In the Woods

In the Woods is the 2007 debut novel of Tana French. It's a mystery involving a detective in his late 20s (30s?) who, as a 12 year old boy, survived whatever it was that took his companions in the woods. He has no memory of it still, but still it haunts him. And now the body of a recently-reported-missing 12-year-old girl has been found in that same location. It won the award for best first novel from the Edgar, the Macavity, the Barry and the Anthony Awards. That record ought to be enough to entice the reader. How did that tv commercial go? "Try it, you'll like it."

And I did like it.

The story is told as the main character looks back over it. It was a quick read, and I found it interesting as I was reading. I saw through one of the characters almost immediately and apparently I wasn't supposed to. When the main character finally gets it, he seems to think we should also be surprised. It certainly didn't spoil the story, but it surprised me that a police detective could've been so clueless about it.

There are more in this loose series, all of which take place in Ireland. The second book begins several months after this first one ends and features Cassie, who is the partner of the point-of-view detective in the first one. The third one focuses on an officer who is mentioned in the first one and works closely with Cassie in the second. The fourth picks up a character from the third book and gives him charge of an investigation. They all sound interesting -and this one was "unputdownable" as one reviewer says- but for some reason I'm not aching to rush out and buy the rest. I may yet read them all. Some later time. It's just that I have so many books I haven't read yet already on my shelf.

from the back of the book:

The debut novel of an astonishing new voice in psychological suspense

In Tana French's powerful debut thriller, three children leave their small Dublin neighborhood to play in the surrounding woods. Hours later, their mothers' calls go unanswered. When the police arrive, they find only one of the children, gripping a tree trunk in terror, wearing blood-filled sneakers, and unable to recall a single detail of the previous hours.

Twenty years later, Detective Rob Ryan -the found boy, who has kept his past a secret- and his partner Cassie Maddox investigate the murder of a twelve-year-old girl in the same woods. Now, with only snippets of long-buried memories to guide him, Ryan has the chance to uncover both the mystery of the case before him, and that of his own shadowy past.

selected quotes:

There was a time when I believed, with the police and the media and my stunned parents, that I was the redeemed one, the boy borne safely home on the ebb of whatever freak tide carried Peter and Jamie away. Not any more. In ways too dark and crucial to be called metaphorical, I never left that wood.

I know very well that perfection is made up of frayed, off-struck mundanities.

"...I don't believe in the Church, do you get me? Any church. Religion exists to keep people in their place and paying into the collection plate."

Say say my playmate, come out and play with me, climb up my apple tree... Two two, the lily-white boys, clothed all in green-o, one is one and all alone and evermore shall be so...

You're the perfect person for this case, Rosalind had said to me, and the words were still ringing in my head as I watched her go. Even now, I wonder whether subsequent events proved her completely right or utterly and horribly wrong, and what criteria one could possibly use to tell the difference.

There's a mention of Elvis about half-way through:""Thank you very much, thankyouverymuch, "Sam said in a deep Elvis voice, grinning."" Music by Michelle Shocked is played in someone's home during a social encounter. At one point they play the game Cranium. The TV prison series Oz gets a mention.

Kirkus Reviews concludes "When not lengthily bogged down in angst, a readable, non-formulaic police procedural with a twist. It’s ultimately the confession of a damaged man." The EuroCrime reviewer says, "I have often read the word "unputdownable" to describe a book, but in this case it is true: I was glad I started the book on a weekend and had no other commitments, so I could finish it in a day." The Washington Post calls it "a long book, densely layered and meticulously imagined" and says, "Whether the ending succeeds will likely be debated, but French's decisions are unexpected and unnerving -- a bold close to a daring novel."

There's a reading guide here.

Blooming Lilies

I went to the Memphis Botanic Gardens yesterday afternoon to see what lilies were blooming. I saw some -in fact, I saw a lot- but there are a lot not yet in bloom. I'll have to keep an eye on them. Here are the lilies I did see:

and my favorite, the common field lily:

Of course, there are plenty of other plants in bloom throughout the gardens:

They have a specific area called the Nature Photography Garden, but I've only strolled through it. I need to spend some time there.

Belz Museum of Asiatic and Judaic Art

During a recent visit with The Daughter to the Belz Museum of Asiatic and Judaic Art on South Main Street in Downtown Memphis, I came across this lovely tea set and decided to share it for Bleubeard and Elizabeth's weekly T(ea) Tuesday gathering. Isn't it wonderful?

The entire museum is a treasure. I'll try to take you on a mini-tour to give you just a taste of our experience, but it must be personally experienced to be truly appreciated. The museum is located on the Main Street Mall just around the corner from my car's home-away-from-home -the Parking Can Be Fun garage. Here's the entrance:

You go in here, then you go down a flight of stairs to the gift shop/ticket booth. Admission is only $6 for adults. We saw the Judaic exhibit first, including the new Holocaust Memorial rooms. I wasn't able to get good photos in that section -the lighting, maybe? I didn't want to use a flash. There is a photo gallery at the web site showing some of the art in that collection. The Daughter was able to get a good shot of some of the portraits in the Holocaust exhibit:

All of the people whose portraits were on display when we went live here in Memphis. At some point they will begin rotating some of them to include folks who live in other areas of the state. Here's the sign explaining that display:

There are other related historical artifacts displayed, but I was particularly struck by these portaraits with their short biographies. There's a press release at the museum web site, which says, in part:

The Holocaust Memorial Gallery focuses on the struggles and triumphs of the survivors, refugees and liberators of the Holocaust of World War II. Working in conjunction with the Tennessee Holocaust Commission, the “Living On” portrait exhibit gives a face and a voice to the survivors, refugees, and liberators now living in Tennessee. Each person displayed reveals their own stories, and the stories of loved ones who did not survive to be heard. Other displays in the gallery include Jewish ghetto currency, photographs of Jews in concentration camps, sculptures and artwork, World War II information panels and timeline, and other personal memorabilia that provides insight into this dark period.

The art works in the Asiatic galleries were easier for me to photograph for some reason, and The Daughter got some good shots, too:

There is a short history of the museum here. There are other photos at their site. They offer guided tours with a boxed lunch for groups. The lovely woman in the gift shop says they get people who come to the museum from far away, including someone from the Smithsonian, who are very impressed with this collection; and she told us that only about 10% of Mr. Belz collection is on display here.

The I Love Memphis blog has a positive review and photos. Yelp gives it 4 1/2 out of 5 stars. Trip Advisor ranks it #6 of Memphis' 86 ranked attractions.

Amazing! We are fortunate here in Memphis to have such excellent and diverse museums!

Memphis in June

Memphis in June:

sung by Nina Simone.

lyrics:

Memphis in June
A shady veranda under Sunday blue sky
Memphis in June
And my cousin Miranda -she's making a blueberry pie.

I can see the clock outside a tickin' and a tockin'
Everything so peaceful and dandy.
I can see my grandmama 'cross the street still a rockin'
Watchin' all the neighbors go by, oh my.

Memphis in June
Sweet oleander blowin' perfume in the air everywhere.
Up jumps the moon to make it so much grander.
It's paradise, honey. Take my advice, honey,
Cos there's nothin' like old Memphis in June.

Rabbit Rabbit Rabbit

I'd never heard of this superstition, but apparently you're supposed to say, "Rabbit rabbit rabbit" when you wake up on the first day of each month to bring luck. It's certainly not a Southern thing. I looked it up, and it seems to be more known in the northeast here and in Britain.

The photo at the top of the post is by OZinOH and is a photo of a sculpture called Dancing Hares by British artist Sophie Ryder. It's located in a park in in Dublin, Ohio.

All Roads Lead to the Left!

I remember the first time we saw this sign, headed South on Perkins, all the kids in the back seat. I pointed to it, then pointed out to the right, then said, "I wonder what's in that direction". Honestly! We get a kick out of that sign every time we see it.

Born in Flames

Born in Flames is a 1983 science fiction film styled as a documentary about this alternative America, observing the 10th anniversary of the War of Liberation. The movie won the Reader Jury prize at the Berlin International Film Festival and the Grand Prix at the Creteil International Women's Film Festival. It focuses on feminism and violence against women. It is definitely a period piece, and yet the message about abuse of power still needs to be heard.

via youtube:

Queering the Closet says,

The main reason for seeing Born in Flames is for the intellectual butt kicking it provides. While not a very pretty or well polished, there's enough brain power behind the philosophical issues addressed and provocative subtext to put the most intelligent academic scholar to shame.

DVD Verdict says, "Born in Flames is a compelling, sobering rebuke to the growing political apathy both in America and worldwide. If only more films were like it." Rotten Tomatoes has a 66% audience score but no critics rating.

Brief Lives

Brief Lives is a 1990 novel by Anita Brookner, who is one of my favorite writers. I buy her books whenever I come across them, and I am never disappointed. I somehow feel a connection with her characters. It's not that they are anything like me -though they may be like me in some ways- but I understand them as if I really know them as people. They are real to me and can bring me to tears.

from the back of the book:

With this novel, Booker Prize-winning author Anita Brookner confirms her reputation as an unparalleled observer of social nuance and deeply felt longings. Brief Lives chronicles an unlikely friendship: that between the flanboyant, monstrously egocentric Julia and the modest self-effacing Fay, who is at once fascinated and appalled by Julia's excesses. Thrust together by their husbands' business partnership -and by a guilty secret- Julia and Fay develop an intense bond that is nonetheless something less than intimacy, a relationship in which we see our own uneasy compromises, not only with other people, but with life itself.

Brookner doesn't hint at upcoming events. Tragedy strikes or not, but there's never a warning.

selected quotes:

The late afternoon is my bad time, when the light goes. I get nervous then, and long for someone to come. At those times I feel fatally like my mother, waiting in the dusk for me to wave to her as I approached the house. But after a while I get up and make a cup of coffee and switch on for the news. There is absolutely no point in giving way to melancholy. There is always another day, or so I like to think.

On the whole my life has been very easy, very pleasant. I was a pretty girl, I married well... It all seems a long time ago. But what most women want I once had. I try to remember that.

Through all the restrictions and the worry that my mother's condition imposed on me my love for her grew, as, I think, did hers for me. This love was not a pleasure to either of us; it was, if anything, a burden. My mother felt it harnessed her to this world, which she tried so hard to ignore and which she was ready to leave, while to me it was the magnet that drew me unwillingly home, back to that narrow house and my mother's almost noiseless footfall, and the cup of tea that she silently put before me, as if appeasing a stranger in some primitive ritual. She had grown thin and frail; when I took her in my arms I could feel her heart beating under her cardigan. I took to staying with her until she had got into bed, and then sitting with her while she drank the hot milk and honey that I brought her. She would relax and smile at me then, briefly reverting to the mother I had always known, and I would lay my check on her hand in relief and gratitude. "You go, dear," she would say, with something of a return to her old manner.

I had reached that dangerous state in which I could see every fault that I had committed, and I desired an enormous confrontation so that I could cancel it all and begin again. This, of course, is impossible.

I've marked so many passages in this book, ones I find particularly striking, that to put them all here would give away too much of the plot. The ones above are representative, though, and are all fairly early in the book.

I do dearly love Brookner's writing!

There are several songs mentioned, as the main character is a professional singer, and one of them is, "I'll Be Loving You, Always":

Another song mentioned later in the book is "Just Awearyin' for You":

Kirkus Reviews says, "Fay Langdon is looking back on a life of emotional desolation, in Brookner's most powerful novel yet" and closes by saying the book "chills to the bone: it is as harrowing, and as unsparing, as the work of the great Jean Rhys." Publishers Weekly calls Brookner "A latter-day Jane Austen".

A Fistful of Dollars

A Fistful of Dollars is a 1964 Clint Eastwood spaghetti western directed by Sergio Leone. It's based on Yojimbo. In fact it's pretty close to a scene-by-scene remake, and you can't go wrong with Kurosawa as the source material. The music is by Ennio Morricone. This is a classic. Priceless!

trailer:

Spaghetti-Western.net says, "All in all, A Fistful of Dollars deserves its place in cinema history. The combined genius of Leone's comic book art visuals and Morricone's piercingly emotive sounds set a lasting standard that has been rarely matched." Empire Online gives it 5 out of 5 stars and calls it "a deserved classic of the genre it invented". DVD Talk says,

It's the kind of movie that casts a spell regardless of how many times you have seen it, commanding your interest to such a degree that it makes you forget what you know about the narrative and just go along, eager for each new shoot-out and to see who is left standing once all the bodies are counted.

Rotten Tomatoes has a critics score of 98%.

Casual Tea, or Elegant?

The Cup of Tea by Mary Cassatt

Mary Cassatt's tea paintings put me in a world apart. I tend to have tea sitting on the couch with my feet up (and usually bare) and a book close at hand. Even when I have guests, I'm never anything as elegant as the ladies in Cassatt's paintings. Sometimes I think that's rather sad, but honestly I'd rather be comfortable than elegant any day.

5 O'Clock Tea by Mary Cassatt

I suppose it wouldn't hurt to do tea "right" and put on some shoes and sit up straight. I could get out proper cups and saucers and serve nicely. I don't ever think of it, though. Maybe it's because my focus is on having some tea with my book or with the movie instead of my focus being on the tea itself. Hmmm... Maybe I need to give the tea its due for a change.

You can share your tea pictures over at Bleubeard and Elizabeth's weekly tea linky, where she's taking us to Antarctica. Brrrrr!

Memphis Yodel

Memphis Yodel (1928):

by Jimmie Rodgers, the Father of Country Music, who died on this date in 1933 at the age of 35. He had long suffered from tuberculosis. He was born in Meridian, Mississippi, which is 3 3/4 hours south of Memphis.

lyrics:

I woke up this morning
The blues all around my bed
I woke up this morning
The blue's all around my bed
I didn't have nobody
To hold my aching head

If you don't want me, woman
Give me your right hand
If you don't want me, woman
Give me your right hand
'Cause I can find me another mama
And I know you can find a man

I love you, Memphis
You know I love, love you so
Lord, I love you, Memphis
Tennessee, I love you so
And I'd rather be here
Than any other place I know

I've got my ticket
I'm sure gonna ride this train, hey, hey, hey
Lord, I've got my ticket
I'm sure gonna ride this train
I'm goin' some place
Where I wont hear 'em call your name

I'm goin' to the river
Take me a rockin' chair, sing them blues, boy
I'm goin' to the river
And take me a rockin' chair
And if the blues don't leave me
I'll rock all the way from here

I don't want you, mama
And I know you don't want me, Lord, Lord, Lord
I don't want you, woman
And I know you don't want me
So I'm goin' to New Orleans
From there on across the sea

And Hakuho Wins Again!

Hakuho has won the Summer Sumo tournament. The Japan News says, "Hakuho is now two behind Chiyonofuji and three shy of Taiho for the all-time lead in tournament victories." Asia and Japan Watch quotes the champion: ""I'm thrilled to win my 29th title at the age of 29," Hakuho said. "It's hard to find the words to describe it other than I did my best."" Mainichi says, "Hakuho once again proved why he is still the master of the raised ring."

Jason's in Japan has coverage of the tournament, including this video of the winning match:

The photo at the top of the page comes from Wikipedia.

Vance Park

Vance Park is a little park up on the bluff in downtown Memphis overlooking the Mississippi River. I love public art, and I think this one is well-placed:

Here's the sign at the base of the sculpture:

It says:

Whirl

2001

John Medwedeff

An original work owned and

commissioned by the City of Memphis,

through the Urban Art Commission, in

conjunction with the Riverfront

Development Corporation

The view of the river from here was obscured by the temporary fencing around the Memphis in May music venues when we were here, but it's usually a good spot to sit.

The Sea Hawk (1940)

The Sea Hawk is a 1940 film in which Errol Flynn plays a brave, gallant and sincere swash-buckling swordsman with a wry sense of humor. The Husband truly loves these. I feel like I'm seeing the same film over and over and over... but it's a fun movie, so I don't guess I'm complaining. Michael Curtiz directs.

trailer:

Slant Magazine gives it 3 out of 4 stars, says "It's a reliable template, handled with visual flair by able director Michael Curtiz" but adds,

the film owes a slavish obligation to propaganda that cursed many a wartime adventure story. The Elizabethan era is a cloak for World War II moralizing, with the Spanish armada standing in for Hitler's quest for world power, and Elizabeth I as a Churchill-style orator calling all good free men into action against the powers of evil. This gets a bit thick...

Empire Online gives it 5 out of 5 stars and closes with this: "One of the very best and most lavish of all the Errol Flyn sweeping adventures. A feast for the eyes and the a good fun romp." DVD Talk mentions its influence on George Lucas' Star Wars franchise and calls The Sea Hawk "exciting". The Guardian discusses the historical inaccuracies and mentions Hitler. Rotten Tomatoes has a critics score of 100% and an audience score of 88%.

Elefante

Elefante is a short fantasy film from 2012. Pablo Larcuen is writer and director. He has a web site here. The film has its own Facebook page. In this film, a discouraged man has a boring job, his kids ignore him, and his wife is dismissive. His doctor gives him the news that he is turning into an elephant.

via Vimeo:

ELEFANTE from Pablo Larcuen on Vimeo.

Short of the Week says, "Larcuen’s signature mixture of absurd humour and heartfelt emotion is in full evidence here. Absurd, because after all, a man is turning into an elephant! But really it’s just that Manuel’s sense of isolation and rejection is being taken to its extreme." Neatorama says, "This darkly humorous short by Pablo Larcuen explores themes of alienation, personal transformation and the importance of family when you're undergoing a major metamorphosis." Laughing Squid says it "features some pretty impressive special makeup effects and animatronics". Forbidden Planet calls it "touching" and says,

The special make up is very well executed, looking realistic while still allowing the actor to convey emotion through the prosthetics, and there’s a very emotional few scenes between him and his very young son that will get to you, all packed into just about ten minutes or so, do have a look

via SF Signal

And Be a Villain

And Be a Villain is a Nero Wolfe mystery, part of the series by Rex Stout. I think I'll start picking these up as I can. I love the characters and the writing. This one I borrowed from The Younger Son, who has more of them. I have one I found locally. There are 47+ in all, so it'll be fun to hunt them down. I'm told the order doesn't matter much as long as I read the earlier ones before the later ones.

NeroWolfe.org has this description:

Opens with Wolfe's income tax payment. Motivated by money alone, Nero involves himself in a crime which has been broadcast over a great national network. A leading lady of the microphone interviews a racetrack tout and a professor of mathematics. In the course of the interview, as a plug for one of the sponsors, a noted soft-drink manufacturer, each guest is served a bottle of the beverage. To the astonishment of the radio public, the embarrassment of the soft-drink manufacturer, and the annoyance of the New York Police Department, the racetrack oracle instantly drops dead of cyanide poisoning. How did cyanide get into the drink? And how could anyone be sure that the tout would receive the fatal bottle? Or, for that matter, was the poisoned bottle intended for him at all?

This is only the beginning of a case more complicated than any Nero ever faced before. To solve it requires a degree of tramping around New York and rounding up of suspects far beyond the sedentary habits of Nero, and even beyond Archie Goodwin's capacity for swift motion and rapid-fire interrogation. There's only one thing for Nero to do. He must put the New York police force to work for him.

Selected as one of Stout's four best detective novels by Barzun and Taylor, And Be a Villain is also significant as the first novel in the Zeck trilogy, where Nero Wolfe faces off against a Moriarty-ish Napoleon of Crime by the name of Zeck. This story features some choice scenes of Wolfe ranting.

Kirkus Reviews says Wolfe "unties a complicated blackmail setup, pulls an answer out of thin air and makes it stick. Fat man ferreting de luxe."

Sukiyaki Western Django

Sukiyaki Western Django, inspired by Kurosawa's Yojimbo, is a 2007 Japanese Western. It's directed by Takashi Miike and features Quentin Tarantino. It's intended to be a prequel to the original Django movie. An extremely violent example of a violent sub-genre.

trailer:

Slate describes it this way:

Sukiyaki Western Django is a blend of Buddhist philosophy, film noir fatalism, Shakespeare's Henry VI, and Japan's very own 12th-century Genpei War. It's a Wild West pageant of American history seen through Japanese eyes, reducing our entire frontier mythology to an ultraviolent grab for gold.

Spaghetti-Western.net says,

Intentionally camp, deliberately post-New Wave, Sukiyaki Western Django is good fun, but constantly veering from violent melodrama to parody and back, the movie eventually becomes too much of a macaroni-pizza-pasta-spaghetti-chambara dish, too much at the same time to be anything in particular.

Empire Online gives it 3 out of 5 stars and concludes: "Sumptuous at times but self-indulgent and incoherent at others." DVD Talk says, "To cram this review of Sukiyaki Western Django down to three words? It's fucking nuts." Rotten Tomatoes has a 55% critics score.

I Love to Laugh

This is the scene from the Mary Poppins movie where they have tea on the ceiling, although this video just has the song. Here's a picture of the actual tea party (from the Bigelow Tea Blog):

Now, doesn't that sound like great fun! I'm settling for tea on the patio, but if I ever figure out anti-gravity it'll certainly expand my options.

This reminds me of that Dr. Seuss quote, "It is fun to have fun, but you have to know how," from The Cat in the Hat. It is so true! Since I don't know how to float my tea table up to the ceiling, I'll have to make my fun where I can. This time of year, the patio is filled with potted plants, and I'm having fun trying to figure out what to plant in the beds now that I've dug up and discarded the plantings that had been there.

Elizabeth had a disappointing experience at a Chinese restaurant. There are always folks sharing a variety of experiences over there on Tuesdays, and I enjoy the visit.

Cool

Cool:

by Marco Pavé

Star Trek Continues

You have to get used to other actors you've never seen before playing the old-style original Kirk/Spock/Bones/Scotty/Uhuru cast, but once that's done: Golden. Marina Sirtis, who is Deanna Troi in Star Trek: The Next Generation, voices the computer. Scotty is played by the son of James Doohan, who played the part in the original.

Here's the vignette that leads us from the last episode of the original series to this continuation:

Here's the first episode, which is a direct sequel to The Original Series episode Who Mourns for Adonais? starring the same man who played Adonis in the original:

That episode has a Wikipedia entry here. I'm loving this.

The second episode, which guest stars Lou Ferrigno, is here:

More are expected.

Slate has a positive review. io9 has given it some positive attention.

Southern 42

Located on Southern Avenue at East Parkway South. The Daughter spotted this one, and I pulled over so she could take its picture out of the car window.

Yojimbo

Yojimbo is a 1961 Akira Kurosawa classic, inspiration for 3 different re-makes: Fistful of Dollars, Sukiyaki Western Django, and Last Man Standing. It stars Toshiro Mifune and Takashi Shimura, who are both favorites with us. The score is great fun. We like everything about this movie.

trailer:

Slant Magazine gives it 4 out of 5 stars and calls it "Something of a textbook example of the perfect crowd-pleaser". Empire Online gives it 5 out of 5 stars and calls it a "masterpiece". DVD Talk says, "the brash but focused Yojimbo stands as a true Japanese classic, thanks to the weight of Kurosawa's capable direction, Mifune's charismatic performance, Masaru Sato's memorable score and many other elements." It is on Roger Ebert's list of Great Movies, and he notes it was "Akira Kurosawa's most popular film in Japan". Rotten Tomatoes has 97% for both critics and audience scores.

The Big Kill

The Big Kill is a Mike Hammer book, one in a series of detective stories by Mickey Spillane, whose photo from Wikipedia is above. I'm not sure this is in print as a stand-alone novel. I have The Elder Son's copy of volume 2 of The Mike Hammer Collection, which has 3 of the novels. I'm reading some of these for background on detective/crime/mystery novels. I like them ok, I guess, but I have trouble getting past the misogyny.

This plot synopsis is from Wikipedia:

Drinking at a seedy bar on a rainy night, Hammer notices a man come in with an infant. The man, named Decker, cries as he kisses the infant, then walks out in the rain and is shot dead. Hammer shoots the assailant as he searches Decker's body. The driver of the getaway car runs over the man Hammer shot to ensure that he won't talk. Hammer takes care of the child and vows revenge on the person behind the deed.

Hammer's trail of vengeance leads him to hostile encounters with his police friend Pat Chambers, the District Attorney and his stooges as well as beatings, assassination attempts, and torture from gangsters that Hammer reciprocates.

That Wikipedia article needs a bit of editing for clarity, if you ask me, but maybe it gets the general idea across.

There's a limited market for Spillane's prose, and I imagine that market gets smaller with each passing decade. a quote from the book:

It was one of those nights when the sky came down and wrapped itself around the world. The rain clawed at the windows of the bar like an angry cat and tried to sneak in every time some drunk lurched in the door. The place reeked of stale beer and soggy men with enough cheap perfume thrown in to make you sick. Two drunks with a nickel between them were arguing over what to play on the juke box until a tomato in a dress that was too tight a year ago pushed the key that started off something noisy and hot. One of the drunks wanted to dance and she gave him a shove. So he danced with the other drunk. She saw me sitting there with my stool tipped back against the cigarette machine and change of a fin on the bar, decided I could afford a wet evening for two and walked over with her hips waving hello.