Colin Firth: Style Icon

I really liked "The King's Speech," the story of King George VI's unlikely ascension to the throne and the speech therapist who helped him overcome his stammer and insecurities about being monarch.

In several scenes, the script was dazzling witty and perfectly executed by the stellar cast in a way that didn't congratulate itself on its clever repartee. It's also nice to see a genteel, civilized movie made by adults for adults that is actually still interesting and not PBS-documentary dry. I like gratuitous sex and frequent explosions as much as the next guy, but let's get a palate-cleanser in there every once in awhile.

What I really, really liked about "The King's Speech," though, was the wardrobe. I'm not talking about the heavily medaled suits Colin Firth wears in his official capacities. I'm thinking more of all the twill and double-breasted coats and scarves that serve no purpose other than to provide a subtle flourish (see above). I am sure I'd go crazy after two days of wearing as many layers and buttons and starchy garments as they did in those days, but man, it would've be fun for day or two to live in an era where being a dandy was the norm.

I Tend To Romanticize Things Just A Little Bit

Here's what really got to me:

We talked about morning routines. I said on the weekends, I liked to lie in bed and read the paper - that actual, physical paper. You said you prefer to flip through blogs when you're drinking your coffee. Then you laughed and said "Well, that's something we'll have to get around, won't we?"

And that, that chaste little suggestion of some great and effortless intimacy, is what really stuck with me. I could go on forever the way I have been, checking "one" on every wedding invitation RSVP and turning out the lights alone each night, and I would be fine. Nothing about that bothers me. It just doesn't matter.

But that. That. That small vision of some future closeness and domesticity. That's the reason why, sometimes, late at night, I still bite my fingernails to a stub and look at my phone, wishing it would be your name showing up on the caller ID.

I Recommend This, Even If It's Awkward

I was in a bookstore today and ran into someone I know. Naturally, we started talking about books. "Have you read Michael Cunningham's latest?" I said. "It's um...It's...yeah!"

The reason for my hesitation is not that "By Nightfall" isn't good. It is. Really good, in fact. I wavered because "By Nightfall" is very sexy, but very sexy in a way that might not be everyone's...you know, thing.

"By Nightfall" is the story of Peter and Rebecca Harris, two of those characters who only exist in fiction - wealthy, attractive New Yorkers who suffer from some sort of general malaise their good fortune just can't cure. Things are sputtering along until Rebecca's brother Mizzy, short for "Mistake," comes to stay with them.

Mizzy is where things start getting interesting. Mercurial, brilliant when he wants to be, chronically impulsive and fatally addicted to drugs, Mizzy is saved from perpetual exasperation at the hands of everyone who knows him by his "pale, princely beauty." Cunningham describes Mizzy in wonderfully, tantalizingly figurative terms. He's "a medieval bas-relief," "a Rodin bronze cast in eternal youth," and (while sleeping) a "young hero whom some anonymous artisan granted perfect features and eternal rest beneath the painted eyes of saints." Mizzy, do I want to be you, or do I want to be with you? Even I can't be sure anymore.

Cunningham doesn't just execute those little somersaults of words for Mizzy's sake. "By Nightfall" is full of phrases that enliven what might otherwise be, in portions, a rather indulgent swan song for a rich, untroubled couple. "Insomniacs know better than almost anyone how it is to haunt a room," Peter muses one sleepless night. Rebecca "inhabits the house as unthinkingly as a mermaid inhabits a sunken treasure ship," but upon feeling she might soon hear bad news, looks "like she was waiting for a bus to take her someplace she did not particularly want to go." Cunningham's prose is rich without being florid, complex but not busy. Reading "By Nightfall" made me feel like I was gliding.

So, I'm going to recommend it to you, potentially awkward sex scenes and all. Read it. Now.

It's So Hard To Say Goodbye

Don't tell me it's silly to be attached to a wallet. Just don't do it, because I am. I really am.

The wallet you see above was given to me as a Christmas gift when I was about 14. I believe it came from Target, so in and of itself it was nothing special.

But you need to understand that I'm at a point where everything in my life is cheap imitation shit from Ikea and is always - always! - wobbling and ready to break down at any moment (and I mean that both metaphorically and painfully literally, folks). Nothing is permanent. Everything is make-do or make-it-work or deal-with-it. Things that are solid and comfortable and have withstood the test of time are rare and, therefore, valuable to me in ways that far exceed their economic worth.

This wallet held my first driver's license. I stuffed it full of tips when I was a restaurant wage-slave. It has had library cards from Duluth, Milwaukee and Minneapolis. Until recently, it contained the access key to my apartment building, my student ID, my health insurance card, my Walker Art Center membership card - I mean, if I could be reduced to just a collection of small plastic rectangles, this wallet would've been my autobiography.

Sadly, this wallet's time had come. It was torn up and dog-eared and creased in all the wrong ways. I didn't mind, because I knew how many accidental swims and spins through the washing machine and car trips it had spent sandwiched between me and the car seat, but it got to the point where people began to comment on it. So, I caved in and bought a new wallet; a slim and stylish and immorally expensive wallet that holds its creases and is made of soft, burnished leather and has absolutely no character whatsoever.

I mean, I get it. I do. Life goes on. Things wear out and fall away, blah blah blah. But still, I am going to pout about this. I'm going to pout about it for quite some time.

Insanity Wears A Tutu

Much like its tightly wound heroine, Darren Aronofsky's "The Black Swan" aims for perfection and spins out of control before coming achingly close to achieving it.

With the sudden and dramatic departure of her company's lead dancer, Nina Sayres (Natalie Portman) has at last graduated from the corps de ballet to prima ballerina. Too bad the production of "Swan Lake" in which she makes her starring debut will become her own personal hell. Her lecherous instructor (Vincent Cassel) doesn't think she has the sensuality and impulsiveness to pull off the part of the Black Swan and starts to eye the more freewheeling Lily (Mila Kunis) as a potential replacement. Nina, a bundle of tightly wound nerves if there ever was one, was beginning to crack before all this happened; with the spotlight finally on her, the breakdown enters warp-speed phase.

The thing I liked most about "Black Swan" was how it showed the grit and grim determination dancers need to make everything look graceful and effortless. We see the frothy white tutus and elegant glides across the stage, but we also see blackened toenails, starved bodies and twisted psyches. Portman, whom until now I never considered much of an actress, is alternately thrilling and terrifying as Nina. She's so tense and uptight she made me clench my fists at times, but a certain scene toward the end is so utterly thrilling it was visceral. With tight shots and an unsteady camera, Aronofsky creates a nerve-jangling atmopshere, particulary when Nina is in the haunted-house apartment she shares with her evil stage mother.

Does "Black Swan" go over the top at times? Yes. The sound effect of rustling wings paired with moving dancers is a nice touch; the weird oily noise that sometimes accompanies Lily's movements is a little too much.

But if "Black Swan" teaches you anything, it's that you sometimes have to go overboard to get where you want to be. "Black Swan" is terrifying, artistic and dramatic - everything a movie of its type should be.

There's Meaning In Here Somewhere

Before I tell you this story, there are two things you need to know.

The first is that every stroke of my imagination is vividly rendered in highly cinematic strokes, with everything being at all times exceptionally beautiful and stirring and meaningful. Every fantasy is an Oscar-worthy dreamscape, which makes my prosaic, humdrum existence so much more bearable. Escapism really is my specialty.

The second is that I often sleep with my window open a crack because I like fresh air.

So...

Last night, I woke up at around 3 a.m. to the sensation of something very cold on my body. I opened my eyes and saw snowflakes - the small, flinty kind that fall only when it's really, really cold - whirling through through my open window to suspend themselves in a shaft of moonlight. I looked down and saw that a fine dust of these same snowflakes had settled into every rumple of my shirt and fold of my kicked-off blankets. They were so small and clear it looked like tiny pieces of light had fallen everywhere. It was such a strange and beautiful experience - I really did momentarily feel like a character in a novel - that I had to lie there for a minute and appreciate it.

Then I got up and closed my window.

Of Scarf Fetishes And Pyrrhic Victories

Sometime this fall, I developed a crush on a scarf at Macy's. A cashmere scarf in a buttered-toast shade of camel, to be specific. I thought about this scarf at least once a day and how pairing it with a dark navy peacoat would make Nicollet Mall my own personal runway. I could be the epitome of effortless masculine taste and style; all I needed to make this happen was this scarf.

There was a slight problem, however, and that problem was the scarf's price tag. I love me some impractical affectations, but my bank account stings every time I indulge in one. This scarf was not like a mortgage payment or anything, but it aslso was not something I needed or could really justify purchasing.

But this crush wouldn't go away. In fact, it retreated to a dark part of my soul where it grew and mutated into some horrible sort of fetish. I yearned for that scarf, but oh, how my inconvenient need to be savvy about what I buy got in the way. It was the worst sort of dilemma imaginable, like "Sophie's Choice," only with meaningless articles of clothing.

To make a long and boring part of this story short, I happened to see this scarf on Macy's website for a significantly lower price. My heart sang. I practically raced through the crowds of overweight office workers clogging the Skyway system to get to Macy's so this scarf could at last be mine. Mine, mine, mine! It would be mine!

But when I got there, it still bore its original price tag. Flummoxed, I asked a clerk to explain. She shrugged. "Bring back a printout. If it's the exact same scarf in the exact some color, we'll give you that price."

I was not really pleased about this. A.) That would require futher effort on my part and B.) who wants to look like a penny-pincher? But when I got back to school I found my need for that scarf had become insatiable. I could resist no longer. Armed with a printout, I marched back into Macy's to claim what should rightfully have been mine so long. The same indifferent clerk put up a fight (Her:"It needs to be a color printout so I can see it's the same style." Me: "No, it doesn't. I selected 'camel' and even highlighted it for you. See? See?") but her resistance was pointless in the face of my bright-eyed fever. I had that scarf in my hot little hand in no time.

The minute I got home, I wanted to pet this thing with loving, borderline inappropriate strokes. I wanted it to be my best friend, my neighbor, my financial advisor, marriage counselor, trusted religious official, etc. But now....

Now I'm thinking of returning it. It's maybe a shade off to go with my coat and, in what is surely an unpardonable offense here in sub-arctic Minneapolis, it isn't very warm.

Nothing is ever the way I want it to be.

I Want To Be Your Friend

I am pretty seriously in like with this car.

It's clearly as homemade as a car can be and I, for one, think it's pretty darn radical how the person had enough of a sense of humor to add the "Danger Car" to the hood. Homemade detailing has always had a special place in my heart.

You can't see it in this picture, but this person also has a Dora the Explorer air freshener (or something) hanging from his or her rearview mirror. Does he or she have a small child, or is this yet another ironic gesture? I'm really hoping it's the latter.

Either way, I don't care. I want to give the driver of this sweet ride a medal.

Defying Common Sense Since 1985

Finals are here. You would be totally justified in thinking I would respond to the the added demands of extra-strenuous time by neglecting other areas of my life; wearing only sweatshirts, eating solely from vending machines, forgetting what the inside of my gym looks like, etc.

Totally justified, but totally wrong.

I'm a give-it-all-you-got kind of guy, so to me, finals are like charging uphill in battle against a superior military force. I am sinking my teeth into these next two weeks and giving them a death shake. I am channeling this crazy person/animal lust for accomplishment and refining it into amazing productivity.

I will be wearing ties and crisply ironed shirts , even if it's just to go the library where I will study until I crumble into a heap. I will be eating better and more nutritious meals than usual, even if I barely taste them because I am reviewing flashcards as I attempt to put food reasonably close to my mouth. My apartment will be so clean it will look like a movie set, even if I'm never there. I will romp around the track at the gym for longer than I normally do, even if means depriving myself of further sleep.

I've got the fever, everyone - that source-less, amorphous drive to move forward. Onward, ever upward, even if I don't know where I am going. Yeah!

New Month, New Music

The calendar says it's Dec. 1. That must mean it's time for my monthly round-up of new-to-me music.

Grizzly Bear - "Two Weeks": Brother #1 and I are having a serious debate about this one. I insist it sounds like a Beach Boys track; he says The Beatles. What do you think?

Rawnald Gregory Erickson The Second - "Starfucker": I'm glad the song is a little classier than its name.

Gold Panda - "You": Don't even try to tell me this song doesn't sound like a horde of animatronic rubber duckies run amok after hours in an empty Toys 'R Us or something.

The Shoes - "Stay The Same": This song sound vaguely Asian-inspired in the way that American Chinese food isn't actually anything like food in China.

Freelance Whales - "Generator Second Floor": I feel like I heard this before, on the soundtrack to some twee little movie like "Garden State." Still, something about this song makes my heart feel pinched in little places. It's a sad but enjoyable feeling.

David Lynch - "Good Day Today": This song makes me think I should actually get around to watching "Blue Velvet" one of these days.