People have taken up this idea of “challenge: draw yourself as a teen” and changed it to “draw yourself ten years ago (ie as a teen) versus now.” Since tomorrow’s my birthday, I thought it appropriate to chip in.
Category: Angst
Iron Man: Recommended
But with the caveat that it really isn’t subversive at all. I mean, I shouldn’t have expected it to be, but it is a story about an arms dealer who undergoes a radical change in personality. I was hoping for an equally radical challenge to the idea that peace must be achieved by superiority in arms; instead I got a story about how you should blow up weapons, but only the ones that belong to bad guys–preferably while the bad guys are standing on them–with your newer, shinier weapon.
Plus it was lathered in all the typical American movie race issues. White hero, white love interest, brown mentor/sage, brown sidekick, good brown person dies nobly, bad brown people die en masse, hero is only actually challenged by white villain: check! Sigh. Um, and the love interest and her rival were literally the only women with speaking parts in the movie. Except for some strippers?
I kind of like it less after writing all that, but it really was fun. Jon Favreau managed to give himself a twenty-minute cameo.
The intent of this post is not actually to lionize Baz Luhrmann in any way
Oh, I know Baz Luhrmann, all right.
Ain’t nobody marking that motherfucker safe.
Days 3 and 4: Texas
Day 3 also included Louisiana and Mississippi, but even before I left Alabama, Taylor and her friend Cheryl were mocking my car for its filthy appearance. When I took a closer look, I discovered something intriguing: that wasn’t dirt on it at all! It was pollen! My poor little Fit was encased entirely in a light, even coating of tree jizz.
Man, you know what’s going to be great? Not living in the South.
But after that: Texas! Things do not seem to be bigger in Texas, but Texas is definitely bigger than anywhere else. This photo should give you some sense of scale:
See, it’s like the star is Texas, and Hugner is Earth.
Kris and Erica were kind enough to put me up for the night, even under the stress of their still-in-progress move and its pipe-related disasters. While there I got to meet Oxford, who demonstrated that it wasn’t just Hugner, but all Jinxlets who make dogs want to chomp them. And snuggle.
That latter shot features not just Kris and Hugner, but the original Hieronymous B’Gosh himself. I’d label them but come on, they’re pretty easy to tell apart. (NO Kris is in the MIDDLE)
I spent the remainder of the day and most of the night trying to get out the other side of Texas. I made it just barely over the border before collapsing in Las Cruces, which is a little pilgrimage to me for Anacrusis-related reasons. Hugner was tired of the whole thing a mere five hours out.
After that he went over to the fence and peed because there was not so much as a gas station for two hours either way on I-20. Bad Hugner! But how can you even try to yell at that face?
Day 1: Louisville
You have to read “Mallory,” Leonard’s newly published short story: not because it’s good (it’s very good) but because that way you can understand all the “Mallory” references I’ve been making in the over-a-year since I got to beta read it. As someone on a road trip to California that includes visiting some of my role models, I find the story perhaps a little too pat in its publication timing. I smell retcon, Richardson.
Speaking of which, The War on Clarity has been updated, due mostly to people wanting their names put on or taken off the “Lasersharking” entry. If only that could have been posted on some kind of user-editable repository.
So I’m getting a tattoo
The question is, do I get it on the palm of my hand so I can show it to other people too, or just backwards on my forehead?
Jon also introduced me to Dancer in the Dark. Jon likes to hurt me.
Almost exactly three years after I started Sad and Happy Movie Day, Jon and Amanda finally maneuvered me into actually watching Hotel Rwanda. We didn’t even have a happy movie to chase it with, but a couple episodes of Arrested Development made do.
I could have sworn that was Julia Sawalha playing the Red Cross worker, but IMDB says I am wrong. Dang. Oh, also the world is going to burn and we all deserve it.
Dear the person responsible for rebranding “Super Tuesday” as “Tsunami Tuesday”
I want to kill you.
Because obviously I’ve never ripped them off
I did that gag THREE YEARS AGO, THE ONION.
Bing bong bing
I downloaded LCD Soundsystem’s 45:33 because it’s the first album I’d heard of that was specifically designed to be run to. Unfortunately it’s way too slow for that, but it’s still pretty good music. I had been rating everything on it three or four stars on iTunes, and suddenly–halfway through a song I’d already rated–I found my mouse hovering over the five-star button. Because somebody had started playing chimes.
This is a serious problem and I don’t know what to do about it. As soon as a song incorporates chimes, handbells or tone bars of any kind–especially, as they are often used, in counterpoint–I will unconsciously decide that it is the greatest song ever and listen to it ten times in a row. I can’t help it!
I would say that this is a flaw in my musical taste, but it is widely agreed that my musical taste already consists largely of flaws. This is a crack in the very foundations of my aesthetic sensibilities. It is a metaflaw. Chimes are a sloppy exploit for the kernel of my brain.
Someone recommend a song that will ruin chimes for me forever. I want to change.