Foxes have holes, but the Man of Steel...

Did Lex Luthor just take over the phone company here in Poland? That's what it looks like, as they've been phasing out Superman-friendly phone booths with brutal dispatch. I suspect what's really behind it is the traditional Luthorian "Let's beat up the poor!" ethos. It's certainly not practical considering the ferocious frosts here.

Snoop's Got It

Ever seen the animated special "It's Magic, Charlie Brown"? I hadn't either but found it at Video World, the last remaining outpost of DVD (and video!) rental in Gliwice, and rented it as part of a serious effort this month to engage more actively with the Polish language-- OK actually I decided to rent it before seeing that it had no English audio (was kind of inspired by a recent essay on the more famous classic 60s and 70s specials in Slate magazine, as well as a general vogue for comics and cartoons among my friends, family, random internet crushes etc. lately) but found the slog worthwhile-- in fact it's the first American cartoon dubbed in Polish (or another language) where not only did the foreign sound not jar, but I barely even noticed its foreignness. Of course they got some things wrong, like remember how the voice of Peppermint Pattie was so obviously a dude (come to think of it, wasn't Peppermint Pattie just a bad idea generally-- or was it some kind of sick genius to have this almost Highsmithian stalker-psychopath hanging around)? Well, in this one Charlie Brown's voice was obviously a lady, but somehow that didn't irk. I also was somewhat shocked by Charlie Brown's own rather sociopathic behavior in Magic, when invisible (anticipating Kevin Bacon in Hollow Man, which title is easy to confuse with the much different Glimmer Man); and then his atypically un-Christian stance at the end. Did Schulz know about this? Still, it was kind of fun.

Virgin Mary sighting... or not... ?

I left my iron standing on the ironing board for a few days (not plugged in) and noticed that it made this nice reflection (I'd say shadow but this was rather an illumination, not darkness) on the wall that looked kind of like the Virgin Mary. Or was it Penguin Opus?

Pluses and minuses

The local supermarket in my neighborhood used to be a branch of PLUS, a low-end German affair that was stylish in a Starsky and Hutch (70s TV original not Ben Stiller & Owen Wilson movie) kind of way. It's now been replaced, at this branch and all others in Gliwice if not in Poland, by Biedronka, a low-end Portuguese affair that's unstylish in a Barney's Funhouse kind of way. But the Yugoslavian or whatever nacho chips are better, and so is the (Portuguese) wine, so who's complaining? Yesterday was the grand gala opening, full of yellow balloons-- which reminds me of that wonderful song by Jan and Dean
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uInJQO1NiDI&feature=related, speaking of unstylish :)