I Should Have Been A Pair Of Ragged Claws...

I'm no gambler but if I see a stuffed animal claw machine, anywhere, I'm game. Actually, obsessed is more like it because the moment I spy steel claw and fluff, I'm easily dumping five dollars into the contraption just to win the ugliest most rejected mystery animal I've ever seen. I don't care. I must have the blue and neon pink lamb/rabbit/dog thingie and I must have it now.

So I was more than thrilled to find one randomly, in the East Village while running around New York City in the middle of the night. Like an abandoned old carnival ride it appeared there sadly, riddled with graffiti and to my mind, surely broken. But it worked! And I won a purple...cat? Doesn't matter, I grabbed the little sucker, dragged it to its slot, and wondered yet again, why the hell would I want this ugly thing?

I've heard they're rigged, but somehow I always manage to win, usually more than once, before exceeding the five dollar mark. This is what I'm good at. I wish there was a movie about this special brand of excitement and drama. Like Tilt with Brooke Shields.

Postscript: My NY friend informed me that the machine was taken down! Sadness. Nevertheless, I've got plenty to play in Los Angeles and even more in the desert, which is great on those sleepless nights. Nothing like playing the claw machine at 3 AM with speed freaks cheering you on.

Comments

[Professor Jonathan]

"Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas."

- T.S. Eliot, from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, 1917.

Good one, Babe.

[Kim]

Thank you. Though I had to check my Eliot and change the title...

I never forget "Do I dare eat a peach, I shall wear white trousers and walk along the beach, I hear the mermaids singing each to each, I do not think they sing for me."

Or something like that. But enough. Unless you want an Eliot-off. Just don't get me going on ee cummings "goat footed balloon man"? Is that right?

[Professor Jonathan]

Right as rain:

"in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman

whistles far and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old balloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's
spring
and
the

goat-footed

balloonMan whistles
far
and
wee"

He could also get pretty down and dirty, for the times...

"the boys i mean are not refined
the boys i mean are not refined
they go with girls who buck and bite
they do not give a fuck for luck
they hump them thirteen times a night

one hangs a hat upon her tit
one carves a cross on her behind
they do not give a shit for wit
the boys i mean are not refined

they come with girls who bite and buck
who cannot read and cannot write
who laugh like they would fall apart
and masturbate with dynamite

the boys i mean are not refined
they cannot chat of that and this
they do not give a fart for art
they kill like you would take a piss

they speak whatever's on their mind
they do whatever's in their pants
the boys i mean are not refined
they shake the mountains when they dance"

No effete poet he - and still capable of doing stuff like this:

All in green went my love riding
on a great horse of gold
into the silver dawn.

Four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
the merry deer ran before.

Fleeter be they than dappled dreams
the swift red deer
the red rare deer.

Four red roebuck at a white water
the cruel bugle sang before.

Horn at hip went my love riding
riding the echo down
into the silver dawn.

Four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
the level meadows ran before.

Softer be they than slippered sleep
the lean lithe deer
the fleet flown deer.

Four fleet does at a gold valley
the famished arrow sang before.

Bow at belt went my love riding
riding the mountain down
into the silver dawn.

Four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
the sheer peaks ran before.

Paler be they than daunting death
the sleek slim deer
the tall tense deer.

Four tall stags at the green mountain
the lucky hunter sang before.

All in green went my love riding
on a great horse of gold
into the silver dawn.

Four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
my heart fell dead before.

Plunk. Oh, well, c'est la vie.

In reading your 'Seven Scary Cinema Scene', I wanted to shout, "Hey! What about the scenes between the young (dead) girl and Gena Rowlands in "Opening Night"! - which in my humble opinion are among the most terrifying fucking things I've ever seen on film.

Possibily because they give off some sort of astonishing authenticity: they're really too close for comfort.

And I know whereof I speak.

[Professor Jonathan]

Very inelegant of me to cite your article (Seven Scary Cinema Scenes) and not give the link:

http://movies.msn.com/movies/article.aspx/?news=165273

There.

Might as well add a link to the Mothership while I'm at it - it's good stuff:

http://sunsetgun.typepad.com/

[Scott Noteboom]

oh damn, not that machine-- it's pure evil trickery.... that gives me nightmares.

One troubled night we spent hours watching it deceive all dollar droppers by appearing to clearly grab the goods and then tickle the prize away on the way up. We laughed loudly, time and time again, at its repetitive evil.

After that night, i started to get a semi-recurring nightmare about *me* being in that machine, trapped in the clear box (slothing water filled at this point) in the process of drowning. The Coast Guard comes above with the rescue helicopter from above. Drops it's rescue claw. It's got me! Oh, tickle tickle.... oh no it doesn't. All i hear is laughing as my lungs fill with water.

So.... the machine pictured in the entry here is much more menacing looking that the one that *was* in my dreams. For some reason I sense that i may be getting an upgrade.

And.. being the master of that beast, you surely might be The Diablita herself! :-)

-scott noteboom