Harry Potter and Gary Oldman

Gary Oldman. Prisoner of Azkaban. Sizzling.

Maybe it’s the Eddie Vedder/Viggo as Aragorn/Jim Morrison beard thing combined with the dirty grimy bad boy posturing and rock’n’roll swagger, I don’t know. I’m smitten.

Always have been, really, but I’d forgotten. My first Gary Oldman movie was Sid and Nancy, which I originally watched because of my fascination with Sid Vicious, with whom I was not, thankfully, in love. Sid Vicious seemed a good symbol for my obsession with dark despair, somehow even trumping Heathcliff in my adolescent mind (not sure why). I even named my leather jacket Sid. Heck, for a while, I even called my mother Sid. Luckily, she understood that I was being affectionate.

After I watched the movie, though, I fell in love with Sid Vicious because Gary Oldman portrayed him. The real Sid, I suspect, was more like Frankenstein’s monster in both looks and intellect. I found every Gary Oldman movie I could, rarely falling in love again as Mr. Oldman tends to choose some shady, if complex, characters, Sid included (shady, that is – certainly not complex).

But that man can act! He has the very rare gift to lose Gary Oldman and become the part. Johnny Depp can do that as well; unfortunately, Johnny is too hot to ever really lose the Deppness, but who can really hold that against him?

One of my favorite Oldman characters is the pimp from True Romance (great movie) and although Dracula was horrible, I can't think of a better Dracula. Then there’s Prick Up Your Ears, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, JFK, Immortal Beloved…so many more. But Sirius Black. Sigh!

Speaking of Azkaban…I’m a little late coming into the Harry Potter craze but I’m tearing through the books now. Just waiting for Netflix to deliver Goblet before I start reading Order of the Phoenix. Escapism at its best.

On My Nightstand: High Noon by Nora Roberts (another great author of escapist fiction)

Quote of the Day: “I sit like a night alive with witches.” (Ben Hecht)

Daily blessing: October is almost here. No more humidity.

All the Pretty Little Horses...

…is one of the few songs on my toddler’s various children’s CDs that I actually like. It’s really a rather creepy song with the description of the lost little lamb, dead, its little eyes fodder for crows. Calexico does a great version of the song, but they change the lyrics from a “lamb crying for its mother” to a “little child crying for its mother,” which is a bit traumatic if you are a mother.

Anyway, the song has been swimming around my head since my husband and I took our son to Nantasket Beach to ride the carousel and catch his first glimpse of the ocean (he was transfixed, of course). Last Saturday was one of those perfect summer days…high sun, no humidity, not too hot. The beach wasn’t crowded, or maybe it was just crowded enough, and there were enough fried clams and ice cream to sink a pirate ship.

Carousels in general just mystify me, especially old wooden ones like the one at Nantasket. The music, lights, ornate carvings and random paintings all spinning together to weave some sort of dark magic. Reminds me of Isak Dinesen’s “The Caryatids” about the gypsy’s water wheel curse. But nothing tops a carousel on the beach. The tang of salt in the air, the pull of the ocean, hot sand, surfers…it just works. Nantasket is a little faded compared to my favorite beach spot in Santa Cruz – the salt has rusted everything, the amusement park is long gone, and there is an aura of gloom despite the bright sun, but there’s that carousel.

The Santa Cruz carousel makes an appearance in Kicking Sideways. Cree, my heroine, doesn’t quite get the appeal:

Down on the beach, couples strolled at the edge of the surf and a man jogged with his dog. Behind them, the calliope played its macabre bells and Cree shivered. She hated the merry-go-round. To her, the calliope promised a ride to magical and faraway places, but as soon as you bought a ticket, you found that you had been duped, all hopes dashed in a never-ending circle of ups and downs and in the mouths of horses frozen while screaming.

So she turned her back on the beach and let the white and colored lights of the Boardwalk dazzle her until she could tune out the strains of the calliope. Mike, she snorted, no doubt loved the awful contraption. She looked at him and shook her head.

He was staring at the monstrous thing with a half smile on his lips and a dreamy look in his eyes.

Needless to say, I’m with Mike on this one.

Blogs of note: Loseractor.com, a hilarious romp through the days of an out-of-work actor and Mrs. Morrison’s Hotel, Patricia Kennealy Morrison’s blog, which is sometimes funny, sometimes serious, always intelligent and gets you thinking

On my nightstand: I’ve finally succumbed. I’m hitting the Harry Potters.

Just finished: White Teeth. Zadie Smith is an amazing writer; not sure how I ultimately felt about the story. Enjoyed the taste, but it didn't settle right in my belly.

Still the best coffee: NYC’s Brownstone Beans

Netflix this: Children of Men. Wow.

Favorite song lyric of the day: “I was puzzling the heavens and wandering around.” (“Stepside” by Jeremy Moses Curtis)

Favorites on my iPod this week:

• Bow Thayer’s “Wingless Angels”
• Tad’s “I’m a Jinx”
• Old Crow Medicine Show’s “Wagon Wheel”
• Pegboy’s “Strong Reaction”
• Rick Springfield’s “Jessie’s Girl”
• Jethro’s “Stepside”