Last December, I linked to a great little piece Atrios titled "First they came for the vibrators." God, little did we know. Just seemed like an oddity at the time.

Then Janet showed a breast, and our puritan country had a heart attack. Now George Bush's FCC appears to really be knocking Howard Stern off the air. And God, what a coincidence that Stern has been ruthlessly attacking Bush, with serious stories being written about Stern's huge audience being a huge potential problem for the pres.

Hard to decide whether that's more appalling or just the free-speech issue.

Salon has a pair of cover stories on it just posted. Dan Savage is oddly not up to his usual stunning prose in the sidebar, but the main piece by Eric Boehlert is pretty freaking scary. (Just in case, I'm not using the word fucking on here anymore.)

Charlie Kaufman finally pulled it off.

Amazing fillum. Best I've seen in the last year or two. At least.

Sorry about the late notice. Saw it two or three weeks ago, but the blog, I could not reach it. And other excuses. There's still time. But don't delay.

The thing that bugged me about Adaptation was that the adaptations were so unnecessary. The longer I watched, the more I found myself disappointed every time they switch to the Nick Cage character, and excited when we returned to Meryl Streep and Chris Cooper. The parts about the orchids themselves were the most riveting--and I had never grasped the appeal until that movie. Eventually, the Cage breakaways grew really annoying--though I loved a few early bits on trying to write. And when it got all Jerry Bruckheimer, I couldn't care less. And the points he appeared to be making turned my stomach.

I'm a much bigger fan of Being John Malkovich, but ultimately I think it missed. So many wondrous things in that movie. Maybe a few too many. Never thought I'd say that, but it seemed like every 30 seconds the movie threw in a new twist, and more imporant, a new idea to contemplate. Another fresh viewpoint on the world, each more intriguing than the rest. The problem was, it never developed any of them. Each one cast aside a minute later for the next. I left the theatre just worn out and not thinking about any of them. Disappointed to get so revved up about so many great ideas and never really taken anywhere.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is different. One central idea. A hundred different variations, scads of fresh supporting ideas, but everything wound right back to the great big fascinating one at the core. And he took me everywhere I could have imagined and beyond. Broke my heart a dozen times. Invigorated me, challenged me, filled my heart to overflowing.

I adore this movie. I want a lifetime of voyages like this one.

I noticed something on the way home from the gym last night. I was lighting up again.

It was just a Fresh Air installment on the radio--I can't believe the NPR station here in Denver has more to offer than the lameass one in Chicago--but I was suddenly swimming with story ideas.

The guest was Tom Perrotta, who just published a novel with the unimpressive title Little Children, but his take on the world and the characters and particularly his candor about them, when he read a short passage . . . That's all it took to get me going.

Which followed closely on the heels of the effects of a lost (to me) episode of The Forsyte Saga a few hours earlier, and the shake-up of my entire writing world Friday night home on the plane when I read Michael Paternit's stunning Columbine piece in this month's GQ. (More on that, later.)

And it was suddenly very clear what was going on to me. The pace. Everything in Chicago the past five months has been so rush, rush, rush. Not the city so much as the work--the consulting work I'm doing--plus the push to hit the gym hard again, and all the effort required to get into the city to experience it and to start making new friends there, and just to deal with a new home, a second home, and the travel here there here there new york seattle here there . . .

This week I came home to write, but also to rest. And to absorb. Art, art, everywhere there is art, and I've finally slowed down enough to linger.

It's inside of me again. And I like it.