dir. Terrence Malick
The Tree of Life is a CGI comedy romp starring Sean Penn as Loci the Talking Raptor and Brad Pitt as a strict navy officer. They form an unlikely bond after another raptor (played by you) intervenes on their fight over the significance or insignificance of all events in life, clinic which is displayed through a contrast between present day events and the creation of all life and time. You resolve it with laughter, try song, salve and an hour long perfume commercial, directed by Calvin Klein, complete with the principal actors whispering abstract narratives over flashes of sun-dappled imagery.
You lucky raptor you, you are there to bear witness to every event, every event that has ever happened in all of time:Â you watch the original mitochondrion merging with a cell, you are there running with your brothers through cornfields in Texas, you witness a plesiosaur bleeding into prehistoric waters. Each of these events is handled with equal weight by Malick’s camera. The merging of hands at a funeral is as big and vivid as a piece of earth breaking off and creating a magma-fall.
You are always looking up with Malick, up at stained glass spiral ceilings in a church, up at the tops of trees blooming in spring, up at your red-headed strong-willed mother who never thought she would have a life revolving around four boys. She whispers delicate entreaties to God, and soon her oldest son does the same. It seems stilted and precocious when he asks why God let a young boy die, but it becomes more meaningful as you see him ask the same questions of his father.
Though the mother opens the movie by saying the weather will always find a reason to be unhappy, the entire movie is vibrant, all sticky southern summer nights, no grayness or rain, just fields and rivers and rope-swings.
Enough about you, Mr. CGI Raptor. Back to me.
I considered it a great compliment to the movie that, after I exited the theater disoriented and crying, an older woman came up to me and asked about the single most important plot detail. She had missed the first ten minutes of the movie, and still thought it was spectacular.
I would really like to see it again, but next time allow myself to fall asleep more often. It is not a boring movie. Every shot of every scene is careful and deliberate and beautiful. But it feels like fragments of memories you might see before you fall asleep, and to go in and out of those dreamlike states seems to be as valid and true a way of watching it as enduring it straight through.
6 out of 6 burgers
I stumbled out of the movie theater wishing I could die right then and there but somehow managed to get myself on the EL and back to Market East Station. And I was hungry.
INDIAN DELITE: MARKET EAST STATION
non-vegetarian curry platter
like $10 with a mango lassi
For some reason I was like “No, it is not a bad idea at all to get food court Indian food!” I went up and asked for the non-vegetarian curry with a side of mint sauce. I did not ask for a platter. I got a platter anyway! And no mint sauce. Then I asked for mango juice and the lady gave me a $4 mango lassi instead.
I couldn’t be sure, but I think the mango lassi had gone off. It tasted much more sour than I think should have been right. I kept sipping at it to make sure, and I realized if I continued doing that I was putting myself at risk for food poisoning. “But it was $4! And I didn’t ask for it!” I guess I finally decided having my stomach pumped would be more expensive than a $4 lassi and I threw it out.
The platter came with vegetarian curry (which I guess sounds exactly the same as “non-vegetarian curry) and some cheese in some kind of cream sauce, some rice, and a samosa. The curry was fairly nondescript with some cauliflowers and carrots and peas. I guess most of her customers are not Indian so it was not spicy at all. The cheese stuff was also ok. The samosa was kind of dry and gross. Mostly I just kept crying about how all events in life are the same level of significant and I wondered if someone would make a 2 hour perfume ad about my life if I died of food poisoning right then. I should have gone to get bahn mi!
2 out of 6 burgers
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Anybody who knows the Lady Doctor Burgers knows she loves two things: 1. talking in third person, prescription and 2. drinking tea. She often gets tired of the first, cialis but never of the second.
One of her– ok I’m tired of this shit– one of MY favorite varieties of tea is Thai iced tea, medicine specifically the magnificently tasty kind you get in Thai restaurants that are hyper-sweetened and you have to stir the evaporated milk mixture in at the top. You know what I’m talking about, right? I’ve often expressed interest to others about making it at home, have researched the methods, but have never found the means to successfully recreate the experience at home.
I am told the key is:
-Thai red tea
-evaporated milk
-about 80 pounds of sugar
Serve chilled and enjoy the hell out of it.
The problem is the elusive first ingredient, the Thai red tea. I have been to just about every Asian market, small and large, in the Philadelphia area, and have never seen this stuff. Maybe it’s because I can’t read Thai (I am working on it, goddammit) or I’m overwhelmed by the amount of tea at these places, but I have just never encountered it.
In my journey to have THAI ICED TEA AT HOME!, I have experienced lingual hell. The first Thai Iced Tea product I saw was a friendly-looking orange beverage in a glass bottle at Assi, the large Korean market where all the non-Teavana products mentioned in this review were purchased. Thinking I had struck gold, I bought a bottle each for Reverend Evelyn, Commodore Xiane, and myself. I brought it home to refrigerate it, eagerly awaiting the moment I would finally have THAI ICED TEA AT HOME!.
It tasted like hot dogs. I can’t believe I was so surprised that something so orange tasted like hot dogs, but there it was. The drink was suffused with this awe-inspiringly disgusting Hormel brand smoked flavor, which is something I did not want anywhere near my tea. I was put off the idea of THAI ICED TEA AT HOME! (or elsewhere) for a while.
Tasting it again in its proper environment, a restaurant, I was once again enthused about trying to have it in the comfort of my own dirty kitchen whenever I pleased. I even had some from a street cart in Portland and it was just as delicious in a plastic cup as it would have been in those swanky tall glasses they serve you with at the restaurants. What was the secret to achieving perfect, portable Thai iced tea?
I thought I had found it in DeDe Instant Thai Tea Powder. I wasn’t completely naive going into it, but I was far too hopeful. I was given a brush with reality when I ordered a bubble tea, Thai Iced Tea flavor, from the Assi Bubble Tea stand, and it had a mild, but still unpleasant, smoky flavor. This should have deterred me, but I had already purchased the tea powder, and I knew at the very least it would be fun to write about.
Before I even got to try the DeDe powder, however, Prince T.J. gave me Thai loose tea from Teavana. I knew, then, that I could create
THE ULTIMATE THAI TEA SHOWDOWN
(I need some WordArt there. Send me your fanciest WordArt, readers)
I made them simultaneously, and tasted them at pretty much the same time (though I used a palette cleanser because I am a professional, you see.) to have a fair idea of how they measured up back to back.
Packaging:
DeDe Instant Thai Tea Powder:
The powder had a cute, cheery, colorful wrapper announcing the ingredients and the value of it being 3 in 1: sugar, milk, AND tea.
5/6 burgers
Teavana Thai Tea:
The loose tea was rolled up in a Teavana bag. Kind of generic.
3/6 burgers
Preparation:
DeDe:
Boil hot water, stir. Indeed instant.
6/6 Burgers
Teavana:
Holy god so you have to boil the water, and then pour it in a SPECIAL TEAMAKER or tea ball or whatever you use because it’s loose tea and requires all sorts of special tools. Then you have to wait 3 minutes for it to brew. Fortunately I really enjoy the Teavana teamaker; it’s extremely novel.
5/6 Burgers
Appearance:
DeDe:
Unbrewed it looked like chalk dust. Brewed it was bright orange, which was not a good sign to me. It was highly reminiscent of the first bottled Thai Iced Tea I purchased, and the thought of hot-dog tasting tea made me think it looked like food-processed hot dogs. Hot dog alchemy. This is making me nauseous.
1/6 Burgers
Teavana:
There’s something very pleasant and potpourri-like about their loose teas. Brewed it looked like any black tea.
5/6 Burgers
Taste:
This is what’s most important so I’m giving it a 12 burgers rating system.
DeDe:
It didn’t taste like hot dogs, that’s the good news. It took me a couple sips to figure out what it DID taste like, and I finally settled on kettle corn. What the fuck, guys. Tea should not taste like any savory junk food. Sometimes tea tastes like a basement. Sometimes it tastes like a flower. Way too often it tastes like someone’s front yard. But in my estimation, it should not taste like anything that you could buy at Wal-Mart’s HEALTHY VITTLES section.
I made my mom try it and she said there was something “oddly comforting†about it, and I felt less bad for basically treating her like a guinea pig and approaching her with the good ol’ “Here, taste this! It’s disgusting!!!!†maneuver.
3/12 Burgers for being “oddly comfortingâ€.
Teavana:
It’s pretty good, though I detected a faint smokiness. I was afraid it was leftover burnt kettle corn from the other tea, but I am figuring out that people think that Thai tea should taste like something that’s been left to rot in a Jimmy Dean factory. Thankfully, it tasted less like smoked meat than slightly fragrant tea, and I was able to enjoy the whole cup. It does not taste like the tea they serve at Thai restaurants, unless evaporated milk is really that big a factor. Maybe it’s not amazing because it has Hawaiian coconut in it, which is a good way to ruin anything.
Do you want to ruin Christmas? Put Hawaiian coconut in it. The cult TV show “Twin Peaks†steadily got worse because of Hawaiian coconut. It is a well-known fact that every time a komodo dragon dies, Hawaiian coconut is found next to its body.
Teavana could have been onto something if not for Hawaiian coconut.
Also, some jerk named “Dreamer†on their website claimed in her review that drinking this tea would make me feel “so specialâ€, and I did not feel special afterwards at all!
8/12 Burgers
I have not ended my quest to find the perfect means to enjoy THAI ICED TEA AT HOME!, but I feel like I have gotten closer to finding it.
The winner:
Teavana Thai Loose Leaf Black Tea-
21/30 Burgers– It would have been more if I felt “so specialâ€.
The loser:
De De Instant Thai Iced Tea Powder
15/30 Burgers– which I think is really way too generous.
]]>California Burger Deluxe – $ 6.45
I didn’t know what the difference between a normal burger and a California burger was when I ordered it, ambulance because there was no description. I figured I would allow myself to be surprised, in the spirit of burgers. Medium mistake! I’m pretty sure the California Burger Deluxe is the most expensive burger on the menu unless you get one with like every topping, but all the California Burger Deluxe is is a normal burger with one slice of green pepper, plus all the normal burger vegetable toppings (lettuce, tomato, onion). The normal burger there is obviously of the frozen patty variety, in the shape of a flower, or the shape of something in a cartoon that has been flattened and splattered, or the shape of a thought bubble. The waiter didn’t ask us how we wanted our burgers done, so they were generically cooked-grey all the way through. It wasn’t bad though. It was a burger. And the roll was pretty good. The fries there are pretty good even though they are also obviously of the frozen variety. They’re battered, and crispy on the outside and nice and fluffy on the inside. Ok, but even with the good roll, good fries, and decent size of the burger, why is this meal six and a half dollars, making it like 2 dollars more than the other burgers?! A slice of green pepper. If I were a different kind of crazy person, I would have refused to pay that much.
2/6 burgers.
]]>2. Dishes: 2 vermont mugs and a small bowl with a fork. I love both of these Vermont mugs. I love the cows on the white one, and the colors in the picture and the font “Vermont” is written in. I love the blue one because it has mooses on it. In the white mug, though, is a bunch of old tea bags. I guess 3 of them are from today. The bowl used to have some rice pilaf with almonds in it. That was good! But it’s not there anymore. Ok, dirty dishes: 2/6 burgers.
3. DVDs: Rushmore and The Simple Life. 4.75/6 burgers. I don’t need to explain this.
4. Assorted paper items: A placemat from The American Star diner, a letter that was returned to me for insufficient address, a speeding ticket from the state of Virginia, a birthday card from Christiane, a birthday card from my father. I will average the burgers of these items.
–placemat from American Star: It’s not the greatest placemat on its own, but the Magistrate and I circled every word that we could imagine in a dirty context, and then added some of our own dirty words. Now it is the best placemat. Also on the back of it, the Magistrate drew a hot dog (I swear that’s all it is), a scary guy with scary teeth and a top hat eating something, and a giant squid facing a Lobsternaut. 6/6 i love it.
–letter that was returned to me. I wrote this particular letter more to get out what I felt than to let the other person know how I felt. It would be nice for him to have known how I felt, but not important. I think the letter itself is pretty good, but I haven’t bothered to open it and re-read it, and I don’t really mind that it was returned to me. 3/6 burgers, because I wrote it.
–speeding ticket. I hate it! 1/6 burgers
–birthday card from Christiane. I love it. It’s a japanesey kind of cat card. Very pretty! 5/6 burgers.
–birthday card from my dad. I don’t really like it. It’s some old ladies in a car and the inside says “Girls just wanna have… what is it we wanna have? Have FUN on your birthday!” I don’t understand what the message is, or why my dad bought it. 1.5/6 burgers: LAME!
Asst. paper items score: 3.3 burgers.
5. Literature: The Purple Cloud by M.P. Shiel and a pamphlet about the ENIAC. The Purple Cloud is an awesome scary sci-fi book from 1901. The ENIAC is a computer. 6/6 burgers.
6. Music: A Frank Zappa tape, some random cds from the internet, 2 mix cds. 2/6 burgers: I don’t care about this stuff.
7. My monitor. 3/6 burgers: it’s fine, except in my peripheral vision, when it gives me a headache.
Crap on my desk:Â 2.29285714285714285714etc. burgers!
That’s not so great, maybe I should clean my desk, and put the stuff like my note pad, which gets 6/6 burgers, or the postcard my future husband sent me. Postcard gets 4 burgers.
Shrimp & Avacado Quesadilla – $14
Chicken Enchiladas – $14.50
Fried Ice Cream – probably like $5
Remember how sushi was like the huge food of the turn of the century? All the cool people were eating it, pharmacy and if you had never tried it or said you didn’t like it you were a hick or a thug. Now there’s a Japanese place in every town. Well, recipe those days are over. It’s not cool to eat sushi anymore, unhealthy unless you’re in 3rd grade. I know, because in the waiting room at my dance studio, that’s what all the little kids are eating. Now the fashionable thing is Mexican. If you say it gives you gas, you are ignored. If you say it’s too spicy, you are ostracized. If you say that it’s poor people’s food because it’s only rice and corn and beans and cheese, you’re wrong because now there’s Agave Grill and La Cava in Ambler, and they’re totally for hip people, not poor people.
The first time I went to Agave for lunch, I was kind of impressed by the menu, because there are some really interesting-sounding things on there. I figured they must be good because nothing on the lunch menu is less than about $9. I also figured they must be spicy, because it’s Mexican. So I got my hopes up, and I ordered a shrimp and avocado quesadilla.
After ordering, we received a basket of chips with salsa. The salsa kind of just tastes like generic mild salsa you would buy in a jar, except maybe less gooey. I really wanted it to be spicy. The chips tasted kind of stale, but they’re tri-colored so that’s cute. Then my quesadilla came. It was okay, and I’m biased here because I’m not a cheese fanatic, but I really thought there was too much cheese. And yes, I know, it’s a quesadilla, but I thought I should also be able to taste the shrimp and avocado too, right? After the first quarter I just started picking all the shrimp and roasted peppers out with my fork. That was better!
The best part of the meal was dessert. It was evil! Thank god I had someone to share with me, listen. We had the Fried Ice Cream – a scoop of vanilla ice cream, covered in cornflakes and then fried, sitting on some cinnamony strips of fried tortilla, and topped with caramel sauce and whipped cream. And a cherry.
The next time I went, I went because I really wanted some delicious rice. So I ordered pulled chicken enchiladas. The enchiladas were really good, and a big portion: I couldn’t finish even half. Once again, they weren’t spicy, and that was disappointing. The rice was also disappointing because they add smoke flavor to it, which I personally really hate, but I also kind of think it’s really unnecessary, just like saying “I also kind of think it’s really unnecessary”. The enchiladas also came with warm tri-colored tortilla chips, and they were good and didn’t taste stale but I had already eaten so many of the stale ones with disappointing salsa that I didn’t want to eat these.
All in all, the food here is okay, if you want watered-down, trendy kind of T.G.I. Friday’s food for a disproportionate price.
2/6 burgers – The ice cream was great!
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