Gold Diggers of 1933

1:49 - 2:30 specifically. This is one of the greatest things I've seen on film, and I can't quite explain why. Ginger Rogers' face is just remarkable - I love it.

I can't wait for Christmas!!

And to celebrate I force upon you the Star Wars Holiday special.



My brother Dean sent me the link to it - I LOVE IT. Almost as much as my Centro.

* * * * *

Someone finally threw a shoe at Bush.

Obama appoints yet another member to the DC Justice League!

Caroline Kennedy seeks Senate seat.

The biggest fraud in history?
Bernard L. Madoff's billion dollar scam.

From Russia with love.
Russia's Miss Consitution Pageant is a hit!

Susan Sontag's journals.
Can they possibly be as spicy as Anais Nin's?

Phone, you are my monolith.

Look at me, gaze upon my awesomeness!

So I have a new phone, and I am completely, irrevocably in love with it. I haven't been so much in love with an inatimate object since I purchased my laptop at Best Buy with 6 months no interest. When I look it at it I hear 2001's Thus Spake Zarathustra pulsating in my head. It's magic ... and this probably means I'm more of a materialistic person than I once thought.

In other news,

Tonight ABC airs the documentary Drama High: The making of a high school musical.
Wherein kids fight over roles in The Wiz. I have a feeling this will bring back memories.

Then Tuesday night, ABC airs A Charlie Brown Christmas.

Click Here to listen to Vince Guaraldi's amazing score.
and here to read or listen to NPR's great 2006 commentary on it.

Wednesday, NBC airs A Muppets Christmas: Letters to Santa.
I will watch anything involving Kermit the Frog. ANYTHING.

I've put together a list of movies I really want to see in the next few months (if I can get my lazy arse out to the theatre):

1. Milk

2. Rachel Getting Married

3. Synecdoche, New York

4. The Wrestler

5. Cadillac Records

6. Slumdog Millionaire

7. Australia

7. Wall-E

8. Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist ...

Wait, some of these aren't even in theatres anymore, are they?? {Groan} I'm so out of it.

* * * * *

Oh, and this is my favorite blog of the day - well, my favorite thing today period .. next to my phone: Citizen Kane posted an event ... and nobody came.

Listening to: Vampire Weekend

My High-School English Teacher Lied to Me

I learned some new things today!

Surprisingly, Albert Camus was NOT an existentialist - this surprised me immensely.

“No, I am not an existentialist. Sartre and I are always surprised to see our names linked. We have even thought of publishing a short statement in which the undersigned declare that they have nothing in common with each other and refuse to be held responsible for the debts they might respectively incur. It’s a joke actually. Sartre and I published our books without exception before we had ever met. When we did get to know each other, it was to realise how much we differed. Sartre is an existentialist, and the only book of ideas that I have published, The Myth of Sisyphus, was directed against the so-called existentialist philosophers.”
From An interview with Jeanine Delpech, in Les Nouvelles Littéraires, (1945). Cited in Albert Camus: Lyrical and Critical Essays, Vintage (1970)

So now I have a beef with my 12th grade English teacher, who seriously misinformed me for an entire year. Why did you lie to me, Ms. Arnold, WHY??

I've always loved Camus. He wrote “You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of." So I'm imagining the happiness is just the NOW. That every little thing we did previously is unimportant, the past a series of disposable moments. Is the simplicity of my happiness enough? That these little present moments are enough to carry me through? I think Camus was a bit more optimistic than Satre, but maybe that's just because of my favorite line from the desolate No Exit: "Hell is other people."


* * * * *


I just finished reading W. Somerset Maugham's The Painted Veil. Oh, it was so frustrating. The writing was beautiful and precise; but the content disturbed me. I don't know - one could argue that in the novel she finds her own sense of compassion and independence, but her notions about love bother me. The Walter Fanes of the world, who are kind and noble, though awkward and serious, are overlooked for the charming and insatiably cruel Charlie Townsends. The central character reflects about a thousand times that Fane is 'unloveable' because 'he's a bore.' It drives me crazy, because women (myself included) are so foolish - suckered in by flash, glitter, and overt surface beauty. But I suppose that can be said for both sexes. Kindness and the capacity to love are more important than the meaningless banter and inane teasing of ambivalent lovers; I'm finally learning this, though it took me long enough!


* * * * *


I've nothing to add so far, except:


Obama is a smoker!
So is Sparkly Cheekbones. I don't give a damn.







More later ...


Listening to: Department of Eagles

Hitler's Testicle(s?) and Other Stories

My brother gave me the most awesome, beautiful 'Best of 2008' collection (his own picks). I listened to it all day today and it was restorative, powerful, and it made me feel alive. I'm feeling lately like re-surfacing, but I also feel that I must not force anything right now. The time of healing is done, and it's time now to celebrate and to offer myself up to the universe. I'm really happy right now in my life, and serene. So much of my life has been a series of self-inflicted struggles, fighting against myself and fighting against the world, and fighting for the Wrong Things. I was very stressed in November, but the happy realization that came out of that was this: "I haven't felt stress in AGES! I forgot what this felt like!" I'm finally at peace. And here I was thinking that wouldn't happen until I was dead {awkward laughter fading into silence}

* * * * *

Let's see ... what's happening today? Let me look in my crystal ball, and - oh no -

Say It Ain't So Jesse Jackson (Jr.) And it just has to originate in Illinois, doesn't it? As if Obama doesn't have a difficult enough job without having to answer to questions about this mess.

Did Hitler Have One Testicle? Because this is the question that keeps me up at night.

Vampire Myths Broken And here you thought it was only Twilight that mangled the genre.

I May Start Watching That Crap Gossip Girl Just For Wallace Shawn Inconceivable!!!

Lindsay Lohan, Leave Stevie Nicks Alone!!! You are Kali, Destroyer of Worlds. Just stop it already.

And for no good reason:



* * * * *

oh, oh, oh - I just had to add this; it's too priceless!

"I don't believe there's any cloud that hangs over me. I think there's nothing but sunshine hanging over me."
Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, the day before his arrest

Reading: The Painted Veil
Listening to: Steve's awesome mix CD

I forgive you, Mitzi Gaynor!

I forgive you, Mitzi Gaynor. I gave Anything Goes another view, just because. And I still didn't like it. Except ... the above sequence is just magical. I've decided it's one of my favorite all-time movie scenes hands down.

I started watching George Cukor's A Star is Born a week ago, and I was initially immensely impressed. But I continued watching it last night and initially it was still great but THEN, endless dance numbers to terrible songs. These words flashed across my squishy brain: WHEN IS THIS MOVIE GOING TO END??? It didn't help when my father entered the room and after a brief silence (and during one of the worst numbers), noted, "You know all those people are dead now." Greeeaaat. There was also some embarrasingly hammy acting from Garland; it's a pity because she was an actress capable of such depth and raw energy, but I don't think she ever in her career truly utilized those acting gifts (other than through song).

I started to get annoyed, when suddenly after two hours of praying for it to end, James Mason completely broke my heart. My God. I have rarely seen an actor so realistically and agonizingly portray such pain onscreen. It was at that moment that I realized Mason made the film, and that I realized he had been consistent and authentic throughout the entire picture, even when everything around him was glitz and cheese. A Star is Born is not a movie about the travails of fame; it is a film about the self-destructive trauma of alcoholism. See it for Judy singing The Man That Got Away, but mostly see it for James Mason's performance.

* * * * *

And....

OMG! Corrupt Politician Alert I have my surprised face on. Not really.

We Need A Cure

Dark Knight DVD as Disappointing As the Movie Was No Heath Ledger extras. And he was the best thing about the film.

The Mouse is 40!

Greedy Fannie

NYT on Kate Winslet's The Reader

John Lennon The Rolling Stone interview "I always wrote about me when I could. I didn't really enjoy writing third person songs about people who lived in concrete flats and things like that. I like first person music."

Flor, You Can't Have Ed Norton, He and I Are in Love

fix the country and stuff

Today, Obama announced his new secretary of veterans affairs, and promised us a whole bunch of stuff. I frigging love that man.

New York Times Online article

This afternoon, MSNBC noted, "It seems as if he's already taken office!" It's surprising (well, not so surprising actually) that Bush has done much to assist ailing big business, but little to ease the pain of individual home owners. Obama indicates his 'team' will change that.

I don't know if Obama will be able to handle all this, or if he will be a great president; but I have a sense of hope for the first time in a long while.

* * * *

I've been reading Cleolinda's blog, Occupation Girl over on livejournal, and I love it.

She writes an online series called "Movies in Fifteen Minutes." She's pithy, she's funny, she's brilliant - love her.

Here's her Twilight in 15 minutes.

Bush is like that awesome Ladytron song.

Re: Scary Boob

http://www.oilempire.us/bush.html

Ladytron

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtqGoHouoE0

Okay, so I'm not going to say that Bush destroyed the country, but I will say he maimed it. Americans are a
resilient (though sometimes brutish) breed, and will probably rebuild, but we all know how gloomy things are. Or do we? I don't think we've really had to bear the brunt yet of the madness, war, and excessive spending that the now 'lame-duck' administration has borne. It's all kicking in, and it's kicking in Hard.

The Wall Street Journal informs us that "the U.S. lost half a million jobs in November, the largest one-month drop since 1974, as employers brace for a recession that's expected to stretch through much of 2009," though they do conscend that, "the overall labor market is about 75% larger today, so the job cuts now represent a smaller share of the work force." The article also suggests that the way to resolve the national problem is to stabilize the housing market, and to heal the crippled credit system, which if you ask me sounds incredibly vague. It reminds me of Keenan's Weekend Update character yelling out, "Fix it!"

They also note that, "The tally of 1.9 million jobs pared thus far in 2008 surpasses the losses of the past two recessions, signaling that the current downturn could be the worst since the years immediately following World War II."

I just keep repeating to myself, "I love my job, I love my job, I love my job."

Yup.

Listening to: Lips Like Sugar
Words cannot describe how much I love this song.