CP: Our exclusive movie group really wanted to invite you to "Cabin in the Woods" last weekend, but realized it was way too scary for you.
RN: Bless you. I'm told that the fake-blood budget outspent David O. Selznick's burning-of-Atlanta sequence in "Gone With the Wind."
CP: Oh, yes, much gorier even than "Cabin in the E.R." or "The Shining." Anyway, there's a scene early in "Cabin" where the menacing gas-station owner frightens a mobile home full of college kids on a weekend outing. Then he spits a big goober of tobacco juice, complete with the sound effect. That's beyond scary and into flat-out disgusting territory.
RN: As stomach-churners go, that's right up there with the projectile-vomit scene in "The Exorcist." What is it about spitters? Seriously, so gross.
CP: The only public spitting that I totally endorse was when Patti Smith did it at a poetry reading at Hamline University in the mid-1970s. Of course, given the academic setting and her whole Mademoiselle Rimbaud outlaw status, I thought, "Cool!" Plus, hers was just a bit of showmanship spittle.
RN: OK, La Smith could lob a lung cookie in my direction and I'd still bow down to her awesomeness. Which reminds me of a hideous but true story.
CP: You may tell me in complete confidence.
RN: This was years ago. I was outside my prestigious Stevens Square residence when your basic chronic inebriate staggered toward me and hocked a generous loogie that landed on -- and, yes, clung to -- my gigantic 1980s eyewear. I'm sure he was a nice person, on the inside.
