TARTNATION
Topic: Movies
last weekend saw the birth of a magnificent creation: It is a pear and almond tart with an apricot glaze, created by Kei who has become an expert on tart-fabrication. This weekend or next may be similarly productive.

A week or 2 ago we watched goodfellas, which is still great. It's too bad Scorcese has to make movies now that are ambitious but shitty, a la Gangs of New York and The Aviator. Those earlier movies were great and are now of historical significance, so I guess they should be appreciated as exactly that, rather than be used as templates for his newer movies. I think Casino was like that, pressed from the Goodfellas or Raging Bull template (Joe Pesci even got his ribs busted by DeNiro again, for real), but I really liked it. Joe Pesci buried alive and DeNiro playing a Jewish character? Sweet. But now, let us mourn those past days of Classic Scorcese.

Goodfellas is also important as an origin for Kei's new favorite gesture, which is added to the inventory that already includes the Asian 'V'-fingers camera pose, head-tilt-smile-wave, and laugh-accompanied low handclap. This new move comes from none other than Lorraine Bracco as Karen Hill, mob-wife extraordinaire. Here's how you do it: you put up your index finger and thumb, as though you might be describing the size of something small. But what you are actually indicating is something relatively big--a stack of cold hard illegally-obtained cash! Ms. Bracco's character threw up the sign when asked by her husband "how much" she needed to go shopping that morning. Kei uses it as a hopeful transition from a pouty face. ZANNEN!!! I have a stack of quarters for laundry, but I don't think that's the same.