Seeing John Malkovich

Nobody's looking for a puppeteer in today's wintry economic climate.
-- Charlie Kaufman, Craig Schwartz in Being John Malkovich

Friday, November 10, 2000
One year ago: Tweaking
Two years ago: Crowds
Three years ago: Orycon II

My PINE mailbox was still locked up this morning. Slowly it started to come back to me; when I'd had this problem once before, the help desk person told me I could kill the process myself from the unix prompt. But what was the magic combination of letters and hyphens? Pete gave me a suggestion, and something worked, so I was happy. I'd much rather delete mail as I go, since I'm on some very active mailing lists.

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I made such good time driving north to Bellingham that I was at the house before Jack was! I'd told him to expect me after six, because traffic had looked bad on the web page, but I think I got there about five after. Luckily it wasn't too cold, so I pulled out a book and read while leaning on the railing in front of his door. I'd like a set of keys, I think. He was apologetic when he arrived, but I wasn't mad.

We discussed what to do about dinner (I was hungry!), and I suggested the "Italian" place over by the Sehome shopping center. I've been tempted by this place for a long time, because of their sign: "Home of the original Stromboli." Now, the only stromboli I've ever heard of was in the frozen food at Safeway, a long time ago: pizza dough rolled up jelly-roll style, with cheese and pepperoni inside (this recipe sounds like it). I'd liked it when I'd bought it, way back when, but I haven't seen it for sale for a long time.

I drove to the restaurant. It seems to be mostly a sports bar, none too fancy. We told the young waitress that we'd take the "quiet dining" room in front. There were occupants in all the booths, but we were ok with the table in the center of the room. I was puzzled by some wood arches and odd panel structures hanging from the ceiling on one side of the room; they seemed to be left over from some previous incarnation of the place.

Jack was so hungry, we got jalapeno poppers as an appetizer. Jack told me that they should be eaten dipped in barbecue sauce. Indeed, they were very tasty that way. My stromboli turned out to be a rather large calzone. Nothing wrong with that, of course. I ate half, and we took the rest home with us. Jack had lasagne. Oof! we were stuffed.

The only thing slightly annoying about the dinner was the little girl that ran about the room shrieking, uncontrolled by her family. At least she was cheerful, not crying.

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When we returned home, we decided to watch the DVD of Being John Malkovich which Jack had purchased. He hadn't seen the movie yet; I saw it in the theater last year. I didn't tell Jack what to expect.

Jack was fascinated, but some of it made him uncomfortable. The weeniness of the John Cusack character can be hard to take! But he laughed quite a bit. The oddness of the concept appealed to him, a portal into someone's mind. I enjoyed seeing it again. I especially admired John Malkovich himself -- he does a great job playing someone possessed.

Afterwards Jack indulged me by going through all the special features included on the DVD. The interview with director Spike Jonze, described as "given under duress," is not to be missed.