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1. I was watching “Modern Marvels: Distilleries” and I learned all about absinthe. It doesn’t cause insanity or hallucinations like everyone says; That rumor was spread around by the French wine people because people were drinking absinthe instead of french wine and the wineys were… well, whiney. Absinthe is basically gin in the sense that it is neutral grain alcohol with herbs in it. Gin has juniper berries and then a collection of botanicals such as lemon and bitter orange peel, anise, angelica root and seed, orris root, licorice root, cinnamon, coriander, and cassia bark. Absinthe contains green anise, fennel and wormwood. Now, the interesting thing is that while you could probably make gin at home, you should not make absinthe because if you mess up the wormwood extract, you get too much of a substance called thujone which can cause renal failure and which in large quantities is a convulsive neurotoxin. So, no making “bathtub absinthe”.

2. I saw the Sweeney Todd movie on opening night, and I was pleasantly surprised at how good it was. I’ll tell you, I was scared because I am a big fan of the original 1982 DVD and I just didn’t see Johnny Depp in that role and I thought it would suck and be lame and all hollywood-ified. Happily, I was wrong. Tim Burton really captured the ickiness of the Industrial Age with the smoke and the coal and the overpowering greyness. Even though Johnny Depp totally looked like Edward Scissorhands, he pulled it off quite well. And they cut out several songs, one of which I hate so much I want to rip my eyes out and shove them in my ears when I hear it,* so that’s a plus. Only two things bothered me. One was the blood. Oh my goodness, was there blood. Frickin’ torrents of the stuff. The opening credits alone almost made me hurl (BLOOD! RUNNING IN GUTTERS TOWARDS YOU! BUBBLING AND FROTHING! ENJOY YOUR POPCORN!). Then there was the slitting of the throats (BLOOD! BEING ASPIRATED! SHOOTING OUT OF CAROTID ARTERIES! SPLURT SPLURT! GETTING IN YOUR PEPSI!) and the bodies dropping down the chute, did they have to SLAM into the ground like that, with the bone-snappy noise? Did we really need that? No, we didn’t. The other thing was the ending. The ending of the original musical is so creepy, with the Toby reciting poetry and grinding meat and generally going batpoop insane. In the movie, Toby says nothing, slits Sweeney’s throat, Sweeney bleeds out all over the floor (BLOOD! LIKE A WATERFALL! A WATERFALL OF CAMPBELL’S TOMATO SOUP! IN YOUR NACHOS!), aaaaaaaand… the credits roll. Wha-huh? You left out the creepiest part? Why did you do that, Tim Burton? It’s a no-brainer – little kids reciting poetry while slitting throats is CREEPY as HELL. And then grinding meat with the corpses all around – ULTRA-CREEPY. And you chose to leave that out? I am not happy about that, Tim, not happy at all. But it was good otherwise and I recommend you see it in the theaters because I don’t think it will have the same impact on your TV.

* “Kiss Me”. God, that’s a grating song. Actually, anything sung by Anthony and Joanna is grating to me. I find most heinous the romances where the couple just met two seconds ago, but they know they’re going to be together forever and then they sing about deep meaningful instantaneous love for ten minutes. Les Miserables is another one. Hello, France is at war, Marius and Cosette. Nobody cares about how you just met. Go to a cafe for a few hours, chat for a while, see if you have interests in common before you start professing lifelong commitment. People like you is why people like me have to drink vodka for breakfast.

Addendum: Ah, YouTube, you never fail me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNkPqPVCXX8

Here’s the opening sequence. Enjoy your popcorn.