LaurieWrites

Coupla things

Cool exploding paint commercial, courtesy of Mighty Girl, and in the "did we really need this column", "Mommy Has a Tattoo." Good for Mommy. Read the kid some Dr. Seuss.

A free hug...

And a thanks for the heads-up on the broken video link below. Fixed it! And here it is again, for good measure.

Buttons

I found a ceramic mug tonight in my basement that says "Blah, Blah, Blah" on the outside. You might have seen them at craft shows or flea markets...They say stupid things like, "Ashes of Dead Husbands" and "Retirement Fund" and "My Children's Inheritance" on them. They're horrible, really...more of a stein - a hefty ceramic thing. I don't remember where I got it, but I know I brought it home from Ohio. It was sitting on a shelf for years, until I picked it up tonight and found several of those little snarky buttons inside that you can buy at head shops and Hot Topic. I remember picking them up at Dark Star Comics in Yellow Springs. This is what mine said:

"I still read books"

"Even your therapist doesn't care"

"I will not obsess. I will not obsess. I will not obsess."

"I'm sorry. Was I screaming again?"

"Careful, or we shall banish you to the Midwest."

I'm so weird sometimes.

Apropos of Something

I've been working on a post that includes both "Songs That Are Not My Jams" and "Songs That Are Totally My Jams," but I don't feel funny today and I don't feel very creative and I don't feel good at all about that collision of feelings, so I fear those lists are going to have to wait. It's such a cliche when Mondays suck, isn't it? I eschew cliches. I...don't like them. But today was one. It was cloudy and it's all of a sudden gotten cold, just for a little cliched Monday atmosphere. I dislike cryptic posts, also, but there's nothing I really care to or can say today except for cryptic things, given my knowledge of the propensity of things that are posted on the Internet to come back and bite you on the ass with their pointy pixel teeth. This perhaps means I shouldn't post at all, but this NaBloMe thing has me all wacked out and posting. Must post. Must post. Or die. And I don't want to post silly pictures so much.

And now all of a sudden "wacked out and posting" reminded me of the line from REO Speedwagon's "Keep on Lovin' You", a song I've heard repeatedly in random places lately because God hates me, although maybe I should be glad it isn't holiday tunes, because those have taken over most places already. Anyway, you know, the REO song with the line that sounds like it goes, "Instead you left stealin' the rent/ALL HIED UP AND LISTEN'" but it doesn't. It really says "Instead you lay still in the grass/All coiled up and hissin'", which is just weird. And it's important to add that though he knows all about those men, inexplicably he don't remember. Cause it was her, baby, way before then, and they're still together. This in spite of the fact that he's a fucked up stalker with memory loss who compares her to a snake, which I know is how I like my men. Especially the ones who insist that they're gonna keep on lovin' me, and are apparently going to go on cocaine binges to avoid sleeping to do so, even after I've told them to get the fudge out cause I'm watching Montel. Those are my favorites.

Sorry. Decompressing. I will admit that "Take it on the Run" is one of my favorite songs of all time (and okay, I like "Time For Me to Fly" too, but not as much), which doesn't allow me to bring the hate on REO Speedwagon without that full disclosure, but one of the best and most humorous stories that Casey Kasem ever spat into the mic (could they not get that man some water? A lozenge? Some freaking hot TEA?) involved the DECADE that it took Kevin Cronin to write "Can't Fight This Feelin'". A decade to come up with "You're a candle in the window on a cold, dark winter's night," and to rhyme "longer" and "stronger", and "show" and..."show." Scary. 

One of my friends just signed off the chat thingy because he prefers the phone, and told me was going to "talk at me" in a few minutes. Do people say that other places, or just in Maryland? I'll really miss hearing it when I don't live here anymore, so I'm going to have to call people up just for some of those phrases. Clearly I'm live blogging my thought processes here this fine evening, so sorry if that gets old quickly. It is making me feel a bit better, though, and isn't that what this is all about anyway?

I had to make some aggravating decisions today that I didn't want to make. As a result, I'm feeling really strongly about the need to really show love to people who have done good things for you especially, and to do the decent thing, even when it's difficult and uncomfortable. In this race to accomplish things for ourselves, and to accomplish goals, and meet artificially imposed deadlines and whatnot, it's really the most important to make life better and easier for people...ourselves included, sure, but in the give and take that would sort of happen anyway, right? Sure you'll get kicked in the teeth sometimes for it,  but it's no doubt the better way to go. I'm not sure if I always do, although I try to. I just think that a lot of times priorities can get screwed up, and people don't do those things. It's really difficult to think long-term most of the time...it's much easier to go for short-term gratification or to make a decision in the moment, even if it hurts or shortchanges people.

I don't know anything. Do you?

I do know that My friend Mead sent me this video tonight, and I liked it, even though I'm sure some people would say it's a little cheesy. Bring on the cheese, I say. . I think it'll make you feel at least a little bit good to watch it, so I encourage you to.

Dupont Circle Jazz

Originally uploaded by rubyshoes.

The long way

I made this my movie weekend, thrilled as I was to not have to go to work at all, or to be somewhere else trying to have fun, thinking about how I should be at work. That's a major drag, by the way, and I don't recommend it. Work sucks in general (I much prefer play, to be honest) but when it's hanging over my head, the suckage goes forth and multiplies.

After "Stranger Than Fiction," which is detailed in sickening detail below, I let someone else pick the movie. My friend Jeremy came down yesterday and he chose "Copying Beethoven," which really didn't do it for either one of us, I don't think. The music was great, but Ed Harris annoyed me, and the story was weak. Plus the cinematography created an atmosphere that made early-1800s Vienna resemble my memories of Three Mile Island from the endless newsreel of my childhood. Bleak. Grey. Ick. And maybe that's what Vienna looked like then, but in that case I hope they had some early substitute for antidepressants, cause cry me a river...it was unbearable.

Today I saw "Shut Up and Sing," which I was really excited about, and it was fabulous. I loved it. It made me cry it was so good, although I'm a Dixie Chicks fan, so I'm not exactly unbiased. Or not at all unbiased, depending on how you look at it. I'm not a country music fan in general these days, and certainly not part of the base that burned and steamrolled cds (overreact much?) or held their kids up to say "Screw you" outside of their concerts after the remark about George Bush essentially led country radio to wipe them off the map. I just think they're really talented women. "Taking the Long Way" is arguably the best album released in 2006, and although I was a fan before, now that they're writing their songs and expanding their reach, I like them even more. (I really like them. I'm sorry. I know, it's gross.)

I wrote a paper for a Language and Politics class this past summer about the controversy, and got really into researching the (literally) thousands of words that were written in every possible media outlet about these women. When Natalie Maines said at a London concert that, "We're ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas," the day before we sent troops to Iraq, she got scourged in red state America overnight. Toby Keith put a picture of her on the screen at his concerts with Saddam Hussein, and her head on the body of a toad, and it's cool. His free speech is okay. Hers is not. In the film, she's shown playing one of the first shows after the controversy started, and she heard people booing. "Go ahead, you let it out," she said, "because I support free speech." And that's really what goes on the chopping block when people aren't allowed to voice an opposing view.

In any event, it's a really well done film. Stephen Hunter's review in the Post was harsher on Natalie than it needed to be. Again, I'm biased, but I hardly think his characterization of her as a "blowhard" is anything that the women shy away from, or that needed to be pointed out by the filmmaker in the way he suggests. Natalie's opinions and freedom in expressing them started the whole business in the first place, and she references her big mouth several times in the movie. It's no secret. I wonder if the same depiction would be given if she were a man expressing himself in the same way.

The core of the film for me came almost at the end, with a bit in which Martie Maguire says she just wants Natalie to be safe and happy with the way things turn out. I actually found Martie to be the most compelling person in the film. She's obviously dedicated to the music and to the life she and her sister have created from the time they were pre-teens, and watching her it was easy to see what was threatened by an incident that grew beyond what any of them intended or planned. Her statements at the end were also the only time any of them are shown crying. Her defense of Natalie was honest and heartfelt, and I really felt throughout that these women were a team, no bullshit, which is refreshing in an industry and unfortunately a world where that often doesn't seem to be the case. I wish them luck, because I think they took the harder - and longer way - round with all of this, and would that more of us spoke up in whatever venue we find ourselves in, large or small.

Sweet Juniper rocks the spot

Imagine...the Beastie Boys write a children's book.* Jamie Lee Curtis and Billy Crystal (and oh yeah, Madonna...you too) watch out.

*Results not typical.

Stranger Than Fiction

We saw "Stranger Than Fiction" last night, and I loved it. I didn't love it at first, and it started out with a few environmental strikes, because we saw it at the theatre near my house, which is the worst movie theatre I've ever had the misfortune to be in. It's independently run, but not by anyone who cares about the filmgoing experience, and nor does it carry anything other than the usual Hollywood releases. And then there was the cluster of about fifteen teenagers who sat in the middle of the theatre, completely expecting Elf, who talked loudly throughout the first fifteen minutes of the film. It was at this point that my cranky teacher ass actually got up from its seat and went outside to find the not-more-than-eighteen-year-old manager, who, to his credit, came in and told them to be quiet. Of course, as soon as he left they started talking again, and I got up AGAIN (do not mess with me on certain days of the month), walked over to the center, and said, "Be QUIET, or I'll get him again."

It worked. I am apparently a fearsome sight, as one of the little girls (who was being embraced in a creepy way by an eight-foot-tall thirteen year old boy) looked up and said, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" As ridiculous and bitchy as I felt, I couldn't help it. This movie showed promise, and I'm tired of my eight or fifteen or God forbid fifty movie or concert dollars going partially down the drain because often even grown people can't be quiet or even less than really, really loud. I may sound awful but it's gotten to the point where people don't seem to care how they affect others in many group situations. I do, and plus I like to get into what I came to see. And it was, like I said, a bad night to push it. Eventually they all, every single one of them, got up and left anyway. Like I said, not typical Will Ferrell stuff. And now it's even more clear that I need to stop the teacher train or soon I'm going to be really over the line.

Anyway, the movie was really good. It was not easy, so if blockbusters and romantic comedies are your thing...I don't know. It took time to get going and at first I thought, "please do not let me have another "I Heart Huckabees" experience", because I really wanted to key into whatever they were trying to accomplish with that one, and I didn't, although the title was good for a few months of giggles in another context. This one has an excellent cast - Dustin Hoffman, Emma Thompson (who I love), Queen Latifah (ditto.), Maggie Gyllenhall (yeah, again,) and of course, Will Ferrell, who actually is a good enough actor that you didn't spend two hours going, "Oh, wow, Will Ferrell isn't running down the street naked, shouting out random phrases that will be destined to be repeated by drunk people everywhere." He went beyond "Old School," in other words. The story is a meta-something something sort of thing, where he turns out to be a living character in a story Thompson is writing, and eventually that goes in some wacked out directions, and points are made about living life to the fullest and following your dreams and not working in a cubicle and all that shit.

The special effects (they're not typical - it makes a little more sense once you see them) were really interesting, and from the credits it looks like at least ten studios were involved with different aspects of creating them. That was amazing to me, but then again I'm not to that level of geekdom. What I am to the level of is music, and the soundtrack is really good too - lots of Spoon, which makes sense after reading this article. I like Spoon.

You may like this movie. I'm obviously still thinking about it today, which usually means it was at least worth my time and maybe even money too. And speaking of movies AND tv....

I'm still standing!

NYC

The photos are up from the NYC trip. I like them, mostly, this time around, unlike Texas where I was like, "Ew, who is this unoriginal photographer? Holy shit, it's me!" Here are a few of my favorite shots.

Mom in front of CBS and the Broadway Theatre.

Majestic

Rooftop

This is my favorite person ever. He was hanging out in his windowsill on Sunday morning in Little Italy watching the crowds on the street (note the pillows he has set up for padding.) When I hesitated to take his picture, he flashed the peace sign and yelled for me to take it. Awesome. (Make sure you click on it to make it bigger or check it on flickr so you can see his expression. I wish I'd stuck around and tried some more, as I'm sure he would have been down.)

Some Things I Love:

1. Pumpkin-flavored things
2. My dog
3. Taking off my shoes
4. Kissing
5. Music

Some Things I Hate:

1. Crowded parking lots in my little tiny car where I can't see around the huge hulking vehicles that 90 percent of the population drives.
2. Limiting my intake of tasty food
3. Commuting
4. How expensive most books and cds are
5. Human suffering

Some Things I Just Don't Get:

1. Sudoku
2. What the hell we're all doing here anyway (not to mention how we got here. ; ) )
3. Fundamentalist religious beliefs (of any sort)
4. The popularity of certain musicians
5. This craziness: the groom is reminded that "girls" need "clothes and food and tender happiness and frills, a pan, a comb, perhaps a cat" — and is asked to provide them all.  Yes, where are my frills? Frills, please. You can totally lose the pan, the comb (what?) and the cat.