Yes, after much diligence, patience, and bribery, Cary has gotten Cohen to stand on his hand and eat millet out of it. Now you can see how beautiful my birdie is without those white bars in front of him. This picture shortly preceded the aformentioned Flight of the Cohen into the Wall Behind the TV. He's still okay. What a cutie pie. 

Stuff I've watched/read/heard recently (with some spoilers for stuff few if any of you are likely to care about):

- "A Foreign Affair", written/directed by Billy Wilder, starring Marlene Dietrich. I heard of this in a documentary on Marlene I saw recently, and I love her now, and the dude on TCM said I should watch this movie. It blew. Even the songs Marlene sang were lame. And I'm pretty sure Marlene got sent to a labor camp at the end, so that sucks.

- "The Abominable Dr. Phibes". Completely not what I expected. I some how in my mind had this movie tied in with "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari". The two are very very dissimilar. But both good and wierd in their own way. We do like Vincent Price, of course. A cool movie to see on TCM.

- "Saved!". Not on TCM, got this one from Blockbuster. Good, funny, Mandy Moore was fabulous.

- "Birth of a Nation". Back in, like, May TCM was doing a "Black images on film" series, and so we recorded this and "The Jazz Singer". This damn movie is freakin' 3 1/2 hours long, and we watched it in many 10-30 minute bouts. The first 2 hours, at least, are boring as hell. And then the KKK comes riding in on their shrouded horses to the strains of "Ride of the Walkuere". Sweet. One of the very last images of the film is a big crowd of people standing around, and then a huge Jesus appears in the middle of them. I don't know. I couldn't really tell what was going on during most of the movie, and I couldn't tell any of the characters apart.

- "Ficciones" by Jorge Luis Borges. I proctered a practice SAT exam yesterday, and had lots of time to read. Strange stories, somewhat uneven, but some of the stories really good. But what a smart writer, like Eco. I'm not sure what to read next.

- "The Boatman's Call" by Nick Cave. This is my favorite CD right now. Wow.

- The Busby Berkeley Collection Soundtrack Sampler. Oooooh, so cool. This song you all must listen to, oh yes indeed. Hank, I don't know how you can say "Gold Diggers of 1933" is not the best movie you've ever seen.

So we just had some excitement. Cary's been leaving Bird's cage door open and just kind of hanging out with him, and he's gotten Bird to eat millet out of his hand. So just now Bird flies out of the cage, which he's never come close to doing before, flies into the wall above the tv, lands on the ground, I get down and cover him with my hands, and Cary scoops him back into the cage. He's fine now, but it was quite an event.

Stuff + Sweet Pea = Awesome.

How to tell you have the best boyfriend ever: when you look in your DVR list and discover E!'s new Hilary Duff Revealed and you say, "You taped the Hilary Duff thing for me!" and he says, "Oh, you wanted to see that, too?".

(It was pretty cool, btw, although utterly lacking in conflict, which is odd for anything produced by E!.)