Sports Coverage

Yesterday my dad and brother came up for a basketball game at UIC against "a true Hoosier team" (according to D-van), Butler. Butler is supposedly 13th in the nation, but they lost to UIC last night, in what was probably one of the most boring games I've ever seen until the last 20 seconds, when they finally started hitting baskets, tied up the game and went into a mildly exciting overtime. I wasn't compelled to jump to my feet or anything, but other people did. Basketball has changed a lot since I've been to games, which I used to do in... high school. It was really commercial. Every time there was a time-out, the cheerleaders had to haul out all these advertisements thinly disguised as games for the crowd. Also, they threw t-shirts into the crowd and gave away pizzas. One was apparently meant to scream their head off for these valuable items. Like I'm gonna shout for a piece of Domino's pizza. Side note: the cheerleaders had much better aim with the t-shirts than the basketball players with the ball.

M. and I were slightly conflicted about our loyalties - sure, we're from IN, but we're Chicagoans now. I went ahead and cheered for both teams about equally and claimed to be there "for love of the game" to all detractors (ie: M). I know! it made me laugh to say it, too.

My dad is a big, big celebrity in Martinsville, where he hosts Damon's Coaches Show on WCBK. We discovered that if you just drive up to the parking garage and say, "We're on the list," you don't have to pay. Here's my dad sitting court side:

and here's my best action shot:

Maybe D-van will hire me as a guest commentator on Hoosier Fun Ball?

big warm fuzzy secret heart

My friend A. turned me on to this song Code Monkey by Jonathan Coulton, who, I discovered after further research, wrote a song a week for a year. It's like he looked deep into M's soul and wrote a song about him. Like how he's not crazy, just proud. And refers to code as "elegant." Oh, that cracks me up. You can download the song, and you can watch a bunch of videos made by nerds on YouTube, although, IMO, there's not really any stand-out one, not even the one mashed together with scenes from the Matrix, so don't get excited.

Little House

OMG, so, I'm flipping channels, and I see a rerun of the single most disturbing television show of my youth - this Little House on the Prairie in which Pa, for some reason, is driving his covered wagon next to this other family, and the other pater familias is not a skilled wagonsman like Pa, and their wagon goes careening down this slopping hill and they die! And Pa runs over to their wagon, and you see the other dude's bloody hand hanging out, and Pa lifts up the cloth of the wagon, and then, ugh! He has to look away! Oh, that haunted me - what did their mangled bodies LOOK LIKE? Meanwhile their two adorable children stood by, weeping with their mouths hanging open. One interesting tid-bit: Before they began riding down the hill, Pa says he'll drive his own wagon down, then come walk back up and drive their wagon down. That's kind of rude, right? Then, before the other guy drives his wagon down, he says to his wife, "Let's 'get 'er done'!" Get 'er done!?!? Is Little House on the Prairie the impetus for that?

Capital Punishment Will Not Deter Evil Dictators

I'm really disgusted with the coverage (not to mention the deed) of Saddam's hanging. Isn't it strange that as it turns 2007 it's like we live in the dark ages?

But I am excited about Nancy Pelosi becoming the first woman speaker of the House. The world still has a long way to go before women see real equality, but this is a good step in the right direction. There are only 82 women, or 15.3%, in the 535 seats in the 109th US Congress.

I predict we'll see great things out of Pelosi as speaker - not that it would be hard to top the honor and dignity that the Republicans brought to the White House.

I miss Arrested Development

Happy New Year!

After a lovely Christmas in Los Angeles, we returned home in time for New Years at my friend's "cottage." Had a terrific time eating, drinking champagne, playing games (Celebrity, anyone?), and admiring the view. Here's the last sunlight of 2006:

and here we all are being silly:

2006 was a good and bad year for me - I don't make resolutions, but I've got high hopes for 2007 (1. Gainful employment!) I wish you the best of luck in the upcoming year!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, everyone! I've had a great day, which started out with a lovely breakfast at my sister's place - to a marathon present-opening session (I got some beautiful, sparkly things!) and then later an awesome dinner of ham, stuffing, sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes (yeah, that's how we do it - two types of potatoes!), brussels sprouts, and cranberry salad. Then we played a killer game of trivial pursuit, then we watched Talladega Nights. My brother-in-law was in LA for about 36 hours - and he's just off to NY again. I think in the next few days we're going to go to the Getty and the Observatory. Last night Mike and I went to Trader Vics for tiki drinks. Woo! I had a drink with a flaming lime in it!

Save Th' Grizzlies!

Sign this petition for safer practices in Glacier National Park.

Fool me once...

Yesterday C. and I hit a few galleries in Santa Monica and Venice beach. The first place we went to was the Rosamund Felsen Gallery in the Bergamot Station Arts Center, which has about 30 galleries. Rosamund Felsen is showing Kaz Oshiro and Dan Douke through December 30 - they're two trompe l’oeil artists whose work appears, respectively, as Toyota tailgates and cardboard boxes. The level of craftsmanship is so suburb that we went into the gallery and then had to march right back out to the snooty receptionist for more info on what we were looking at. Everything is acrylic on canvas, we were informed with a raised eyebrow. This type of work, sure, it's interesting, and you go in and you go, "Yup, that looks just like a cardboard box." And then what? In a way, today, it's practically reprehensible. I mean, in terms of representation, the contemporary painter's got to deal with certain challenges - where is the place of representational painting after photographs (not to mention Foucault - har har har), for example? So, you have Chuck Close, or other artists completely avoiding the representational completely. And then these trompe l'oeil artists essentially just showing off... What do they bring us that's NEW? I ask. (: Well, this is not my area, so there may be some major disagreement with my pov. Oh, btw, there was this big piece of plywood leaning against the wall, and as we were getting ready to leave I was grousing about how it didn't really fit in, but then it hit me, it was tromp l'oeil too. Arg!

Another show we saw was Gajin Fujita at the LA Louver. I thought his work was really fresh and funny. A great mix of traditional Edo-style Japanese art and street graffiti. Really beautiful work.

So, here's a funny story - the other day my sis and I were making cookies and fudge and we realized we were missing an ingredient, so I suggested we walk over to the grocery store, which is a block away from my sister's place. On the way to the gate of my sister's condo complex, she says, "How do we get out?" and I'm like, "What?!?!" She had NEVER WALKED out of the place, only driven. Ah, L.A.

The Holiday

Over the weekend C. and I saw The Holiday with Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet. I was afraid it was going to be awful because it's written and directed by schlockmeister Nancy Meyer (Something's Gotta Give? Yes, it does!), but, actually, as I reference imdb.com, I see that she's also done several movies that I like, such as 1987's Baby Boom and 1984's Irreconcilable Differences. Ok, I havne't seen Irreconcilable Differences since I was 8, but back then, that was a film full of nuance.
While The Holiday did have some treacly and predicable moments, overall we both really enjoyed it - although maybe I'm just saying that because I saw it with my very pregnant sister and we both miss our husbands. And Jude Law is so very, very pretty. Jude Law is so pretty he makes Cameron Diaz look like a dog. So, it's about two women who find themselves unlucky in love, so they switch houses for two weeks, one goes to LA the other to Surrey, and, there, they find themselves lucky in love - what a surprise. Jack Black, once again delegated to supporting role status, is excellent as the music composer/love interest of Winslet. I love the scene where he walks through a rental shop, picking up movies and singing their theme songs. It was like I was transported back to High Fidelity (just the good parts.) ITEM! Jack Black is totally hot in this movie.
Meyer attempts to pat herself on the back with multiple references to old Hollywood and the great movies of yore, when leading ladies had "gumption" and movies "meant something." The Holiday is unlikely to be remembered in twenty years as having meant anything, but it could be just the perfect date-with-your-pregnant-sister-movie of the season.

Oooo - last night we watched Superman Returns - terrible! The only two redeeming features are the impossibly handsome Christopher Reeve look-a-like Brandon Routh (where'd they find that guy?), and, for us, the distraction of wondering where we'd seen James Marsden before (Cyclops! I didn't recognize you without your glasses!)

Sunshine on my Shoulder

I'm in California right now, visiting ma soeur. We're having a grand time, and I'm relishing not putting on a hat, gloves, boots, scarf, heavy coat with fur collar and even socks before I go outside. Aside from a phone interview for a job back in the windy city, I've mostly been just reading, hanging out with Murphy, and attempting not to leave my footprint in my sister's spotlessly clean house. Aside from where, as she puts it, my suitcase "exploded." Next weekend arrive my much-missed husband and certain parents. I've been itching to make about 6 dozen sugar cookies and survive only on their Christmasy nourishment. We've also got a gingerbread house in the works. We should invite our engineer-friends over for assistance.

C. and I watched Who Killed the Electric Car, got outraged, wondered what hydrogen fuel cells are. She's never seen ANTM, watched marathon yesterday, introduced C. to inherent hypocrisies of said show and the phenomenon of vagina arms. Then solved riddle that we've all been grappling with lately, which is the perfect way to describe Britney's "lady garden": a grandma's armpit in a tanktop.

Publication, baby!

My alma mater published a review I wrote about Nell Freudenberger's latest book, The Dissident, for the school magazine, FNews. It's a variation I wrote for my own book blog. Check it out!

Sorry, I'll be cataloguing words

A couple of interesting links:

The Holiday Party Excuse Generator - just select a couple of parimeters (How badly do you want to miss the party? How believable should the excuse be?) and it will generate an excuse for you that looks something like this:


And here's a new website called Wordie, which, according to their website, is "like Flickr, but without the pictures" where "you make lists of words -- practical lists, words you love, words you hate, whatever. You can then see who else has listed the same words, and talk about it. It's more fun than it sounds." ha. Well, we'll be the judge of that, won't we? I detest two words: intimate and preternatural. Ick. I do love many words, of course, I suppose some of my favorites are twee, tony, pantalones, just about anything in French, pea... Wordie looks like a good way to pass a boring day at work - here are a few pages to get you started: Acceptable two-letter Scrabble Words and words from the Collected Poems of W.H. Auden. I have to wonder if this might be the new match.com for nerds - who couldn't fall in love with Merfee, who loves lambaste, erstwhile, ramshackle and lugubrious?

Mary with Child

I'm rather interested in the media reaction to Mary Cheney's pregnancy. Wonder what it's like at the Cheney's during the holidays? "Gee, dad, thanks to you and your administration, my partner doesn't have full legal rights to our child. Hope I don't die. Or get sick." CNN posts the following comments from conservatives who took the opportunity to actually denounce her pregnancy. Says Janice Crouse of Concerned Women for America, "It's very disappointing that a celebrity couple like this would deliberately bring into the world a child that will never have a father." Wondering just how caaaaaa-raaaaazy it gets? Check out their website, and this article.

Carrie Gordon Earll, of Focus on the Family, offers this pearl of wisdom, "Just because you can conceive a child outside a one-woman, one-man marriage doesn't mean it's a good idea," Earll said. "Love can't replace a mother and a father." What I find particularly despicable about these gd conservative (OMG, CNN actually calls them) "think tanks" is that they actually think that a married man and a woman IN LOVE are required for a family. What is basically required (shocking to actually have to INFORM a "think tank," isn't it?) is an exchange of fluids between people who may or may not actually know each other's names (and I'm not, by the way, talking about artificial insemination). Focus on the Family! Give me a break! How do these groups even DARE to claim that they support families with a rigid definition of what a family is, and shun all those who don't fit their outdated, cruel and ignorant ideas of who is and isn't qualified to be a parent?

Stop! Thief!

So, this weekend, M. and I went to Target to do some Christmas shopping, and we're not in the store 5 minutes when someone took our cart, which, by the way, had about 3 or 4 items in it, and we were only about 20 feet away from the cart corral. So, M. grabs another cart and we shop, shop, shop, and we're in the home stretch. We're looking at an item for my brother (wow, I could totally tell you what it is because he's probably like, never read my blog. Ok - it's a headlight flashlight! Don't tell him!) and we turn around, and our cart is gone AGAIN! And we're like, WTF!?! And, I'm telling you, there's a fair amount of stuff in it now. So, we're standing there, all, you know, agog, and then I'm like, IT'S ON! And I say, loudly, "People! Who took our cart!?" and this employee was really nice and helped me look for it, although, when he asked me what was in it, all I could say was, "I don't know. Just a bunch of stuff." So we're walking around looking suspiciously in everyone's carts. Just after I gave up, I see our cart, not far from where we left it, although some of the stuff is gone. So, M. and I reclaim it, and then we see a little pile of the rest of the stuff, laying at the bottom of a shelf.

You know what happened? Someone must have stolen our cart, and then started dumping our stuff out on the ground, because they were too lazy to walk to the front of the store and get their own cart, and then when I started making a stink, they abandoned their evil deed. Do you know what kind of person would do that? Only a person with a black heart. Soulless, and completely depraved.

Got to see one of my BFs twice in the last week. We both gave each other Thanksgiving presents in the form of oranges - mine to her was a sugar bowl, and hers to me was handmade marzipan. We're soulmates.

Dziękuję!

I started running Google Analytics on my blogs to track my traffic, and much to my surprise, more than 3 people read my blog! On Monday, 19 people checked this blog, and, ok, so, on Wed. and Thursday, nobody did. This week I broke the international barrier, and people in India, Warsaw, and Stockholm and faraway Port Alberni, BC read my blogs! Thanks, everyone! Here's a map overlay of the readers of my book blog from this week:

Sleighbells ring

First big snow of the season and the neighborhood is suddenly all Currier and Ives! It's time's like this when I actually can see the bright side of unemployment, and staying inside.

Last night I had the privilege to witness my friend's baby walk! To me! She walked to me! It was amazing. I started crying, and J. got really excited and called her husband, who got sad because he was at work and missed it. See, another a situation where unemployment could have helped out.

Want some good karma for the weekend? Sign this petition to demand that pharmacies stock Plan B, an emergency contraceptive recently approved by the FDA for over-the-counter sales for women age 18 and older. Unfortunately, too many pharmacists have taken it upon themselves to deny women their legally entitled birth control, prescribed by their doctors. Stay on top of these issues, and make sure women's health is protected.

A Scoop Run

Growing up in Indiana, there weren't many divertisements for young honor roll students, so my friend A and I amused ourselves by driving to the local ice creamery, circling the place, honking and laughing all the while. This was a event singly humorous to ourselves. In this recreation, I take a certain, unwilling husband on a "scoop run" and discover that he is also was not amused.

Thank You for Smoking

Over the weekend we watched Thank You for Smoking - it was a good movie - so funny, smart... but mostly I was just overwhelmed by how totally hot Aaron Eckhart is. Holy moly, that guy is hot. The hair! The chin! Then Rob Lowe pops up (who is hilarious as the Hollywood product placement go-between, btw) and what happens but HE looks terribly hot too! I haven't thought Rob Lowe was hot since 1985 - St. Elmo's Fire. So, I've been playing an agonizing game of Who Would You Do with myself. I mean... well, who would you do?

Calorie Overextended Diet

I've been reading a bit about this Calorie Restricted (CR) Diet in which people eat about 1000 calories a day and actually live healthy lives that are supposedly 50% longer than the lives of the rest of us who eat, you know, sustaining diets of... food. A certain husband with a fear of death is turned on by the idea - I hate it. It seems to me like there's just a few calories difference between these CR people and anorexics. How come you can die of anorexia but live 50% longer of this other type of starvation?

Another thing that really gets me is this "research" involving one starved monkey and one that, uh, ate - and in their dotage, the starved monkey is apparently thriving, while the other one spends its day lazily playing euchre and falling asleep in an easy chair in front of the tv. Here's the picture from the NY Times article and the accompanying caption, "Canto, left, a rhesus monkey, is aging fairly well at 25 on a calorie restriction diet. Owen, though only a year older than Canto, is frail and moves slowly. He eats a normal diet."


Well, this Thanksgiving I've been feeling a little like Owen, indulging in what can only be described as a Calorie Overextended Diet (CO).

Leona Naess

Here are three beautiful songs by Leona Naess.

offensive people

M. and I saw an unprecedented two movies last weekend – Casino Royale and Borat. Borat was hysterical, and I was glad we saw it in the theatre - it's the sort of thing that's fun in a crowd. If you're avoiding it because you think it might be too harsh, don't – it's too funny – and while Borat has a way of bringing out the Michael Richards in people, Cohen makes Borat the most offensive character (if you don't know what I'm talking about, what a clip that is harsh: Borat singing Throw the Jew Down the Well, while hillbillies sing along.)

I've had a kind of crappy week – our power's been on and off, making internetting and job searching difficult – not to mention just puttering around the house. My landlord, otherwise known as The Most Despicable Person on Earth, actually yelled at me (ME!) when I complained. Today the power went off in the middle of my favorite new television show: Free Style. I'm really nuts about Free Style and Design Remix – two HGTV shows where they design a room using materials people already have in their houses. In Free Style, they don't spend any money, and in Design Remix, they might spend like 50 bucks on paint. Unlike other shows that have a “low” budget (like Trading Spaces $1000) they design really cool spaces and don't end up tricking them out with a thousand dollars worth of IKEA furniture. I don't know why people go on Trading Spaces – all they do is completely DESTROY rooms. Plus Paige is so goddamn annoying.

Casino Royale

The new Bond movie, Casino Royale, in a fascinating departure from previous Bond movies, is really great! The new Bond is Daniel Craig (according to imdb.com, he's slated to play Lord Asriel in the upcoming His Dark Materials - haven't read the books? Where have you been?). At first I thought he was a little too pasty and, you know, English to be a hot Bond, but the man has some sharp pecs. The opening sequence is really exciting – I'd say along the lines of X2, you know, the one where the lizard-guy runs around the White House and bursts into the Oval Office? That was so hot. Bond chases this guy who's like some kind of Olympian jumper who leap frogs all over a construction site. Later, Bond must win a multi-million dollar game of Texas Hold-em, neatly tying in with our national obsession. Although I found myself wondering, “Now, why must he win this multi-million dollar poker game?” Oh yes, for some reason. It mostly makes sense – not like so many other action movies where directors simply try to distract their audiences with flashy Matrix-style fight sequences. Casino Royale presents Bond at the beginning of his career as a double-oh, and even strives to present a little insight re: his attitude toward the ladies. It's Q-less and therefore less gadgety, but I think all those gadgets are kind of dopey anyway.

I think there was a missed opportunity to punch up the classic Bond theme song – I'm thinking something like what U2 did with the Mission Impossible ditty a few years ago. Also the asthmatic villain whose eye bleeds is kind of Boris - when he captured Bond I thought for sure he was going to throw him in a tank full of sharks with friggin' laser beams on their heads.

Hairy Potter

OMG! The trailer for Order of the Phoenix is out! That's one of my fave HP books. So, we see Harry about to kiss Cho (did they kiss in the book?) and his hair is really short. I liked it better shaggy. Man, I hope these poor kids don't end up all Dana Plato one day.

Gezelligheid

Twee oud jenever, alstublieft!* M and I just got back from our vacation to Amsterdam, which was so beautiful - we had a wonderful time. We stayed in a really cool hotel, the Eden Rembrandt Square, which is in a great location in the canal belt. Every day we went to museums, like the Rijksmuseum, the van Gogh museum, the Stedelijk, the Frans Hals museum in Haarlem, and to famous houses, like Rembrandthuis, and Anne Frank's house and the Willet-Holthuysen house. I've read Anne Frank's diary about 50 times, so it was very exciting to see her house, although also terribly sad. I never realized it was on such a lovely canal street. There is no furniture anymore, so you have to imagine all the beds, which is difficult to do because it's very small. Anne's room is easily recognizable because the walls still have her magazine pictures pasted on.

Our favorite thing to do was to walk along the canals at night, looking at the reflections in the water and peeking into people's windows, which, according to my Frommer's, is not discouraged. We also spent a fair amount of time in pubs, drinking local beer and eating cheese. It's just ridiculously charming there - everyone rides bikes, all the cafes have a cat, when you go to a restaurant or bar, all the tables have candles. Supposedly when the canals ice over in the winter, people ice-skate to work!

Bonus! We come home and the dems have taken back congress and Britney dumped K Fed. That's one small step for man and one big step for mankind.

Here we are doing our best impressions of Dutch genre figures.

* Two old gins, please!

Most people are other people

I read this really depressing quote by Oscar Wilde the other day - on a t-shirt, of all things, for sale somewhere online. To wear it would be some kind of uber-irony, I suppose:

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

I just looked it up, and found this longer bit, although I'm not sure of the citation:

People...go through their lives in a sort of coarse comfort, like petted animals, without ever realizing that they are probably thinking other people's thoughts, living by other people's standards, wearing practically what one may call other people's second-hand clothes, and never being themselves for a single moment. ...Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

For the most part, I think this is true, especially based on my experience with plagiarisers in my classes. I wonder when one becomes afraid of their own ideas?

Someone left a comment on my book blog today, I feel with ill intent. What kind of person goes around reading people's book blogs leaving nasty comments? I suppose I'm mostly shocked that someone I don't know happened upon my blog. Well, thanks a lot, Grandma (if that IS your real name). Thanks for kicking a girl when she's down, which, fyi, is just about all the time now.

I found an awesome poem:

Dove in the Arch by Robert Desnos

Cursed!
be the father of the bride
of the blacksmith who forged the iron for the axe
with which the woodsman hacked down the oak
from which the bed was carved
in which was conceived the great-grandfather
of the man who was driving the carriage
in which your mother met your father.

I feel like drawing it.
Discuss: would Oscar Wilde love or hate blogs?

Boo

Kaya wants to bite you

Kaya vants to suck your blood

Your Greatest Fear!

This weekend was our annual Halloween Party - M. and I decided to make it a theme party: Your Greatest Fear! And people were supposed to dress as their worst fear, uh, embodied. It lead to a lot of existentialism amongst our nerdiest friends and questions along the line of "isn't that which we fear the most our very selves?" and crap like that. ha. I had, since the inception of the theme, decided to dress as a homeless person, which was much less funny after getting the news that I did not get my dream job like, the day before. Then I was in kind of a bind because I didn't have another costume idea, and dressing as an out-of-work, somewhat highly educated person was less my greatest fear than my uh, reality. For a brief time I thought I would go as a bunny, in a weird homage to Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Anya, but I was afraid no one would get it and it would be stupid. Do you know I showed an episode of Buffy to the class I taught this summer, and no one (NO ONE) had even heard of it. In the end it seemed easier to stick with my original idea than spend the night saying, "No, it's an homage." Anyway, I went as a homeless person after all, and it wasn't too bad. One of the best costumes was by my friend, J., who was a clown; she really terrified people, just by smiling at them. I'm not afraid of clowns, so I just thought she looked cute. D. was a great car salesman.

My life sucks?

Well, I just got some super disappointing news and I'm thinking about entering a why-me-spiral, starting with not getting accepted into a PhD program at the beginning of the year, pausing at my broken arm and wearing a cast all summer, taking a long look at the craphole that was August, when I was really sick, to September, when my grandpa died, and now October with the aforementioned disappointing news of the employment variety, which is basically that I will never get a decent job, and, oh, yeah, I need to start repaying those student loans.

Another option is to make fun of other people, because putting other people down is how I make myself feel good. Get it? So, let's see... Whoever writes Battlestar Galactica is a total idiot. Mike's been watching that show and I hate it. If I wanted to watch a bunch of insane, violent, hyper-masculine, hypocritical, militaristic assholes make a bunch of stupid decisions, shove their religion down my throat, and run a civilization into the ground, I'd turn on Fox news and watch my own government do it. Also, my cat peed right outside her box. What kind of moron would do that????

Huh. It didn't work.

my special lady friend

The third season of Veronica Mars if off to a great start. I was kind of afraid it was going to fall into a groove, which I was dreading (tragedy in the season premiere, followed by the break-up of Veronica and Logan), but so far it has neatly defied my expectations, which makes it uh-awesome! Last week, I see that season two's Gia was on the Gilmore Girls - so imagine my surprise when this week, the Gilmore Girls's Logan was on Veronica Mars, and the Gilmore Girls's Logan was playing the brother of Veronica Mars's Logan! It's like their directors were playing poker and lost their actors to each other or something.

I'm only recently becoming hip to the Big Lebowsky references - I don't know why it's taken me a while, because that's like, one of my favorite movies - so last week I just about fell off the couch when they started hitting that kid and yelling, "You're entering a world of pain, Larry!" and tonight, oh, it took me a minute, but then I got it... "Hey, I've got a beverage here"???? Come ON! (imagine Gob saying "come on" - you know what I'm talking about...)

My friend C. paid $30 to meet Kristen Bell this summer. It sounds better when she tells it... sort of. I have a weird, old-lady-crush on Logan. I would have paid him $30 to... kiss me! hahaha! Can you do that?

Tiny, minor complaint: I hate the revamped theme song, it was better fast. Also, does anyone know what happened between Veronica's dad and Wallace's mom? I thought they were dating. By the way, where IS Wallace this season?

Shoes! Glorious, beautiful shoes!

This weekend we saw the long-awaited Marie Antoinette by Sophia Coppola. I spent most of last week internet-stalking the movie and becoming a veritable expert on all things Marie Antoinette. I love cultural insight, so I was thrilled by the scenes that showed the day-to-day activities of being an 18th century queen, like how she had to wait for the women of court to dress her in the morning, how she and the dauphin were put to bed by a crowd of people (including what appeared to be a cardinal) on their wedding night, how they acquired a glass of water at dinner and how, when she gave birth, the room was so crowded with people they could barely open a window after she passed out. Those moments were interspersed with long sequences of listening to music or watching the sun rise - leading some to criticize the movie for being "boring," but really they give the impression of what it might have been like to be bored, despite having all of Versailles at your disposal.

Operating under a post-modern principle that it's quite impossible to accurately represent a time and place you have no real familiarity with, Marie Antoinette rather strives to represent what it might have been like for a bright, extremely young woman who suddenly became the most powerful and wealthy women in France, having to deal with intense pressures and living a fairly isolated life.

Great performances were put in by Kirsten Dunst, Jason Schwartzman (as Louis XVI), Judy Davis (as a Comtesse who guides M.A. through the complexities of French court life), Asia Argento was great as Madame Du Barry (the lover of Louis XV), and humorous performances were put in by Rip Torn (Louis XV) and Shirley Henderson (you'll remember her as Bridget Jones's friend Jude, and Moaning Myrtle in Harry Potter.)


One of my favorite sequences was played out to the tune of "I want candy" - a series of shots alternating delicious looking cakes and petit fours and The. Most. Gorgeous. Shoes I've ever seen in my whole life. (The cakes are Ladurée and the shoes are Manolos.) Presumably it's for scenes like these the film was booed at Cannes and generally disliked by French audiences, where Marie Antoinette remains a controversial figure. Speaking of, I heard a French girl complaining at the end of the movie, "How can you end that movie without a beheading?!?" (Still calling for her head, aren't they?) Frankly I was relieved that the film didn't include the miserable final years of the royal family's lives (not just because I have a no-death-penalty-rule that I employ, and I couldn't quite decide if it might apply in the case of Marie Antoinette), but because the ending, while avoiding the shedding of blood, perhaps even more convincingly implies that the era was over, but also illustrates the grace and bravery with which Marie Antoinette faced the end of her reign.

I'd recommend the film to any fan of Coppola - ooooh, I can't wait to see what her next movie will be!

Oh, Come ON!

Last night's anxiously awaited tv line-up was a big disappoint. Our friends compaired it to both the night we watched the 2004 elections and the year Crash won Best Picture at the Oscars. Not only did Michael Knight not WIN... not only did he come in FOURTH, but JEFFREY wins? Tattoo Neck? A man who tattooed his NECK? A man who basically cheated and went over budget and insulted a mother and called her fat and also his clothes are really ugly and I hate them? HIM?

What a night. I dressed up like Heidi Klum, by which I mean I wore a blonde wig. And no one knew who I was. I really thought Uli vas going to vin this. Her dresses at Olympus were so fabulous! Listen, I don't care what the guys at Project Rungay have to say, I'm pissed! Oh, puh-lease! (Bitch!): It's about the process and the people in the process. Jeffrey wouldn't have been our pick, but we have no problem with the decision, if for no other reason than it's practically a certainty that all of the final four will be moving to new phases in their careers within the next year. No one knows better than those guys that it's about snarkiness. And no one makes me feel as snarky as Jeffrey. The next phase in Jeffrey's career is crashing a Saturn Sky Roadster.

Here's the general reaction to the winner:


So, after the massive disappointment that was Project Runway, we gleefully switch over to the Daily Show to watch Jon Stewart spank John Ashcroft, but what does he do but just HAND him the interview!?!?

What I did today

Well, it was a pajama day, like the days of yore. Unemployeed moi spends the day in her pajamas - NOT because she has no gumption, mind you, but because she's very, VERY busy! This morning I did a ton of reading on the feminist presence in the blog-o-sphere. Do you know some maniacs call these "boob blogs"? Crazy. I read all about this controversy of one feminist who called this other feminist a like, bad feminist because she "posed" for a picture with Bill Clinton and had the nerve to, you know, stand there looking pretty with her boobs.

The "guilty" party has a great blog: Feministing.

I also read this great article - although living in a pro-choice world is important to me, I wish abortion where not a political issue (and I fear it's probably going to blow up all over the political landscape all over again very soon) - anyway, this writer, Elizabeth Wardle, perfectly expresses the real issues that are (don't get me wrong) more important than abortion.

Also I wrote an article - hopefully soon to be published! I'll keep you posted!

OMG! I can't wait to see this movie!

I'm SO excited about Marie Antoinette! Sofia Coppola is a great director, and Kirsten Dunst - already a great actor at what? Six years old, back in the Interview with a Vampire days, is getting better and better. Check out the website, it has some nifty information, as well as this glowing review in the NY Times, and these gorgeous pictures!!!

Watch what happens!

Just finished watching PR, and now must spend a whole week in agony, wondering what will happen next! Naturally, I'm inclined to think the worst of Tattoo-Neck Jeffrey, both rude and weak of chin (a definite sign of poor character.) So, Tim leaves us hanging at the end by saying, "blah blah blah UNfortunately..." and then they show Jeffrey crying. I'm sure it's all a smoke screen - probably will go something like, "blah blah blah, UNfortunately poor Jeffrey was unjustly accused blah blah blah" and then he weeps for joy. The reason I think this, of course, is because, as everyone knows, all four of them showed at Olympus Fashion week about a month ago, and the pics are available online for all to see (loyal as I am to Michael, I have to say Uli really rocked it.)

In other news, I think I'm getting sick, the last few days I've felt really tired and scraggly. But, luckily I don't have too much to do in the next few days except lay around and drink orange juice and read. Just got the new Kate Atkinson book in the mail today - I'll be sure to post about it on my book blog soon.

Cab of the beast!

One of my friends has this slightly odd obsessive compulsive thing where she looks for low cab numbers - number one seems to be the Holy Grail, but I think she gets excited about anything under 50. This weekend, we were driving behind this!