My Dinner with Joe

Exotic fare - Pic courtesy of Wikipedia

by Trebor Snillor
Today the warm weather is returning after a freakish week of cool July temperatures. We actually had a record “low high” of 79 degrees a couple of days ago. I’m not complaining, just making note of the pleasant change. I’ve recently installed a fancy sprinkler system and an upgraded A/C – I should expect all that to bring cool, rainy weather to North Texas.

OUT OF THE ARSE

David Letterman once accused Dr. Phil of pulling advice “out of his ass”. Dr. Phil thought it was funny and even became a regular guest on Letterman after that. Today, I’m going to also pull a topic from that same place – the heat and a busy schedule prevent me from doing any kind of graduate level research on a topic. (Yes that’s right – I do graduate-level research on most of these articles :-) ).

LOWER GREENVILLE, DALLAS

The Lower Greenville area in Dallas (the blocks roughly from Richmond down to Ross) has just undergone a makeover. The street has actually been narrowed to make it more bike and pedestrian friendly. Benches, trees and landscaping have been added to make it a destination block – one where you might just hang out on a pleasant day. The strategy is working; the area has recently acquired the Truck Stop, (entertainment-cheap food venue) Trader Joe’s and the Tango Frogs back atop Taco Cabana. The long-vacated Whole Foods building has been made into a Neighborhood Walmart giving the area a practical anchor grocery store on top of all the trendy shops and bars.

NEIGHBORHOOD WALMART

When Neighborhood Walmart was suggested @ 3 years ago, some neighbors were up in arms. They envisioned a giant, gray “big box” with 200 acres of asphalt. In fact, Neighborhood Walmarts are much smaller than full-fledged Walmarts. Walmart repurposed the existing building with no expansion at all to its footprint or parking area. They gave it a modern exterior with pleasing brown/green earth colors and drought tolerant landscaping. I probably wouldn’t do my major shopping here – some food selections are limited compared to a Kroger or Tom Thumb. But it’s great as a supplementary store to round out my basic needs and the prices are very reasonable. I drop by when I’m already in the ‘hood shopping at Trader Joe’s.

TRADER JOE’S

Speaking of Trader Joe’s, I shop here almost every week. The California chain opened its first store in 1967 – it has recently become a Texas phenomenon with stores popping up all over. TJ’s is rumored to be founded by German ex-Nazi’s which seems ironic. The irony comes from the fact that TJ’s has a laid back, hippy dippy liberal feel to it. I went today and they were playing Led Zeppelin on their sound system. The employees all look like youthful members of a commune or maybe employees at a legal marijuana farm.

What Trader Joe’s is not: a place where you would buy all your weekly staples. Much like Whole Foods, TJ’s is a “specialty” grocery store. I like to tell people it’s for fun food – chips, dips, cookies, wine, cheese, mixed nuts and virtually any food used in entertaining or porking out in front of a TV. Their food includes lots of organic and exotic fare, competing again with Whole Foods. The Neighborhood Walmart across the streets yields a perfect complementary relationship. Buy your Charmin, suds and practical stuff at Walmart; then run across the street to TJ’s for your exotic fare.

Trader Joe’s differs from Whole Foods in one notable way (based on my own unscientific observing) – the prices appear way (like 33%) less than Whole Foods. Maybe that’s my imagination running away with me. TJ’s gets a really fun, interesting yuppie crowd which lends it an entertainment factor as much as anything. My only complaint would be that it’s so crowded – get there early or be ready to fight for your Trader Joe Hazlenut Cookies.

FIN

In conclusion, it’s obvious I had not much to say today. If you make it to Lower Greenville anytime soon, just come check out my new favorite places.


© 2014 Snillor Productions

Hitchcock, Gallic Style

Eyes Without a Face - Pic courtesy of Lux Films

by Trebor Snillor
This was a long holiday weekend and it gave me time to watch some excellent TV shows. I finished off my binge of Orange is the New Black and will just say they exceeded all my expectations. I also watched two movies in the HuluPlus “Criterion Collection” which were formidable. Each of these movies were considered bold and cutting edge, each in a different way, when they were made. Both are black and white with subtitles -- things that might otherwise send me running the other way. But I was entranced by each movie within minutes of pressing the play button.

EYES WITHOUT A FACE

This movie was made in Paris, 1960. The French country manor, new Citroen automobile and avant garde fashions all make the movie visually compelling. The elegant setting calls to mind Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief. Eyes tells the macabre tale of a brilliant plastic surgeon -- one whose 20-something daughter has been badly injured in a car accident. He has a renowned talent for doing skin grafts and he attempts several operations to fix his daughter’s face. What we come to realize (it took me a while with subtitles) is the horrific thing the doctor is doing to procure skin donors. The movie has eerie music and light play which lend it a dreamlike quality. Edith Scob, playing the daughter, bears a resemblance to Mia Farrow. Her slight, pale presence lends a beautiful, ghostly quality to all her scenes.

DIABOLIQUE

In this 1954 movie, a woman conspires with her husband’s mistress to murder him -- he apparently has been a brutal cad to both women. (How very French to treat a mistress so matter-of-factly).. The women drug him, then drown him in a bathtub. They dump his corpse in a pool only to find two days later the body has been removed! The movie has a twist the likes of which was later seen in Vertigo or Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte. I didn't figure out the plot conundrum until the movie was nearly over.

Diabolique gives us Simone Signoret as the mistress and she is a beautiful standout. There is an exquisite change of place and time. We see an antique Renault truck, a small, squalid apartment still with a lavish sink and ornate bathtub. We see a post-war Europe which still listened to radio and lived in 4-story walk ups. The incidentals of the period are as fascinating as the plot line itself.

Both of these movies channel Alfred Hitchcock -- in fact he might wish he’d made them himself. Both feature beautiful blonde women (a Hitchcock fetish), powerful musical scores and spellbinding cinematography. They have lavish backdrops and frequent scene changes -- things which also made Hitchcock’s movies as visually engaging as a travelogue or a fashion show. My two years of high school French actually came in handy -- I followed a tiny percentage of the dialog without the subtitles.

These two movies, as well as several others are available virtually for “free” on HuluPlus (@ $9/month unlimited viewing).. If you can break free of preconceptions about foreign films or old films, these movies are remarkable.

THIS WEEK AWAY FROM TV

I have a frantic week approaching. I’ll be on call for a new software system at our designated command center. I’ll be moving from a private cubicle to an open “collaborative” table at work. And I’ll be getting a large, complicated sprinkler system installed. All this in one week -- it may be more of a nail biter than the movies I just described.

© 2014 Snillor Productions