Prime Time of Your Life, Indeed

Daft Punk. ROCKS. Oh my god. So totally amazing. Obviously, the English language cannot do justice to the awesomeness of this show. I will explain the state I was in upon my arrival, so that you might understand the obstacles this show had to overcome to reach the pantheon of best shows ever:

1) I had slept about 12 hours total during the four days prior to the show. The weekend had been spent in delightful debauchery of the sort that usually demands you sleep the moment you return home.
2) I woke up in Pennsylvania at 5:30 a.m. EST (2:30 a.m. PST) on Sunday. I caught a flight at Newark at 9:00 a.m. Which sat on the tarmac for 90 minutes before take-off.
3) The plane landed at 12:30 p.m. PST. Taking the MAX & the bus back, I didn't arrive home until 2 p.m.
4) Departed Portland for Seattle at 3 p.m in my car. Due to traffic, did not arrive until 7:30. The show started at 8.
5) Briefly hung out. Went to show. Got back to my friends' place at 12:30 a.m. Considered going to the after-party, but nobody had the energy.

After traveling for over 15 hours, I think it safe to say that my expectations were quite high. EXPECTATIONS EXCEEDED, people.

But we missed the Rapture! Because we didn't get there until 9:45. Which was sad. But not unbearably so, as I've seen them already. Besides which, oh my word, the LIGHTS, people, the LIGHTS. It was utterly fantastic & so very beautiful. I mean, look at this:


Or this or this or this:



I really liked the way they played...they didn't just do "songs". Everything was kind of mixed up & jumbled into each other & they would do bits of songs more than once, so you would hear things like three times. I think my personal favorite was "Around the World" mashed up with "Harder Better Faster Stronger". The lights did these awesome rainbow things during that part too, which was amazing. I REALLY REALLY hope they put this tour on DVD a la Underworld's Everything Everything; it fucking RULED. I can't explain it very well but in tandem with the pics this should give a decent idea, so here goes: in the back of the stage, there was this big light screen that did dots of light. They would make words with it, or have moving little lights & stuff. Then, on either side of the stage, there were these kind of cage-like structures & they were like light rods or something & the lights would pulse or flash or move along on the lines. In the middle of the stage there was a pyramid that also flashed lights or showed images...Daft Punk stood in the middle of the pyramid in their robot suits. There was a pyramid outline behind that which also flashed & did crazy light stuff. Then there were the spotlights, of course. It was so insane that several times I just stopped dancing & stared at the lights, mesmerized.

And for the encore...oh my word, the robot suits lit up Tron-style! And they did "One More Time", well, one more time & the back screen & the pyramid did circles of orange lights. These pictures don't do it justice, but you get the idea:



It was so ridiculously incredible. I feel massively fortunate that I was able to witness this. I mean, they only did five shows in the States. I kinda understand why - it must be a massive ordeal to install all that stuff. Whoo hoo!

LOL

Hahahahahahaha. Vote for America's Most Annoying Liberal Arts College. Hampshire represent!

Full confession...I attended one, applied to another (Evergreen), visited a third (Reed) & considered applying to three others (Bennington, Eugene Lang & Oberlin). I received unsolicited literature from all those previously mentioned, plus Bard, Sarah Lawrence & Vassar, back when I was a precocious young'un with good SAT scores.

I would think that qualifies me as a candidate for America's Most Annoying Liberal Arts Student. Except, um, I was not, am not, & will probably never be rich, which seems to be a decisive factor.

Looks like Sarah Lawrence is currently in the lead with 15.5%. Although Hampshire's coming in with a not-too-shabby 7.1%.

Testing, Testing

I must admit, I'm both excited & terrified to paint my loft. It's just so damn big. And I've already concluded that a breach of the ladder code ("do not stand on the very top step") will be required to enable me to reach the upper limits of the loft, er, walls (it's got a tiny patch of ceiling).

Anyway, I'd previously bought testers of the reds I was considering using:


Obviously, it's Ralph Lauren. But this time both shades are from the Thoroughbred (hee hee!) line. On the left, Balmoral Red. On the right, Hunting Coat Red. The problem I had was, the Balmoral was too dark but the Hunting Coat was too bright. I needed something inbetween.

And here's what I came up with:


Malaya Red, again from the Thoroughbred line. Capri Pink from Vintage Masters (this will be used sparingly - it's going on the straight wall you see here, & I also think I'll paint the built-in furniture that color, & a couple other little accent-y things. Unfortunately, I've fallen madly in love with the color & am determined to use it). Golden Candlesticks from Regent Metallics for the trim. I just bought a quart of each, to make sure I liked it before committing. I rather think I do.

Boob Dress Rules!

Well, I guess I know what to wear whenever I want some attention. I left my apartment for approximately a grand total of 30 minutes yesterday to go to Zupan's, & got hit on no fewer than three times. My personal favorite was the older black gentleman who said "If I was 35 years younger..." (I love getting compliments from older black men. They're always so polite but lascivious at the same time. It's fun.) The dress is a bit too big for me, though, so I find constant vigilance is required in ensuring the bottom portion of my bra doesn't peek out. I have to say, sometimes the attention is nice. I even got followed by some guy in a truck who asked if I needed some help with my beer. I declined. He wasn't bad-looking, but the last time I let some guy in a car pick me up, he turned out to be far more relationship-inclined than I.

Whatever. I like my boobs.


Although I have to admit, this dress does make the clothing I previously thought boob-rific look, well, positively modest.

Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows

Is an immensely satisfying conclusion to the series.

I am pleased.

Not Comfortable

So cute though! But the flip-floposity factor & the heel factor do not combine to make a happy foot. It's surprisingly difficult to walk in these. I almost feel like I'm moving through water, only if I were in water they way they cut wouldn't hurt so much. Although I am beginning to suspect I have mutant feet. Having never known many women who wear heels & strappy sandals & the like on a frequent basis, I just always assumed that every woman who regularly dons cute-but-uncomfortable shoes will have small scars on certain parts their feet. But one of my friends, whom I know to wear the same type of footwear as I (no, really - when I first moved back & visited her, we realized we were wearing the exact same pair of boots), does not have the scars that I have.

The moral of the story is: flip-flop uppers with small pointy heels are adorable, particularly when they are lime green, on clearance & complementary to both your boob dress & your new nail polish(Speedy Hot Tamale, heh), but sadly they are not comfortable. However, I am sure they will look lovely amongst the other painful shoes in my new shoe cubby. (The trick, of course, is to vary your shoe choices daily so that you're always wearing a pair that hurt differently than the previous pair.)

The second moral of the story is: perhaps it is unwise to take shoe advice from someone with mutant, scarred feet.

When It Comes to Closets, There's No Such Thing as Garish

While waiting to be able to afford to tackle the loft (which looks to be a royal painting pain), I figured I'd redo the closets, one in the foyer & one in the living room. Although I once figured I'd leave them be (they're closets, for heaven's sake), all those big huge holes were really starting to get to me. And once the holes were fixed, naturally they'd need to be painted over; & I'm allergic to nearly all white paint.

I wanted bright, bright, bright for these; I'd like to think I succeeded. I'm so glad I got to use hot pink somewhere - while I don't think I could handle a whole room in this color, it's a really nice way to brighten up the insides of a dull place. Plus, oddly enough, the color actually makes the closets look bigger. I guess the color gives it more dimension? Dunno.


Ralph Lauren, of course (I'm so his bitch). Island Brights (hot pink is far too tacky for the Vintage Masters, dontcha know). Aruba Pink. Flat finish. The trim in the living room closet was so riddled with holes that I decided to spackle & paint over it, using that endless gallon of Regent Metallics in Iron Gate.

2 + 2 = 4

Have you ever spent a really, really long time trying to figure something out, but no matter what "numbers" you punched in, the results never quite added up...

And then, finally, the stars aligned & for the very first time, two plus two actually equaled four; but somehow when you got the right number, it was kind of the most horrible number you'd ever seen, definitely way worse than all those wrong-ish numbers...

But then you were surprised to find that more than anything you were just so damn happy & felt so stupid lucky to have an answer that made sense, & the fact that it was the worst answer really didn't bother you very much, certainly not as much as you would have expected...

And it didn't even truly matter if it was "the" right answer, or only one of several right answers, or maybe even only vaguely a little bit true, because the answer was like that piece in the puzzle - not the last piece, of course, but one of those tricky middle ones that you run into after you put the outer pieces together, & you're just relieved to have found a place for it to fit at all, because if nothing else it means that you can go on to the next piece...

?

Hot Damn!

It is 101 degrees here right now. No foolin'. Even though there's no humidity, that's HOT HOT HOT. 'Sokay, though. At some point today I realized my new dress is so revealing that it renders me less "Captain Cleavage" & more "King Jugs". But really, what's the fun of having big tits if one doesn't wantonly display them? Plus, they're well-ventilated to handle the heat!

(Although I recently found out I know someone who's at the "K" level of bra size, which is eight cups past me & makes me feel practically flat-chested.)

New Record Room!

I had planned to paint this room, which is sort of part of my upstairs loft but really its own little room, a sort of sky blue & then sponge clouds on the ceilings & slanty top parts of the walls, & had long ago determined that the Ralph Lauren Vintage Master color Spanish Bluebell was precisely what I wanted. And it was absolutely lovely, once I got it on the walls. But somehow...clouds just didn't seem right, what with the visible horizontal planks. Also, I had the sudden urge to use a nice brown with the blue, as brown & blue is one of my very favorite color combos. Then, like a lightning bolt, it struck me: STRIPES! And here you see the results:


It's a shame I can't photograph the room in its entirety (it's full of odd angles & such & is comprised of no fewer than eight walls), because it's simply marvelous. I haven't felt this immediately right about paint since I did my living room. So: the details - Ralph Lauren. Vintage Masters. Spanish Bluebell & Chocolate Souffle. The trim is Ralph Lauren Regent Metallics in Iron Gate. Naturally, I've still got the floor to paint. I'm planning to do it in the same brown sometime this week. Apparently they've got this thing they call "floor paint" which I'll need to use.

After that I plan to attend to the matter of getting shelving. So I can actually get my records, CDs, DVDs & books out of the boxes in which they've been living lo! these many months, & into my newly fabulous record room.

Haiku

Raw green beans are good.
Is there anything better?
Perhaps raw pea pods.

Also:

I don't always trust
Wikipedia. Why not?
Well, here's a reason:

"Today haiku is written in many languages, but the number of writers is still concentrated primarily in Japan and secondarily in English-speaking countries, like germany and brazil."

New Bathrooms!

My bathrooms. There's only one toilet. There's only one bathtub. They're just in different rooms. I refer to them as the WC & the bathroom.

Anyway, I realized it'd been a couple months since I painted anything. Long enough for the stinging tediousness to have faded to a dull sheen. So I decided to finish up the downstairs & paint the bathrooms. I'd chosen the colors a long time ago; it was mostly a matter of having the extra money to spend on it. (How I can make a decent income, with only myself on which to spend it, & still be constantly broke, is one of my life's mysteries.) Anyway. On to the story!

Here is the bathroom before:


Now, I love blue. In fact, I intend to paint my record room a lovely sky blue & then sponge clouds on it (shut up. It will be classy). But this...this is grotesque. The worst part is, it's actually TWO nasty shades of blue. To wit:


Et voila!:


It definitely photographs very, very oddly. If I don't use a flash, it's too orange. If I use the flash, it's too pink. Slow synchro seems to work the best, but it's a little too bright. Heh. The funny part is, I actually really like this, but at night, it seems as bright as the first picture. With daylight, it calms down a bit, like the below picture. Both were, for the record, taken at around the same time.

It's definitely somewhat disconcerting to stand in the living room & look at the kitchen & the WC simultaneously. The kitchen is done in such cool colors, & these are so hot, but with the Olive Tree of the living room in between them, it works. For the record, I used Ralph Lauren Vintage Masters in Gertrude, Pink Sunset & Olive Tree with a satin finish (yuck. I HATE shiny finishes, but the paint guys told me you have to use 'em in bathrooms). There were two nice things about this round of painting: one, painting bathrooms is not nearly so inconvenient to the flow of daily life as painting the living room & the kitchen were; & two, at this point I've painted enough that I can chill out about it & not get super-stressed.

But the bestest part of all? I finally got to put Tom where he belongs:


In the WC, facing the toilet. Aaahhh...a little something is right with the world once more.

"I Wanted To Make People Happy, If Only For An Hour"

Busby Berkeley is GOD. End of sentence. Period. Oh my word. I always knew the most perfectest time to explore the realm of Busby Berkeley would come upon me one day. AND IT DID. I can't believe it took me this long.

I rented Gold Diggers of 1933. Every moment of "The Shadow Waltz" segment made me gasp. The moment the glowing violins came into play, I knew I was in love. I watched it five times in a row (um, the segment, not the whole movie). Then I immediately bought the boxed set. Recently released by Warner Brothers (who, for the record, seem to have the best collection of classic movies), it packages together 42nd Street, the aforementioned Gold Diggers plus Gold Diggers of 1935, Dames, Footlight Parade & a bonus disc with a number of standalone numbers of Berkeley's from other films.

I am creaming my shorts. Seriously, Berkeley's musical sequences are perfect, dazzling cinema. If ever anybody asked for an example of the joyous heights to which film can not only aspire but in fact reach, I would show them the "By a Waterfall" sequence from Footlight Parade. I'm not sure I've ever experienced anything so intensely, purely visceral as Berkeley's numbers within the realm of narrative cinema. There aren't enough superlatives in the English language to do justice to the magnificence. The surrounding "plots", which were helmed by other directors such as Mervyn LeRoy, are generally so much piffle, but they're fun piffle, anyway. My one complaint is that Dick Powell is a chipmunk-cheeked ass.

And also, Fred Astaire can suck it. I recently also watched Top Hat. One of the extras was a short documentary in which Astaire's disdain for the camera acrobatics of Berkeley is revealed, & he is "credited" (I would say "blamed") for the movie musical's return to the still camera, head-to-toe two-shot formula. "Either the camera dances or I do" he is reputed to have said.

Personally, I think I'll keep dancing with Busby. I am SO EXCITED to watch the other four discs.

FREEDOM!

Desecrating the main memorial to Wallace with a
load of crap: Mel Gibson as William Wallace

Braveheart is without a doubt the absolute worst Best Picture Academy Award winner I've ever seen. Which means it beats Shakespeare in Love. It beats Titantic. Granted, I don't waste a terrible lot of my time trying to keep up with the Oscars' ideas of "best" pictures, & I know somebody who insists that David Lean's Bridge Over the River Kwai is worse.

As far as Oscars go, I think all you really have to do to explain the Academy Awards is look at the original recipients (yes, that's right: there were TWO Best Pictures in 1927): Wings, which won because it had loads of special effects & was a box office smash, & Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, which is possibly the best film F.W. Murnau ever made (& yes, I saw Nosferatu: A
Symphony of Terror) & is certainly nothing short
of a masterpiece. The respective labels bestowed by the Academy were "Outstanding Picture" & "Unique & Artistic Picture". (Apparently following the first year of the awards it was decided that having these two categories was redundant, to which I say HA!) But when a contestant buzzes in on Jeopardy! to question the answer "In 1927, this film won the first Best Picture Oscar", I'd bet ya twenty bucks they come up with "What is Wings?" (And actually, I myself didn't discover that Sunrise was so awarded until several years after my initial viewing of the picture.) ANYWAY, & YES, there IS a point, the Academy Awards long ago chose the path of consensus over true merit. Occasionally, the two collide (the most recent example would be The Return of the King); but rarely.

Still, it's quite an accomplishment to be the worst. And Braveheart is so resolutely terrible that I rather enjoyed it, not unlike Conan the Barbarian. Mel Gibson's cry of "FREEEEDDDDOOOMM!!!!" whilst splayed out in the classic Christ crucifixation pose moments before being beheaded AFTER being tortured, is friggin' hysterical. And the whole love scene with the princess is CLASSICALLY gratuitous & nonsensical.

But ALL I could think about, during nearly the entirety of the movie, was: how did these people cop squats? Like, if they were marching toward battle in a big field & there weren't any trees or large rocks, well, they'd just have to break out & do it, right? Were they so accustomed to that sort of thing that they didn't even bother with trees, even when they were there to be had? Were there outhouses in 1280 AD? Or did they have shit trenches? Did they wipe with leaves, or with their hands? Or did they have cloths like in "Frontier House"?

And what if they had to take a shit in the midst of a battle? I'd imagine you couldn't exactly say "Pardon me, I need to run over to the side here to relieve my bowels". So did they shit themselves or what? IS THIS WHY THE SCOTS WORE KILTS?

I'm almost embarrassed to admit it, but I generally have at least one thought of this kind any time I watch something that takes place in the time prior to indoor plumbing. See, I *heart* indoor plumbing. I'm a fan. I cannot conceive of living in a time without flushing toilets & daily hot showers. Therefore, I tend to be obsessed with the thought of not having it.

Dear East Coast,

Here is reason #342 why I DON'T MISS being enfolded in your hot, fetid, sweaty, bug-filled, moist bosoms:


Not at all. Not in the least. Ew. I'd imagine there are some fever-worthy temperatures accompanying that rash. DOUBLE EW.

First, Last & Only

Far be it from me to make such bold proclamations, but I've never before commented on Oprah's Book Club & I hardly think it possible that I should be moved to comment again after this.

And actually, I don't think I know anybody who laps up Oprah-tastic reading selections like so much spoiled milk, but just in case I'd like to proffer a friendly warning with regard to her latest suggested title:

Middlesex sucks. So much so that I very nearly stopped reading it at the turn of every page; of course, given my sometimes masochistic bent toward finishing every book or movie I start, regardless of how wretched (Martin Scorsese's The Age of Innocence comes to mind as an early & enduring example), I did in fact read the entire horrid thing. In my defense, I thoroughly adored Jeffrey Eugenides' first novel, The Virgin Suicides (& was equally miffed when Sofia Coppola made her film adaptation, given my secret yearning to make one myself); so naturally I presumed that Middlesex would overcome its initial crappy trappings. Alas! 'Twas not to be.

In conclusion, do yourself a favor should you see this book, copies of which will undoubtedly forevermore be stamped with the "O" seal of approval: run. Run fast. Run far. Just run. Though to be sure Mr. Eugenides accrued accolades aplenty for this work, enough to cement my opinion into that of a dissenting minority of readers. And I'm certain that Oprah's endorsement will do much more for sales than that silly old Pulitzer Prize he won.

I will still buy his next book as soon as it comes out. After all, he is clearly a Serious Writer:

Visions of Christmas Lights Passed Before Me

Apparently this year marks the 100th anniversay of Portland's Rose Festival. I've never attended any of the festivities; Scio's Lamb & Wool Fair was good enough for us. This year, though, figuring as the downtown PDX activities are about three miles walking distance each way, I thought I'd do well to at least check it out.

Saturday night was the Starlight Parade. Although visions of luminescent glowing floats loomed large in my mind, the quickly realized reality was that it was a fairly hokey parade featuring loads of Christmas lights strung on cars & marching bands with glowing spots on their hats. An instance where I would have done well to nurse the fantasy & neglect the reality. C'est la vie. See here for a few pictures. (What I wouldn't give to have a digital camera that takes decent nighttime shots without a tripod!) It might have helped my experience had I not chosen to stand on Morrison Street angling toward Fourth Avenue, which seemed like a perfectly lovely way to both see the parade & not be crushed amongst the madding crowd; until the parade started & I realized that indeed, the Max was going to continue to run (& frequently stop in front of me) throughout the duration of the parade. Awesome.

Eventually, I was overcome by squalling brats & a harrassing homeless man who touched my ass. Twice. Suspecting this was a ploy on his part to get me to turn around so he could demand a donation for a cheap plastic American flag , I was steadfast in my refusal to acknowledge him & eventually he went away. The nasty children, however, did not & ultimately along with the lack of glowing awesomeness led to my early departure.

I've heard that the Grand Floral Parade which happens this coming weekend is the big one, the one to go to; but honestly I'm not big on either parades or crowds in the first place, & it was only the promise of shiny lights that whetted my interest in the Starlight Parade. I would, however, like to see the Dragon Boat Races, having already been unknowingly privy to the Dragon Boat Practices.

Also, & this is only because it occurred to me as I sojourned toward the parade, for the record, I am so happy to live in a city this friggin' gorgeous. Clean. Green. Laid-back. Friendly. And flat. Yes, flat is a strong virtue, at least when one abhors city driving (& more precisely, city parking) & adores taking long urban walks. So maybe it rains a little during the winter. But, man, if what you get for that is a nice sunny summer with NO HUMIDITY & NO HORRID THUNDERSTORMS (it's nearly enough to make me bemoan the years I wasted in the weather-hell of the Northeast/Southeast U.S.) & loads of lovely greenness & so many beautiful flowers, well, I will take the winter rain, thank you.

Complete & Utter Pap

***SPOILERS*** - nothing you couldn't discern from the first ten minutes of the film, & probably if you had any interest in seeing it you would have already, but nonetheless.

I like Johnny Depp. I like Kate Winslet. I like Julie Christie. But Finding Neverland is, in the Miramax/Johnny Depp lexicon, more in line with the sappy Chocolat than the elegiac Dead Man.

It is, in a word, dreck. Or perhaps it falls more fittingly under the category of balderdash.

The film purports to tell the story of the creation of that already dodgy theatrical icon, Peter Pan, by means of exploring the playwright J.M. Barrie's friendship with a quartet of forlorn fatherless tykes & their tubercular mother. Which is not quite exactly the circumstances under which the real-life Barrie's relationship with the Llewelyn-Davies family was formed. Actually, it's absolutely nothing like it. Mrs. Llewelyn-Davies' husband was still alive when Mr. Barrie entered their lives. She didn't have tuberculosis at all, but I suppose that cancer doesn't easily lend itself to the ever-so-subtle & original cinematic foreshadowing of "Mother has a chest cold". There were five boys, not a film-friendly four. The family was not as bereft as the film would lead you to believe - Barrie first encountered the children in the care of their nanny.

I'm choking on the warm fuzzies

The machinations of the film's plot are so smoothly oiled that not only is it patently obvious that liberties have been taken, but it's clear in several places exactly what those liberties are. Even before undertaking a brief Wikipedia search. Although I'm not by any stretch staunch in my opposition to such glossings-over, when they are held in the service of one big Peep of a film, little more than toothachingly sweet fluff gilded in crunchy colored sugar, it makes my stomach hurt. This film was made to make you cry & I'll be honest - it did make me cry, in much the same way that a Campbell's soup commercial did when I was eight. The same way that The Joy-Luck Club made me cry. Useless tears, shamelessly provoked.

Radha Mitchell as Mary Barrie

As for the actors who instigated my viewing of the film; well, Kate Winslet is as impossibly lovely as always in the accolade-friendly role of the mother & Johnny Depp gives an astonishing turn as the playwright (good work on the accent, Johnny). Julie Christie doesn't have much with which to work, but then again, the enduringly beautiful Ms. Christie generally accepts acting roles only to supplement her political work (ahem, Dragonheart, anyone?), where her passions truly lie, so while mildly disappointing, it's not terribly surprising. However, it is Radha Mitchell's performance as Barrie's emotionally abandoned wife which truly stands out. She invests an otherwise thankless role with more depth than the standard surface antipathy to her husband's growing involvement with the Llewelyn-Davies. Hers is a wound stemming not from simple jealousy, not envy because her husband is sharing his "secret world" with other people, but from the fact that even as he hands it out to others, he steadfastly refuses to share it with her, which is something she desperately wants. It is clear that he has left her long before she physically leaves him. It's a treat to see such a well-rounded performance in a stock part.

Unfortunately, it's all for naught, as Finding Neverland is nothing more than another mediocre Miramax schlock-fest masquerading as "quality" "independent" "film" which nobody will remember in twenty years' time.

P.S. The filmmakers totally made up that crap about the orphans at the play's premiere. Which kind of pisses me off, because it seemed so fucking ridiculous that it had to have actually happened, & it was one of the film's few moments that I found genuinely touching. But the unveiling of the truth does get to the heart of my disdain for the film - I enjoy the myriad of complex emotions which film is capable of evoking. I do not, however, find it particularly enjoyable when a film tries to play me like a violin.

Beer + Movies = Awesome

As though there were any question.

My cherished childhood dream of attending a theater-pub came true this weekend. All right, cherished teenage dream, but still. The other day I saw this kid whom I would have guessed was 12 climb behind the driver's wheel of a car. BY HIMSELF. I think that my teen years have officially passed over into "childhood".

(Note: I'd claim ***spoilers*** but I'm inclined to think my memories are not very indicative of what actually happened. Anyhoo, proceed at your own risk.)

I suspect the Rodriguez/Tarantino masturbatory spectacular Grindhouse would have been far less enjoyable without alcohol. In fact, I recall startlingly little of Death Proof, though that third pitcher of beer may have had an untoward influence on my memory. I do remember that some girl had great bangs & boobs. Apparently she was killed off. See, the way I remember it is, there was one group of girls in the beginning who were sitting around talking about lapdances or something & then Kurt Russell scared Rose McGowan, who wasn't one of the group & I'm pretty sure he also killed her. Then at some point the lapdance girls kind of morphed into these other girls who were driving in a car. And Kurt Russell wanted to kill all the girls, though why on earth he'd want to do such a thing is beyond my comprehension. They totally had a car-fight. There was also a lot of talking.

Planet Terror had a bit more resonance, being as it was the first feature shown. Yet surprisingly I have even less to say about it. Um, Naveen Andrews + severed testicles also = awesome. And, zombies! Watch out!

I'm guessing that the critics who saw Grindhouse were not drunk, because upon closer inspection the general consensus seems to be that Death Proof, in the spirit of Monte Hellman & Two-Lane Blacktop, is actually a good movie; while Planet Terror is more in line with the genuinely bad strain of zombie movies. I, on the other hand, would have to say that Marley Shelton mangling her own hand was better than two films' worth of Kurt Russell being a baddie.

Regarding the theater itself: half of the rows at the Laurelhurst have counters in front of them, for simple! beer! storage! It was awesome. We, sadly, arrived too late to claim such a row; however, our manly handling of the floor-bound pitcher was commendable & no beer was harmed.

An illustrated conclusion (I think the girl in the cheerleader outfit may be the one with the bangs'n'boobs. I am very, very sad that I don't remember this AT ALL):


Where are they? What are they doing? Was Rosario Dawson really in this movie? Did I fall asleep...?

Happy Friday Dear April

Good things:

(1) First holiday weekend after the loooong post-President's Day dry spell.

(2) I've got one of them there jobs where the office closes at 2 p.m. the Friday before the holiday, which I used to think was stupid...until I lived it.

(3) Seattle-ites are invading my house this weekend. They will go roller skating with me.

(4) Aaaand...the icing on the cake: eBay just notified me that these beautiful creatures are for sale:


OMG!!!1!!11! Perfect. Considering I totally JUST DECIDED yesterday that my gray legwarmers would have nice pink stripes. Besides which I hardly need mention...PUMA ROLLER KITTY. However, there is the possibility that these may slip through my fingers. I'm not paying more than $175 for them. Bidding starts at $55 with six days left. I'm already on edge.