the ICU and noticing freshly cut oleander by the sink – and no vase in sight – did Mrs. Vogle start having doubts.

But Frieda’s sudden death after three days at the hospital put the family into such a spin there was no time nor energy to ask questions that probably should have been raised. And, after four years of intensive analysis with Dr. Baumgartner and no progress nor answers, Mrs.Vogle was ready to stop asking questions and just let mysteries rest.

When Ouida turned 15, the Vogles had reached a point of having lost the will to object when Dr. Baumgartner asked for the girl’s hand in marriage. In an unexpected turn of events, he left his practice and opened Godiva Vineyards on the outskirts of New City. The label on the bottle of a nubile nude nymph on horseback resembled Ouida too much for her mother’s comfort, but at this point she was happy just to have peace in the house so she and Harry could watch “Sing Along with Mitch” on TV trays, chewing their Stouffer’s Salisbury steaks and sipping Godiva Chardonnay in Dixie cups.

Dr. Baumgartner was found dead in the vineyards four years later, by what the authorities -- likely too distracted or too tired of hassles -- determined to be natural causes. Ouida sold the vineyards back to the Valduccis at triple the price she and the doctor acquired them for but with four times the production. She lived briefly in Montreal and then opened a small photography studio in Binghampton before settling in Nyack where she has lived quietly for the past 35 years. She can be seen strolling the streets in her Burberry coat, checking out books on Catalan culture at the library and buying brass tipped walking sticks at the flea market.

For years she was a regular at the Ebb Tide Lounge on Herman Street until her weight got out of control and her looks began to sag. Now she can be seen every afternoon at precisely 4:38 p.m. (except Tuesdays, an oddly sacred night when she drinks only filtered water) in the line at the Valu-Rite with her signature bottle of wine. As the checker scans the bar code and glances at Lady Godiva on the label, does he see any connection to the woman swiping her Chase debit card and raising her collar before punching in her four digit PIN?

Is That Too Continental?

Living in Manhattan in the summer of 1992, I was convinced that something dramatic, a near sea change, was in the air. Having the Democratic Convention in town made it seem I was in the virtual center of the world and that the grip of the Reagan-Bush dynasty. Locals were dissing that Madonna creature's Erotica album as "sex-lite" for square state queens, and there was a buzz about the so-called "new queer cinema" in which queers often celebrated their outlaw status.

I had mixed feelings about the movement but loved Tom Kalin's Swoon. His near-zero budget film combined archive footage, intentional anachronisms, nicely odd music, and droll performances that slightly echoed Guy Maddin but had its own unique vibe. The clip below from the opening is one of he sexiest sequences I've ever seen in a more or less mainstream film.


Though he's worked as a writer and producer for the past 16 years, Savage Grace is Kalin's first time back in the director's chair since his debut more than a decade and a half ago. I tried not to pay much attention to the luke warm to negative reviews. So I did my best to view it yesterday afternoon without too many expectations or already formed opinions. It shares with Swoon fags behaving badly, very badly and passes no judgment on it. It's as stylized as Swoon with sometimes arch dialog. "Shall we meet at the Stork Club for dinner? Say 10:30? Oh, is that too continental?" Julianne Moore's character Barbara Baekeland asks in the opening scene.
With bigger names stars, multi-continental settings, glorious shabby-chic Mediterranean interiors and gorgeously composed tableaus, the film looks amazing and held my interest as it weaved through its increasingly smarmy plot. Swoon didn't exactly make me walk away with sympathy for its sociopath leads, but it did make them incredibly appealing. Kalin may be the lone force in the genre of rich, killer fags, but Savage Grace didn't capture my heart or imagination the way Swoon did. maybe that's partially because Tony Baekeland lacked imagination or passion of Leopold and Loeb. Oh, his smarmy Spanish drug dealer boyfriend was not without his appeal, but the whole thing felt a bit icy even for someone of my Nordic disposition. I'm sure I'll eventually get the DVD and read up on the Baekelands but not with the passion that Swoon inspired.

Crime (Not Junk) Update.

Is it the economy, summer approaching, the media bored talking about Jeremiah Wright or is there actually an increase in crime in San Francisco? Apparently there has not been a shooting in my immediate neighborhood since the recent one down the street from the store with this sign outside, but SFIST is reporting that most gunshots in the Bayview-Hunters Point and Western Addition go unreported.

For an honor roll of murders in San Francisco this year, you can check out this blog. I wonder how that compares to Omaha?

Six Months, Two Discs

When the original version of Zodiac was made available in July, it was frustratingly released with absolutely no extras. If ever a DVD cried out for explanation, this one did. I was miffed but without hesitation got the two disc, jam-packed "director's cut" that has arrived not even six months later. I was expecting it to come by 2009 or so, but this sort of rush to get it on digital and then release a definitive two-disc version at essentially the same price so soon seems extremely exploitive. Ah, well, one more DVD to add to the garage sale pile along with the duplicates of films I bought after happy hour only to come home to grumble, "Ooops, I bought that on Amazon three months ago.."

R.I.P., Tatiana

Gentrification Not Yet Complete - Chapter 3,087

I'd been home maybe 20 seconds last night and still had my headphones when Bunter started freaking out and running the way he does when I pull out the vacuum cleaner or run the coffee grinder. I could hear some popping in the distance. "Oh, crap, they still have those damned fireworks," I grumbled and then heard yelling, screaming, squealing tires.

Egads, we've not had one of those in the 'hood in at least a couple of years. Barely 90 seconds later, there were 10-12 cop cars, an EMT vehicle, fire truck and the pest strips (not the actual ones) seen above. I really wasn't in the mood to play Brenda Starr at that moment. And that critical 20 seconds was going through my head, say if I'd not walked through the yellow light when crossing Harrison or if I'd been at the end not front of BART, where I might have been when the shooting started.

The cops that stood vigil and shined flashlights into my shrubs were actually pretty hot, not the usual chubby foot patrol dudes that you see for the more routine monitoring of our hallowed streets.

At least the old man across the street will now have some blood to hose off the sidewalks this morning and can feel useful.

More Things That Happened

So what's up with all those damned rabbits? First What's the Matter with Helen? and now this. I really don't like or dislike rabbits, but I was very fond of the Uncle Wiggily series as a child.

Junk Thief may be your go to spot for junk and crime but not for pithy reviews of what is hot and current in the arts. I've been really slow in getting around to watching and commenting on my ever mounting stacks of DVDs, let alone weekly stash of books. But over the past week I finally got around to watching two seemingly unrelated, but oddly criss crossing and equally frustrating (for very different) DVD releases.


Let's start with the obviously frustrating one, David Lynch's Inland Empire. Supposedly people are hot or cold with Lynch. I've been both, loving him in the early to mid-1980s, throwing my hands in the air after about the third appearance of the log lady and slowly coming back to him. Supposedly he's a Rorschach test for his viewers, and if I can approach his work without trying to find meaning, I can accept it. A lot of people said that Inland Empire will turn off his non-fans, but it actually won me back. I think I had trouble with the films that tried to lace in his weirdness in conventional story lines. This one is weird to the core and works for me as a result. I'm not going to try to figure out what those damned bunnies are about except maybe an Uncle Wiggily story gone wrong, gone really wrong.

The DVD packaging and format is Lynchesque itself. No director's commentary or even chapters on the main disc but lots of information on how to light your room and adjust the contrast on your set. Not sure how to make quinoa? Well, mine always tastes just fine, but Dave gave a handy little demonstration, allowing time for a weird story about a Yugoslavian girl having her first Coke in Vienna and trouble with the carbination while he has a smoke and glass of red wine on the porch. I have the same problems too.

I'm not even going to get into any analysis of the story and what it meant to me since I think I'll remember the film because of lighting, sound design, random images. However, in the deleted scene extras called "More Things That Happened", Laura Dern's white trash character has a hilarious story about her sister forcing her to keep all of her stuff on one shelf at the bottom of the refrigerator. This character reminded me that in my Midwest-rooted family, the really trashy ones migrated to the Inland Empire and had kids with names like Tawana and Billy Ray while those that stayed behind had fancy tea parties and behaved like Connecticut gentry, clenched teeth accent and all.

Seemingly unrelated, and radically different in style and causes for frustration is Zodiac, I've always had trouble David Fincher's films because it seemed to make the killers the most interesting, complex characters and the victims worthy of their fate if only for being dull. And his stylishness seemed to be too self-obsessed. Zodiac feels more like Sidney Lumet in his prime. I usually groan at movies longer than 88 minutes, but I could have sat through this story for another two hours the way I did with Lumet classics like Prince of the City. It is a dense, action packed, complex and compelling story. It is stylish but also very straight forward. It may have even restored my faith in CGI. I assume that's what is used for the fantastic recreation of the construction of the Transamerica Pyramid. If that's the case it's a much better use of the craft than those stupid monsters in the insufferably overlong King Kong or Lord of the Rings movies.

What I'd dreaded in the film was the violence. I can rarely sit through any violent movie, especially in a theater. I chuckled at my fear when the MPAA rating warned that the film contained "strong killings", which I think is up there with being sort of pregnant. Fortunately those strong killings represent less than one percent of the screen time. They focus more on the victims and are mercifully brief in their explicit depiction of the act itself.

I liked that there was not a single, clear cut hero, no one coming to the rescue and that solving the murders was a complex, group process never fully resolved. If the true killer is the person that is implied, what is most spooky is how utterly banal the man is. A dull, probably bored man with so little respect for life -- not some colorful raving madman.

The attention to production details was amazing. The costumes, for example, were always convincingly from the era and a reminder that not every in the 1970s wore apricot leisure suits with long winged collared sparkly shirts.

What weaved these two films, set in opposite ends of California, is the mild evil lurking around the brightly lit corners of the state.

What was especially frustrating about the Zodiac DVD release is its absolute lack of extras. Chapters, language selection and nothing else. Such a complex dense and fact based story screams out for survivor interviews, commentary and more. Though the sound and visual quality are excellent, I hope a worthy re-release of this is on the horizon soon.

Sorry to cut this post short, but I am going to see if those girls hanging out on the corner want to come in and join me in dancing to The Loco-Motion. Then they might want to join me in watching the first 22 episodes of Maude with me.