Tom & Alissa

We saw The Darjeeling Limited last night after my class, and serendipitously ran into our friend Ira, who just moved to NYC from LA on Tuesday. Who would have thunk it? We’ll have him thinking that New York is a rather small town in no time.

The movie itself: it’s no Royal Tennenbaums, but it is sweet and fun. Personally, I was not too invested in the characters’ lives, but I enjoyed traveling with them. And I really loved the quirkiness of the whole cast. Adrien Brody always just cracks me up. It’s very lovely to look at, too, with great colors. If you’re a Wes Anderson fan, then it’s worth seeing now.

There was probably the greatest collection of trailers beforehand, too, including:
• Be Kind, Rewind - Michel Gondry’s latest (he directed Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Science of Sleep), and it stars Jack Black and looks hilarious.
• Juno - the cast includes Rainn Wilson (Dwight Schrute), Jason Bateman and Michael Cera (Arrested Development), and is directed by Jason Reitman, the guy who made Thank You for Smoking (easily one of the most brilliant dark comedies I’ve ever seen). Plus it looks like a very thoughtful, funny story about teenage pregnancy and adoption, but nothing at all like Knocked Up.
• The Savages - Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney. ‘Nuff said.
Also had a preview for Walk Hard, which I instinctively back away from - I’m a big fan of satire, but mostly just when it’s on TV - but I did end up in helpless giggles about halfway through, so who knows.

In other news, my copy-editing class looks like it will be a really excellent experience. I feel like it’s going to fill in all the strange gaps and divots in my editing knowledge, plus help me figure out how I can pull off doing this freelance. The class is mostly comprised of people who already work in publishing, an added bonus.

Speaking of school, this article in the Times about exploring ways to shorten the path to a Ph.D. is quite interesting.

Tom got called to work on the Glenn Close TV show today (Damages, I think). He called me and said they are out in far eastern Brooklyn, in a swampy place that’s definitely where you’d dump a body. I asked him if that’s what they were doing; “no,” he said, “but we did get to shoot Ted Danson.”

We have a very busy weekend coming up, which I’ve mentioned previously but will mention again because I like being able to go back and see what I’ve done. In short: tomorrow night we go hear Lorrie Moore and Jeffrey Eugenides read at the New Yorker Festival. On Saturday we go to the costume panel at the Festival, which features Colleen Atwood (Memoirs of a Geisha), Patrizia von Brandenstein (Amadeus), Patricia Field (Sex and the City, The Devil Wears Prada), and William Ivey Long (numerous Broadway productions including Grey Gardens, Hairspray and Chicago); then we’ll dash off to BAM for the Kronos Quartet More Than Four program. And on Sunday we hope to make it to the FREE “Parkour: New York” program at the Festival, and maybe have lunch with Angela.

Coffee? I think so.