Missed Encounters with Popular Culture

Tonight, I learned from the internet that the Dresden Dolls reunited, briefly, and played a show in Boston last week. I am sad that I missed it. The Dresden Dolls marked the five minutes when I was, for once, ahead of the pop culture curve (also, they're mind-bendingly wonderful in performance - recording doesn't do them justice). Parents are almost never ahead of the pop culture curve, because being ahead of that curve so often involves staying up late at night, wearing things that can't be machine washed, and hanging out at venues that turn you away at the door if you can't produce documentation supporting the theory that you can legally buy yourself drinks. In addition, I am reasonably certain that club and fetishwear can cause mastitis.

I saw an ad for a movie starring Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp. Depp looks like a convincingly scruffy tourist, and Jolie looks like she is from outer space. Her lips are out of proportion to everything except her eyes, and not since Lily Bart tried to put the moves on Percy Gryce (look it up) has anyone on a train been so exquisitely groomed. The overall impression is that she can't possibly be real.