Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I think 2-for-1 movies at the Parkway are going to be a Wednesday night thing for Aimee and me for the foreseeable future. This week they had Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and it should surprise no one to hear that this was one of my favorite movies in high school when I watched it about twenty billion times. I hadn't seen it in years, however, and I'd never seen it on the big screen where you can see more clearly all the ridiculous things the peasants are doing in the background. Incidentally, if you haven't heard of this movie, in it King Arthur gathers a band of brave knights who then go off to seek the Holy Grail. Except it's Monty Python, so it features a terrifying killer bunny, a castle of virgins desperate to relieve Sir Galahad of his purity, and foul-mouthed Frenchmen. Still funny after all these years.

Ghost World. Based on the comics by Dan Clowes, this film tells the tale of best friends Enid and Becky and their first summer after they graduate from high school. Becky finds a job at a chain coffee shop and starts looking for an apartment she can fill with new purchases from IKEA and Crate and Barrel. Enid sits in a summer school art class where her teacher tells her comics can't be considered important art and befriends Seymour, an awkward man twice her age who likes to collect records and other ephemera. I have been on pins and needles waiting for this movie to come out since I heard about it at San Diego last year, and it totally lived up to all my expectations. Clowes himself helped to write the screenplay along with director Terry Zwigoff, who also directed the fabulous Crumb. Thora Birch as Enid, Steve Buscemi as Seymour. It's a fangirl's dream come true.

Sausalito Art and Wine Festival. We went as anthropologists, but who knew there would be so much art there with chickens in it? The kitschy paintings of dolphins and pastel seascapes and technicolor cocktail glasses were to be expected. I think Carrie and Aimee and I were most surprised to find a bunch of art that we actually liked, and Carrie even walked off with five pieces to cover some of the walls I left bare when I moved out. None for me though, I've been participating in plenty of retail therapy lately and need to slow down a bit. And quite honestly, I'd rather spend my money at the Lab.

Baffler Fire Recovery Benefit. The poor Baffler. First their offices in Chicago go up in flames, then they schedule their benefit show in San Francisco for the same weekend everyone's at Burning Man. There was parking right in front of Slim's on a Saturday night, it was crazy. A small, unabashedly liberal crowd gathered nonetheless to listen to readings from the latest issue of the magazine and tunes from Harvester, the Moore Brothers, and Barbara Manning and the Go-Luckys! (their exclamation point, not mine). Writer Christian Parenti gave a standout talk about how Chinese immigrants subverted the U.S. government's attempts to impose identity on them after the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, something to think about in this age of discreet surveillance. Barbara Manning was the reason I was there, however, and she rocked hard. She even sang an old S.F. Seals song, and that made me happy indeed.

Ghost World
The Baffler