I've been on a three-week drunk. However, nothing to worry about. I'd been so busy the first few months here trying to get normal, I forgot how much I love to drink. I'm a whiskey drinker, bourbon usually, Maker's Mark in particular, partly out of nostalgia for a professor I once admired, partly for its simple, delicious vanillas. If I have the money, it's definitely Islay single malt Scotch. Laphroaig if someone even more generous is buying. If I'm with a crowd and have no way to control the parameters of the evening, cheap beer will do: Bud Light, Red Stripe, PBR. You can drink that stuff forever and keep the next-morning regret to a minimum. But lately, it's been vodka, straight from the bottle, preferably after its been sitting in a freezer. Or on a bedroom windowsill. The hangovers aren't nearly as bad after a night of brown spirits or red wine and will kill an insomnia-attack just like that. Now that I've established my frame of mind, let's get on with it.



Last week, my Romanian writer friend Cristian tipped me off on his favorite homeland-movie of all time: 12:08 East of Bucharest, which played at the Harvard Film Archive. Cristian is like most Romanians I know: cynical yet friendly, intellectual, political, perverse, funny as hell. This movie, which focuses on the revolution of 1989, is not much different. It has the kind of comfortable filmic lethargy and ridiculousness I love, plus plenty of drinkin' and percussion-instrument playing. What I'd like to know is where they found the Chinese-Romanian actor to play the firecracker-selling Asian shopkeeper. In the realm of iconic film characters, this guy is up there with Mr. Little Jeans/Pagoda and the dancing midget in Twin Peaks. On second thought, his is way better -- more crucial to the plot and not nearly as racist/freakist. If you want to read more, check out Cristian's blog, and search under 'movies.'

So one thing led to another, and I found myself sitting in the alcove of a Somerville pub, squished around a table of James Joyce-enthusiasts trying to figure out the etymology of the word "cock." But of course. The group has met every Tuesday since 1997 to deconstruct the incomprehensible, byzantine poetry of Joyce's Finnegans Wake and keeps a blistering pace of 1.5 pages per meeting. After 10 years, they are half-way through the 628-page book. I kid you not. (A few years ago, newcomers to the club insisted the group start from page one again. Then two years later, after those newbies had all dropped out, the veterans skipped back up to where they'd left off originally.)


We drank, we bantered, and we attempted to elucidate Mr. Dubliner's insane prose ("His thunderwords are harbingers of change!") Later, I even regaled the Finnegans' with stories of an evening not too long ago where I'd witnessed prodigious performance-art readings of Joyce's love letters to his wife Nora Barnacle, at another local bar, which involved a dildo being sucked off and ripped out of one (female) reader's unzipped fly. And in conclusion, Boston ain't so bad after all.

P.S. Old English cocc, from medieval Latin coccus; reinforced in Middle English by Old French coq

Here's to acting on "strange sensations" and avoiding catastrophic results.



Though Fung Wah is notoriously suspect in its safety standards, you gotta be impressed that after at least one bus rollover (while traveling at excessive speeds on a ramp) and a spontaneous vehicle fire (faulty wiring -- apparently not their fault), nobody's actually perished in the company's eight-year history. Still thinking of making the switch to Greyhound (yes, they offer the same $15 one-way Boston-NYC ticket online)? Think again.

Check out footage of the rollover and fire here.