I think there's butter in my eye

Inglorious Basterds

Masterful storytelling. Captivating, strange and surprising. Brilliant use of the medium. Perfect performances (with maybe the exception of Diane Kruger - though I've been jaded since Troy). In short - bloody, brilliant, Tarantino fun. Go see it. Leave the kids at home, and maybe take off your glasses occasionally. You'll see it coming.

Everybody

Ingrid Michaelson's new album came out today! Go buy it, because she's releasing it on her own label. Or on her own, I'm not exactly sure how it works. If you buy it through iTunes it's only $7.99, but Target has it too - just not in the new releases. I hate that. Anyway, it's great, and if you're a fan, you'll enjoy having the unreleased stuff she does live, finally captured in CD form.

Work

Enrollment is hateful. Good news came just when needed however - the English Language Program is officially accredited for the next four years. Huzzah for job security! Steven and I celebrated by eating popcorn and candy for dinner. I love shirking dietary responsibilities. Also, Steven got a silly haircut at a place conveniently located next to the new thrift store in town - New 2 You. I found a kickin' recliner, but it was already sold. The place looks like your garage, packed to the brim and completely unorganized. But full of furniture, so if you're looking for a deal, the quality is much higher than Grand Ol Trunk. Give it a gander and support the locals. The store is also part of Steven's district, so let them know that you saw their ad in the Mercury - and then love me in your heart for the little white lie.

Cable

Steven and I have cable now. It's football season, and we both get real paychecks, so I justified the splurge. Cable + DVR is almost too much excitement. I seriously wake up every morning and run out to check and see what the DVR recorded that night. Every day is Christmas. I just realized yesterday that we also get cable on the TV in the bedroom. Duh. Though it does not have the super fantastic DVR capabilities, it does mean that I can watch football and Sportscenter in bed. Could there be anything better? It's hard enough to not call in sick to work when I know what's waiting, but adding a treat like this makes it nearly irresistible. If I ignore your calls, you know what I'm doing. I apologize in advance. (I seem to be doing that a lot lately.) The sickness will end in January. I promise.

Also, keep Michael Beasley in your thoughts. Everybody stumbles.

Advice

I have to read Brothers of Karamazov next. Have to is a bit harsh. But true. It's my next Russian, and I read the Guernsey Literary Society as my fun book and now it's down to business. Only problem is, Dad and Matthew keep scaring the crap out of me about it. What happens when I get to the party scene? How will I continue? Encouragement needed. Please.

It has come to my attention that there are certain places outside of work where sweat pants are unacceptable. Cruel world. That means I need to buy pants. That fit. I tried at Target tonight but they are all hideous and way too long. Any suggestions, curvy girls? Who makes pants that fit girls with hips without the dreaded muffin top facebook ad disaster? Am I too young for polyester pants? I think I know the answer to that. Related note - Golden Girls seasons are on sale for 8 bucks a pop at your local Target. If you're a fan, you could repay my kindness by buying me seasons 4 - 9 of ER. Guilty pleasures all around.

I thought I'd bookend today's post with pictures of pretty things. Happy Tuesday to all.

No guilt here. Just pleasure.

An observation from my living room

Question:

Last weekend, a man in my building spent his entire Saturday re-painting his car with black shoe polish. It went from a faded silver blue Crown Victoria to a rusty black Crown Victoria.

Why?

What compels someone to do this? An artistic flare? A dearth of craft projects? Small town boredom? Or maybe it's something deadly. Covering up a hit and run. Hiding from Monk and his super observational powers. Maybe black shoe polish is the only thing that removes blood from steel.

Theories wanted.

A post from your host

A Book to Love

My co-worker Ketty and I have started trading books. She's one of those great people who belongs to an old people book club, and volunteers to trim the historical society's rose garden. I just daydream about being that sort of person, and then base frivolous characters after them in short stories. But she's the real thing! Anyway, as a true testament to her character, the first book she loaned me was The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Apparently it's all the rage, but I had never heard of it. I started reading it last weekend at the Donut Whole in Wichita (PS - fantastic little 24 hour donut shop - a Kansas hipster's dream) and Betsy said that it was quite the popular read. It's all epistolary, but please - don't let that stop you. It's warm and quaint and funny and has a genuine emotion to it. It doesn't veer too far into sentiment, but offers realistic portraits of this idyllic world. Sort of a Stars Hollow set in the 1940's. I highly recommend it. And if anyone can recommend anything in the same vein, I would really appreciate it. Now that I've entered this book trading world, I'm not sure what to give out. I read such dark, strange collections of stories that I don't really have anything equal to the Guernsey folks. Help a poor snobby intellectual out.

Awkward Behavior

On Saturday, I watched my first live production of Hamlet. I know, right. 23 years old and I had never seen Hamlet performed. I read about it on The Hour Badly Spent (fantastic Manhattan blog) and was so grateful. I narrowly missed seeing Michael Wieser's last Manhattan production. As most people in my Fundamentals of Acting class know, I have an enormously creepy fascination with Mr. Wieser. He started at K-State when I did, and I think I've seen every single one of his productions. From Grease to Mamet, Stoppard to Closer, Chekhov, and now... Shakespeare. To watch him end his Manhattan career as Hamlet was truly a gift and I am oh so glad that I got to see it. It also featured my favorite up and comer - Mr. Kyle Myers (who I met at WWU, when I was a director - but I'm sure he doesn't remember.) The point of this story is that 1. I turn normal people into idols when I decide that they are talented and 2. I got to see Hamlet, finally, and I loved it. It was the perfect way to spend my last free weekend until December. Also, I ran into several of our ELP teachers at the production, and one of them told me that Hale Library owns an entire collection of BBC productions of all of Shakespeare's plays. So I don't have to wait until the next Michael Wieser decides to play Othello. I can watch it whenever I want. The magic of libraries surprises me again.

The end of freedom

This week marks the busiest week in ELP history, trying to welcome 14 new teachers, test and place 300 new students, and enroll over 500 in a day and a half. Immediately following, Steven and I will drive to Garden to see Brennen and friends at Tumbleweed (yay!) and then come back for the first week of classes. Then next weekend, I begin my first semester. As a full-time graduate student. Fortunately, being a full-time graduate student is not as expensive as I anticipated. Tuition is comparable to undergrad, and my books only cost me $30. Again, the magic of libraries played a major role. I am not looking forward to giving up my movie watching weekends, but I am looking forward to moving forward. The worst thing about the end of summer is the anxiety I feel about what challenges are about to reveal themselves. From August 1st until the day I get my syllabus, I have this horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach that impossible deadlines are going to start popping out of my planner. I get myself so worked up that I'll wake myself in the middle of a dream, convinced that I am procrastinating and shirking my time management schedule. Once the semester starts, there's at least some sort of schedule to make, but until then, it's all worry with no solution. I've discovered the only thing that works at all is baking chocolate chip cookies and reading books about far away literary societies. And, of course, a healthy dose of Friends on DVD. I am not sane. I will not recover quickly. Consider this my formal apology.

Movies are marvelous

As I near the edge of the semester, I feel duty bound to report to you just how many movies I have seen this summer. You should feel impressed, or perhaps envious of my accomplishment. If you don't, there is perhpas no reason for me to post it, and I have been thinking of nothing else since I ordered Netflix.

Movies I have seen for the very first time:

Casablanca, Taxi Driver, On the Waterfront, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Singin' in the Rain, The Maltese Falcon, Vertigo, Tootsie, Bye Bye Birdie, The Godfather, The Godfather Part 2, Raging Bull, It Happened One Night, To Kill A Mockingbird, The Manchurian Candidate, Cool Hand Luke, and Rebel Without a Cause.

From these I have learned some very interesting things.

1. I love Marlon Brando. I would watch him eat cereal. I would watch him decide which laundry detergent to buy. I think he's a genius and I wish that he made more movies. He is absolutely captivating.

(To think, I used to have pictures of Ben Affleck on my walls. For shame.)

2. With the exception of To Kill a Mockingbird, I don't like movies from the 60's. Do I not understand them? Are they too creepy? Or is it just that Janet Leigh is always playing two characters, and we're supposed to not notice? There's just something about it that I cannot connect to. Though I did fall in love with Paul Newman from the very first smile. 100 percent.

(That cool Luke smile. Natural born world shaker. Miss you, Paul.)

3. Sad but true, my favorite movie in this list is Tootsie. Ever since I watched a behind the scenes movie about Dustin Hoffman in a production of Death of a Salesman, he has remained my favorite actor. His work in Tootsie is a bit frantic, but still hysterical. And those scenes with Sidney Pollack! Eternal! Every time we started to watch a new movie from the list, a little part of me wanted to just watch Tootsie again. And, on Netflix, you can watch it any time you want - it's part of the online features.

(Best. Scene. In. Movie.)

4. I wish Robert DeNiro still made good movies. Oh, and movie trivia - "I coulda been a contender!" - On the Waterfront, not Raging Bull. Now you know.

I'm in possession of The Philadelphia Story right now, and the plan is to watch it before the end of the week. As for the rest of the list, I imagine it will be slow going, now that we're up against the double threat of homework and college football. Autumn is truly the best time of year.

Funny in part, people for all

Just saw the movie "Funny People" and I must admit - I loved it.

I read a lot of movie reviews, in between answering student questions, departmental phone calls, and painting office walls and I was so disappointed last week when the reviews for the movie started coming out. They said it was too long, too serious, too unsympathetic. Perhaps this is what I needed going in, to put myself at a level to take the movie for what it was, without inflating it with anxious expectations. However, in case you are swayed by critics, I'd like to respond with my take.

The Length

Sure it's long for a comedy. But isn't that a good thing? The movie is about the reality of being a comedian, and the characters are all at different stages of success. Is it really so awful to hear 2 and a half hours worth of jokes? These are FUNNY PEOPLE. I want to be in their circle. I want to hear their observations about their daily lives. They're not suffering through a war. They're not dying of a terminal illness (spoiler alert!). They're just living. And, because it's their profession, they make jokes about living. I didn't want it to end. In fact, all of it seemed so fitting. We get to see Ira, an awkward, sincere guy who has to work at a deli to support his stand-up. We get to see the fantastic Jason Schwartzman in a ridiculous TV show bringing in $25,000 paychecks. We get to see Jonas, the fatter, younger, funnier version of Ira, making it big and handling it poorly. These are the young kids, the future, and Adam Sandler is figuring out the shitty nature of mortality through all of these venues. He gives the toast at Thanksgiving dinner, and alludes to his age, his friends, the friends who have gone, and it made me ache for Chris Farley and the good old days of SNL. There are so many moments that reach beyond the character and feel completely true. I'd watch 10 hours of footage just to be a witness to those lives.




Unsympathetic Characters

A lot of reviews mentioned that the movie doesn't work because we don't feel sad for unhappy rich people. What? A person has to live in a trailer or a crappy apartment to be sympathetic? No way. The loneliest people are not the ones on an island. They're the ones in the city, surrounded by people who don't understand. A lack of connection when there are limitless options. Same thing here. George Simmons has made it big. He has the big house and the movies and the stuff and everything, and you'd want to cross the street to avoid him. He pushes everyone away and continues to make terrible decisions. He has the goods, but no one to share it with. He has the people, but he can't make it there. He has been too entrenched in the competitive world of comedy and fame (that Jonah's character so evilly espouses) that he even lashes out at the sweet as pie Ira. The scene where Laura's daughter sings the song from Cats, is so small and real and true that it's heartbreaking. It was a short story moment and it was perfect. Even the reconciliation at the end in the grocery store, with the crumpled up notes was so completely fitting. With all the backstory between Apatow and Sandler, it is impossible not to feel something for these characters.

Adam Sandler

All critics love "Punch Drunk Love" - which I could never quite understand. It's too weirdly aggressive. But he is perfect in this movie. Watching him walk through the hospital lobby after getting his diagnosis, and posing in pictures with his fans - beautiful. Seeing him struggle against himself, so quietly and maddeningly, and facing all that has passed him by was so honest and true. The truth! I don't know if it's supposed to be a commentary on his career and his life, but there is so much to be taken from that perspective. At the very least, I think you can admit he's come a long way since "Big Daddy".

Unexpected Pleasure



Aubrey Plaza, as the female comic in the movie is an hysterical delight. She and Zoe Kazan (Revolutionary Road) are my top two discoveries of 2009. Such a treat.



Those are my two cents. I hope, at the very least, to provide an alternative commentary to the excessive disappointment of the critics. Enjoy or avoid - now you can make an informed decision.