I Can Dig It

Whilst researching ballot measure 65 to ascertain my vote, I discovered that the Oregon state motto is:

"She flies with her own wings"

It doesn't help me determine my vote with regard to the open primary, but I think that's a pretty damn sweet motto.

Best Landscaping Business Name EVER

For the poor of vision, a closer look:


When I officially move up in the world to "bourgeois pig" status, I am totally hiring these guys.

Look! Internets!

I did it, people. I finally took the leap into the land of...paying to be on the lines. Thoroughly modern me, as it were. For instance, it's raining right this second. Heavily. And I can show you, look:


This is wild.

Furniture Is Sexy

At least, my furniture is. Seriously. Marvel at my most recent acquisition:


It also has me all hot for winter. Me! Looking forward to the rainy season! So I can justify curling up on my beautiful chaise longue with a blanket & a book. In my slippers. Mmm, tasty.

Now all I have to do is reupholster it! Which I suspect will not be super-fun for me, but whatever. Just another step in my gradual transition to becoming a girl who can do all sorts of manly things, like hang pictures & fix futons & assemble shelves. It's like there's a river of testosterone coursing through my veins. Anyway. I have already found the fabric to replace the yellow bits. It goes somethin' like this:


Oh yeah. Now I just need to find the right touchably soft (the tactile sensation is absolutely every bit as important as the visual one) solid base color. One that will not only complement the patterned fabric but also go with my olive green walls, orange couch & purple chair. For of the many pejoratives one could hurl my direction, being afraid of color numbers not amongst them.

In other news: Prince is definitely way better than Michael Jackson. I know that's pretty obvious, but every time I answered "Prince", a little voice in my head whispered "Off the Wall...Off the Wall". That voice has been silenced.

And, also, is it just me or does Sarah Palin seem more like George W. Bush as every day passes? Ahem: "Interviews show that Ms. Palin runs an administration that puts a premium on loyalty and secrecy."

For the record, I am really totally pissed at both the Democratic & Republican parties for actually making me care about this election. I mean, beyond my usual research'n'vote approach to elections, I am actually terrified by the thought that one particular candidate might win. Which is funny given that as recently as four years ago, I said that he was the only major party candidate who would get my vote in a presidential election. That was before he turned into a pandering, groveling jackass.

Whoa

So, my scary new medication says DON'T GET PREGNANT (along with some other rather frightening "don't's" & "you coulds" (like, um, I could GO BLIND. Jesus) in 12 million different places. But this is truly priceless:


I am saving these. Every last pill-encasing NO BABIES one of them. A wonderful, yet-to-be-imagined destiny awaits them.

Also - dig that price:



So, I took my first pill last night. This is how much it cost to get to that point: $1,118. Pre-health insurance. For a drug that could make me go blind, hear voices, burn a hole in my esophagus if I don't swallow it completely, &/or give me Flipper babies. Nosebleeds are the most innocuous side effect on the list. Post-health insurance? I've dished out $30. I cannot imagine trying to exist in this country without health insurance. Holy crap.

Also, note to self: DO NOT ignore recommendation to take with food. Learned that one awful quick!

Say Hello, Part II!

About a month ago, I bought myself an early birthday present. However, it took me three weeks to name her, & four weeks to shell out the bucks to outfit her. She's not quite pimped out yet, but hey, we got time, it'll happen.

Without further ado, then...this is Clara Bow!



And here is Clara, not quite so lovingly lit, but clad in the jewelry which I purchased for her the other day - flashing head & tail lights; Kryptonite lock; front basket (essential, as Clara's primary function is to transport me to & fro my favorite grocery stores); & helmet (Oregon has no helmet law, but given my propensity to fall down whilst merely walking, the province of April has enacted its own helmet law):



Isn't she delicious? Granted, I'm mildly concerned because she is a single-speed cruiser with a coaster brake, but I knew none of this when I saw her shining at me from a bicycle shop in NW Portland. All I saw was her gleaming iridescent pearly ladypart pinkness. I even coordinated my helmet & headlight choices to mirror the grey accents on the frame. Yes. I am an anal little aesthete. (NB: Bicycle helmets, as I discovered to my chagrin, do not come in "cute". I did my best - pewter with blue & pink bubbles.)

My bicycle lust has been sated! I love Clara. Now I just need to start riding her.

August Staff Picks

I never got around to July. Whatever. FYI, they were: Bonjour Tristesse, Leave Her to Heaven, L'Atalante, Tabu & M. Hulot's Holiday.

But July is so far gone it's practically last July. Besides, August marks a redundantly momentous moment in the life of yours truly: thirty! Yes indeedy. I can't wait. I've been over my twenties for years now. Clearly I needed to honor the occasion within my August staff picks. However, despite my most noble efforts to unearth five decent movies about turning thirty, I ran headfirst into a brick wall at precisely three: 13 Going on 30, Logan's Run & Beautiful Girls. I mean, sure, there are movies about Zach Braff turning 30 & there are movies based on Douglas Coupland books about people turning 30, but...ew. I wouldn't even watch those, let alone "recommend" them. So I instead chose to feature American movies released in 1978. After much thought & careful consideration, I came up with:


Days of Heaven, Terrence Malick, 1978. But of course. Beautiful, stunning, etc. Ignore Gerbil Ass & marvel at the Malickability of it. And give thanks to the gods that made Malick's first choice star, John Travolta, unavailable. Glorious. If we had five copies, I would have made it all five of my picks.

Coming Home, Hal Ashby, 1978. Hmm...so my two most favorite American movie directors of the 1970s, Malick & Ashby, both just happened to release films during the year in which I was born. Oh, AND Haskell Wexler, one of my favorite cinematographers, shot both of them (although Nester Almendros has primary credit for Days, he had to leave the production early.) Coincidence? Sure. But this one's still a keeper, even if it is a bit heavy-handed nowadays. Then again, the more things change... At any rate, I'm absolutely mad for Bruce Dern's last scene; & if you've only seen Jon Voight in, ahem, Zoolander (like me), you're in for a treat! Penelope Milford is excellent as well.

Piranha, Joe Dante, 1978. The evil bastardos team of bound-for-Gremlins Dante & John Sayles (yep, the same one) totally sock it to the campground kiddies! Per the commentary, I apparently have Roger Corman to thank for so delighting my misanthropic inclinations - seems he instituted a maximum-gore-per-reel policy which didn't see fit to save the children. Also, the piranha noise is fabulous AND it all ends in a most fantastically un-PC fashion. Heh. I hear that in the sequel (James Cameron's first movie, if you care) they breed with...wait for it...flying fish. Oh yes.

The Cat from Outer Space, Norman Tokar, 1978. Cats! Well, a cat! From outer space! With Roddy McDowell, who's also from outer space! Although I loved it as a child, this is not a good movie. In fact, when I found out that I'd confused it with That Darn Cat & it didn't feature spunky Hayley Mills as I'd originally thought, I struck it from my list. But then the Donna Summer disco movie Thank God It's Friday turned out be a real stinker, & when I watched Heaven Can Wait I finally admitted that I actively dislike Warren Beatty, & following that I ran out of time to come up with anything else. The cat talks though! And he's all sassy & droll.

Dawn of the Dead, George Romero, 1978. Fine. You want to get all technical, this was released in the U.S. in April 1979. To which I reply, so? It premiered at Cannes in 1978, bitches. Eat my brain. Zombies, a Goblin (or, er, "The Goblins" as they're credited here) soundtrack & a cutesy little satire of American consumerism? Yeah, I stretched the rules for that. Besides, we don't have Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.

For September, I'm doing something French. Either softcore pr0n, or candy-coated movies with realism filling (think The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, which puts my own color sensibilities, of which I feel justly proud, to shame & makes me tear up more the older I get (because of the story, not the colors)) or Robert Bresson. I've not decided which.

To Future April, Around January 2009

It won't last forever.

Love,
Past-Present April

Cats Playing Jazz

No, seriously.

CATS

PLAYING

MOTHERFUCKING

JAZZ

I am in love, love, LOVE with The Aristocats.

So much so that I can almost actually forgive Disney for ruining The Little Mermaid for ten-year-old Me with its fake happy ending. Because frankly Me didn't see what, exactly, was so terribly unhappy about the main character not only not getting the guy, but sacrificing her own happiness for the sake of his & dying because of it; & having her very selflessness allow her to enter heaven rather than becoming mere foam on the sea like her mer-brethren. It's Hans Christian Andersen, for fuck's sake.

I mean, compared to my all-time favorite Andersen tale The Travelling Companion's macabre S&M beatings & my second favorite tale The Red Shoes' gruesome body-part cost of avarice (not to mention The Little Freakin' Poor, Cold, Motherless & Oh Yeah, Dead Match Girl), the mermaid's demise is positively sunny!

But I became burdened with a gravity ill-suited to my years at an early age, which it then took me several subsequent years to learn to leaven with equal parts sparkles'n'sunshine.

And behold! Sparkles'n'sunshine made cartoon:


Aaaahhhh. On a less-than-stellar day of painful cornea sunburn, ten-percent-jacked-up apartment rent notice, & being so temporarily choked with bile that I spent several minutes really, really trying to think of a way to make the horn-playing men outside the French bakery cry, this fully restored my spirits. Now, I can't promise that you'll like it; but it hits every one of my cute-buttons.

Full-on HURRAH!

Mmmmmmmmmmm

Yesterday I was here.

Today I am not.

Yesterday was worth the sun burning my corneas & leaving me in flaming waves of vicious eye pain, paranoid that my vision would be permanently scarred.**

If I'm wrong & there in fact IS a heaven, this is what mine would be. Of course, if I'm wrong, I don't think heaven is quite where I'm going to find myself in the end.

** I'm still in flaming waves of pain, but I can see clearly enough today. That three-hour drive home wins third place in my list of all-time worst driving experiences.

Scary!

So, I'm going to start taking a medication.

A month from now.

Because they have to really, really, really make sure I'm not pregnant before I can take it. Twice from piss and once from blood (the kind they take out with a needle. Sheesh). I had to fill out two consent forms. And they sent me off with a shiny red-covered coloring book. Nah, not really; but it's the shape & size of a coloring book & has all sorts of elementary diagrams. I also have to promise to use two forms of birth control the entire time I'm on the meds. Pssst, book-makers: I have, by now, sussed out how condoms work. But I sure am looking forward to breaking out my crayons tonight.

And then, the entire time I'm on it - which could be anywhere between five to eighteen months (!) - I have to go in every month & get a needle stuck in my arm again to prove I'm not pregnant. Plus go on a website & take a little quiz (sample question, no joke: what is a primary form of birth control?). Also, I can't give blood. Which makes me wonder how my organ donor status is affected, then.

See, the medication causes all sorts of nasty birth defects. Honestly, if I had any intention of shooting babies out of my uterus, like, ever, I would think once or thirty times before taking it.

Oh, and beyond that, I had to solemnly swear & initial in two places to tell my doctor if I start seeing things, hearing things, or feeling despondent, er, beyond the usual malaise. Like life-endingly despondent. So...not a medication I would have wanted to take as a tween. Or a teenager. Or when I was twenty two. Or anytime from about October '06 to August '07, when I was going through this super-fun thing called Disassociation for the second time. Tho' to its, um, credit, the second verse was mildly different than the first! Good times.

And after all this, can I tell you? I don't even have any scary medical condition. At all. Not like that time a couple years ago when my doctor thought I had cancer. Two weeks before I was set to move cross-country. Luckily, I was too busy to think, let alone despair; & then it was revealed to be naught but a false alarm.

We are awfully susceptible lot of miscreants.

Just Another Snobby Old Movie**

When I was a wee lass, I had in my possession a film guide. It had a still from Top Gun on the cover, with one or two tacky blue clip art renderings of film strips placed diagonally. The paper was that weird not-quite-newspaper, not-quite-book paper. It offered short capsule reviews of maybe 1,000 movies or so.

And for some reason, it had a profound influence on me.

I read it over & over & over again. Endlessly. Even after it grew so worn that the cover fell off. I still remember things like the picture of Anthony Hopkins from Magic &, yes, even the two-star rating given that film. Moreover, this book is why 1986 is my cut-off year - anything that happened after '86 feels recent, contemporary (the book was published that year). I cannot, however, recall its title.


One of the films it reviewed was this cheesy, tacky looking thing called Angel, released in 1984. The picture illustrating the review was an image of the movie's poster, which had the tag line "High school honor student by day. Hollywood hooker by night."


Friends, I have waited lo! these twenty two years for an opportunity to see this movie. I can't help it. I freakin' love that tag line. And those clothes! I have periodically checked Netflix on several occasions, only to turn away empty-handed.

No more.

I have now at my disposal a veritable cornucopia of teen genius hooker movies - Angel. Avenging Angel. And, oh yes, Angel III: The Final Chapter. I cannot tell you how excited I am. Of course, I know that this movie will very likely let me down. The thrill of the chase will be over. But, you know, if it means I get to realize a long-cherished goal, I think I can handle it.

Besides, it doesn't look like anybody's gonna put Summer Camp Nightmare on DVD anytime soon. The dream lives!



**A patron at the video store at which I work called me "snobby" after he asked what new releases I would recommend. I told him I didn't really watch a lot of new movies, & when queried, elaborated that I have an awful lot of catching up to do when it comes to cinema history. At which point I was dubbed "snobby". Whatever. Dude name-checked Birth of a Nation as the beginning of cinema. Fucking pleb.

Question

Mr. Pedestrian Symbol, I can overlook the lack of hands & feet, but...WHY NO NECK?

I Would Watch This Movie

Ideally, the Beavers would have to team up with their heretofore sworn enemies, the Butts, in order to defeat Las Vegas.


There's a little tear in my eye at the very thought of it.

Unbated Breath

Despite knowing next to nothing about it, beyond its truly marvelous title, I desperately* want to see Kung Fu Panda. Because of, well, its truly marvelous title.

Just in case you were wondering where I stood on that important issue.

* "Desperately" meaning "I will see it in three months when it plays at the Laurelhurst as long as it plays at grown-up times & not just at 1 p.m. on the weekend when kids are allowed in".

That's A Relief

"I don't care about anybody else."

That's not entirely true; but! on Saturday I was talking with somebody, & somehow the subject of organic food came up. I mentioned that recently I had switched to eating almost exclusively organic produce, since I'm a lucky enough bastard to be in a position to afford it & it has become important to me. The person was pretty strongly against organic food, because organic food companies oppose feeding starving people GMOs or something? I don't know. I didn't care. In fact, his diatribe prompted that six-word gem quoted above.

Although it was said largely in the interest of ending a conversation for which I cared not, I'd like to think this negates my hippie-dippie "ecological footprint" moment (see previous post). Understand, it's not the sentiment behind the thought; hey, I wipe my ass with recycled toilet paper & clean my toilet with "eco-friendly" products. It's more the very naturalness of the thought; the way it suddenly just tumbled uninvited into my mind, stood up, dusted itself off & asked me to make it a cocktail.

In short, I'd like to think that the latter statement smacked the former in the face. Just for the sake of perspective. Because I am currently living in abject terror of attaining "unbearably sanctimonious" status.* Fight the power!

*This could happen sooner than you think. Recently I was getting a cup of tea when I saw my boss throw an empty tea box into the trash. Without thinking (it seems I should give this "thinking" thing a try sometime!), I instantly barked, "[Name], NO! Recycle!" Yep. Because it's always a great idea to start the morning by yelling at your boss.

True Story

Last night I was laboriously washing & drying the twenty four 8-ounce Rubbermaid containers I had just purchased for storing cat food.

(Aside: I started making raw cat food for Audun in 2000, when he was but a wee adorable kitten, using a recipe that a friend gave me. Fast forward to 2004 - I told my vet in Virginia that Audun ate a raw food diet. She freaked out, 'cause she said that there wasn't any taurine in a raw food diet, & not having taurine leads to kitty heart problems. Then, she listened to Audun's heart & said he had a heart murmur. Now, my cat = my child. There is nothing I wouldn't do for Audun (or Xavier). So I freaked out, I cried, & then I got rational. I realized that he exhibited every sign of being perfectly healthy & that maybe, just maybe, my vet had heard that for which she was looking. Nonetheless, I immediately started feeding Audun super-processed cat food, like Iams.

(Last year, when I took Audun to his new vet for an annual check up, I explained the situation. My new vet (whom I thoroughly recommend, FYI), funnily enough, did not hear a heart murmur.

(Fast forward again to this year & my absolute horror at discovering what, exactly, it's okay to put in processed pet food. Like sick livestock that you can't use for people food. Grains which are unfit for human consumption. Bones. Intestines. Possibly even other cats & dogs that have been put to sleep because of illness. Ew. Okay, I stop now. But for illustrative purposes, these are the contents of one type of Hills Science Diet canned food, which is what I was feeding them before the hippie freak thing happened (bear with me - I've turned into a label-reading whore):

Water, Chicken, Turkey Giblets, Meat By-Products, Liver, Powdered Cellulose, Corn Starch, Wheat Flour, Chicken Fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols and citric acid), Soybean Meal, Corn Gluten Meal, Chicken Liver Flavor, Titanium Dioxide, Guar Gum, Soybean Oil, Brewers Dried Yeast, Iodized Salt, Choline Chloride, Locust Bean Gum, Potassium Chloride, Calcium Carbonate, Carrageenan, Calcium Sulfate, Dicalcium Phosphate, Taurine, DL-Methionine, Vitamin E Supplement, Thiamine Mononitrate, Ascorbic Acid (source of vitamin C), Zinc Oxide, Ferrous Sulfate, Beta-Carotene, Niacin, Manganous Oxide, Copper Sulfate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Calcium Pantothenate, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Riboflavin, Biotin, Vitamin D3 Supplement, Calcium Iodate, Folic Acid, Sodium Selenite.

(Now, I don't know a whole lot about nutrition. But I do know that "meat by-products" includes bones, feathers, even feces - basically anything that comes from an animal. And I do mean anything. And "cellulose"? According to Wikipedia, cellulose "is the major constituent of paper and cardboard and of textiles made from cotton, linen and other plant fibers." Mmm, tasty. Also, WTF is chicken liver "flavor"? If I had the time & the stomach for it, I could probably come up with all sorts of gross things to say about this food. The point is, I decided that I didn't want to feed my cats that stuff. And here are the ingredients for what I did start buying, Organix Organic Canned Formula for Cats:

Organic Turkey, Chicken Broth, Organic Brown Rice, Organic Chicken, Organic Chicken Liver, Organic Guar Gum, Organic Rice Protein Concentrate, Tricalcium Phosphate, Sea Salt, Calcium Sulfate, Organic Flaxseed Meal, Potassium Chloride, Choline Chloride, Vitamins (Vitamin E, A, D3, B12 Supplements, Thiamine Mononitrate, Niacin, d-Calcium Pantothenate, Pyroxidine Hydrochloride, Riboflavin Supplement, Folic Acid, Biotin), Minerals (Ferrous Sulfate, Zinc Oxide, Copper Proteinate, Manganous Sulfate, Potassium Iodide, Sodium Selenite), Taurine.

(Much better, clearly, & props for using sea salt, but since I'm loathe to buy seafood nowadays, there are only two varieties I can feed my kitties. Kinda boring. Also, at $1.50 per can, I figured that I could just freakin' make cat food & have it cost about the same.

(So I got Dr. Pitcairn's Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs & Cats. Which I highly recommend, if for nothing else than the information on nutrition. Turns out that if your cat eats raw meat, they get taurine from that. Makes sense, right? The buggers had to survive centuries without processed pet food somehow. And this is what my kitties are eating now, the "Feline Feast" recipe:

Pacific Village Ground Chicken, Pacific Village Ground Beef, Organic Polenta, Organic Eggs, Healthy Powder (Nutritional Yeast, Lecithin Granules, Bonemeal, Kelp Powder), Wheatgerm Oil, Vegetable Oil, Eggshell Powder.

(The chicken is vegetarian-fed, antibiotic-free, & free-range. The beef is hormone- & antibiotic-free, grass-fed & local. All of the supplements are sold for human consumption. The only thing I couldn't find was a liquid vitamin A supplement to add - I'm working on it. Apparently cod liver oil does the trick, but I don't want to spend $15 on something that, per Dr. Pitcairn, my cats "might" accept. So, last night I made them "Mackerel Loaf" as their next recipe to compensate:

Mackerel, Organic Pasteurized Milk, Organic Bulgur, Organic Eggs, Healthy Powder (Nutritional Yeast, Lecithin Granules, Bonemeal, Kelp Powder), Wheatgerm Oil, Vegetable Oil, Eggshell Powder.

(Okay, yeah, I did feel guilty about using the mackerel. Seafood from a can. Although it is safer than tuna, because it's not such a predator & thus is less likely to accumulate mercury. But it was gross & I don't think I'll use it again. But still, way better than "meat by-products", y'know?

(Longest parenthetical aside EVER!)

So in case you forgot where we were:

Last night I was laboriously washing & drying the twenty four 8-ounce Rubbermaid containers I had just purchased for storing cat food.

As I was so doing, on top of all the other ramifications & implications of the homemade pet food thing, I actually had this thought:

"You know, by using these [washable, reusable] containers, I'll also be reducing my ecological footprint."

No, seriously. That was my exact thought. And it is but the latest in a long change-chain, every new link more surprising & cringe-worthy than the last. What is HAPPENING to me?

I think I've been infected by Portland.

America! Fuck Yeah!

Whoa. Would you be surprised if I told you that one 32 ounce Baskin-Robbins Heath shake contains 320% of the recommended daily amount of saturated fat? Based on a 2,000 calorie diet. The shake, for the record, has 2,310 calories. At least you get 120% of your daily calcium! For shits & giggles, I've put the sugars in bold, since my newest nutrition enemy is sugar (except in fruit. I heart fruit & will never ever stop eating it. And, um, in my coffee. But! I've decided sugar is better than the aspartame I used to use. And, also? I've reduced my coffee consumption to less than five cups per week. Not great, but a vast improvement).

Ingredients: reduced fat milk, heath bar crunch ice cream (cream, nonfat milk, caramel ribbon (corn syrup, sweetened condensed whole milk (milk, sugar), water, high fructose corn syrup, butter (cream, salt), propylene glycol, sodium alginate, salt, natural and artificial vanilla flavors, potassium sorbate (preservative), soy lecithin, annatto color, sodium bicarbonate, propyl paraben (preservative)) , heath® bar candy pieces [milk chocolate (sugar, cocoa butter, chocolate, nonfat milk, milk fat, lactose, soy lecithin (an emulsifier), salt, and vanillin (an artificial flavoring)), sugar, palm oil, dairy butter (milk), almonds, salt, artificial flavoring, and soy lecithin], sugar, corn syrup, toffee base (sweetened condensed whole milk, high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, water, natural flavor, disodium phosphate, and salt), whey powder, cellulose gum, mono and diglycerides, guar gum, carrageenan, polysorbate 80), fudge topping (corn syrup, sugar, water, hydrogenated coconut oil, nonfat milk, cocoa (treated with alkali), modified corn starch, salt, sodium bicarbonate, disodium phosphate, potassium sorbate (a preservative), natural and artificial flavors, soy lecithin), jamoca ice cream (cream, nonfat milk, sugar, corn syrup, jamoca extract (coffee extract, sugar, potassium sorbate and methyl paraben (as preservatives)) whey, caramel color, cellulose gum, mono and diglycerides, carrageenan, polysorbate 80, carob bean gum, guar gum), caramel praline topping (corn syrup, sweetened condensed whole mil, water, sugar, modified food starch, butter, salt, propylene glycol, natural and artificial flavor, sodium citrate, xanthan gum, lecithin, potassium sorbate and propyl paraben as preservatives), hershey’s® heath® milk chocolate english toffee (milk chocolate (sugar, cocoa butter, chocolate, nonfat milk, milk fat, lactose, soy lecithin [an emulsifier], salt, and vanillin [an artificial flavoring]), sugar, palm oil, dairy butter (milk), almonds, salt, artificial flavoring, and soy lecithin), whipped cream (whipped cream (cream, milk, sugar, dextrose, nonfat dry milk, artificial flavor, mono & diglycerides, carrageenan, mixed tocopherols (vitamin e), to protect flavor, propellant: nitrous oxide).

For those of you playing along at home, sugar pops up in twenty-four different places. I cannot even begin to approach the other things wrong with this list. Check out that link if you want the rest of the scary "nutrition" facts.

Happy Almost June!

So. I got a part-time job at a video store. It's all part of my evil plan for WORLD DOMINATION. Well. Actually, my evil plan is way less stressful than that & totally hedonistic. The point is, at my part-time video store job, the employees choose "staff picks" every month. I obviously have exquisite taste, so what could be better than being obligated to show off the knowledge gleaned during those years I did nothing but watch movies all day, every day? I get to be silently pretentious. I know. Whoo hoo!

I went for a non-Babette's Feast food(-related) theme for June & chose the following:

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, Luis Bunel, 1972 A bunch of boring Frenchies & the ambassador (diplomat?) from a fake South American country spend the whole movie trying, & failing, to sit down & eat. Clever, if you like Bunuel - & I do, very much. (I personally prefer The Exterminating Angel, where a bunch of people sit down to eat & then can't leave, but - horror! - it's not yet had a proper DVD release. Boo.)

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover - Peter Greenaway, 1989
I gather this is considered summat of a commentary on Thatcherism. I don't know about that, but this is a wickedly excellent, madly disturbing film. Which like as not I will never watch again. I would like to take this opportunity to berate Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix for forcing me to break my solemn vow to never, ever, under no circumstance EVER watch Michael Gambon eat again. Also: Helen Mirren 4ever!

How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman - Nelson Pereira dos Santos, 1973
C'mon. Best movie title in the history of the world. Also, political film? Not so much. I'd shove a broomstick up Godard's ass before I'd ever endure Tout Va Bien again. But somehow, I'm mad for Brazil's Cinema Novo. It manages to be deliriously dreamy & earthy &, heavens forbid, entertaining within its politics. Et tu, Brecht?




Conspirators of Pleasure, Jan Svankmajer, 1996
Hahahahaha. Like the others, it's actually not really about food, although I wouldn't tell that to the postmistress. It's about sexual fetishists in Prague. A pornographic film with no naked bits. And, I daresay, tremendously funny to boot.



The Gold Rush, Charles Chaplin, 1925
Well, really! I'd have been remiss to exclude it. Jolly well brilliant, it is. Besides...Gold Rush relates to Conspirators relates to The Cook, the Thief relates to Frenchman relates to Discreet Charm relates to Gold Rush. I just can't make it a circle for you unless you've seen all five.

What, you thought there wasn't some grand master idea behind all this? I inject all sorts of narrative into my fucking mix CDs, fer chrissakes.

OMG OMG OMG

Holy cow. I think I just hit the motherfucking April jackpot here.

Item 1: Film verson of the musical set to ABBA songs, Mamma Mia, is opening this summer. Did we not just establish that I love ABBA? You may also have noticed that I love musicals. Dare I say it? This could be better than Hairspray.

Item 2: One of my biggest man crushes, Stellan Skarsgard, is in it. I've followed him ever since Breaking the Waves. (I know, I know, kind of a weird character to inspire a sustained crush. Shut up. We've already established that I'm kind of twisted. Besides! In real life, he's apparently dating a buxom 32-year-old. I've got the first one covered like nobody's business; I'm thisclose to 30; and I have better fashion sense than that girl. It could totally happen for me.)

Item 3: Another man crush, Colin Firth, is also in it. He was Darcy, he is Darcy, & he will be Darcy forevermore. Even when he played Amanda Bynes' secret daddy in What a Girl Wants he was Darcy. (And shut up about that one too. Yes. I watched it. The whole thing. Amanda Bynes is fucking adorable & looks thoroughly corruptible.) Although his Darcy-ish Vermeer in Girl with a Pearl Earring was enjoyable. And shhh, I have a secret soft spot for Bridget Jones' Diary & Firth's Darcy-ish Darcy.

Item 4: A third could-be man crush is in it too! His name is Dominic Cooper. I don't know anything about him, but Interview magazine did a story on him a while ago & he looked cute in his picture. Plus, British! Can't go wrong. I have to reserve judgment however until I actually see him move & hear him talk.

Item 5: Amanda Seyfried is in it. Although I do not have a girl crush on her, I do think she's awfully talented (ref: Mean Girls, "Big Love") & pretty.

18 July 2008, people. I. Can't. Wait. It's gonna be fucking epic fun.

Hurraher! & Hurrahest!

Sorry. Life is good.

1) ABBA's Voulez-Vous is the perfect 73 degree Friday morning drive to work soundtrack. A-HA! I freakin' love ABBA. So very much. Their Swedish pop genius is a joy to behold. Behear? Eh. Why is there no sincere optimism in pop music anymore? Am I missing something? Tell me. Is there a contemporary equivalent to the sincere refrain of "I believe in angels/Something good in everything I see"?

2) I'm wearing sandals for the first time this year - & they're my lovely gold sparkly cork wedge sandals, to boot. Er, no pun intended.

(Lengthy parenthetical aside revealing my etymological dorkiness & alarming passion for punctuation:

("The boot in [the phrase 'to boot'] is pretty much the only surviving sense of a once prominent word. Some archaic or obsolete senses are 'advantage; profit; use' ('O spare they happy daies, and them apply/To better boot'--Spenser, Faerie Queen); 'something given in a sale or exchange to equalize the value of the exchange' (now only used in dialect, in America found chiefly in the south); and 'deliverance from evil or danger' (often in the phrase boot of bale 'relief from woe').

("The phrase ['to boot'] uses [the word 'boot'], in a sense like 'to the good; to advantage', and hence 'in addition; besides; moreover'. This particular boot is from Old English, and is related to better."

(The above explanation can be found in full, & with fewer parentheses/brackets, here.)

3) On Wednesday I made a decision which makes me molto contenta. I ain't tellin'. The action won't happen until 2011 anyway. Let's just say that I hope in three years the dollar/euro exchange rate is a bit more in my favor.

4) Said decision involved the more immediate decision to look for a part-time job. That same day, I found a listing for a part-time video store job, 12 - 14 hours a week, in NW Portland. I dropped my resume off that night, interviewed yesterday, & start working on Saturday. Yeah, I rock. Y'know, my favorite job ever was at a video store. This new one has the benefit of not being in rural Oregon, which gives me relative confidence that the following exchange is highly unlikely to occur:

Customer returning The Talented Mr. Ripley, which I had recommended to him the night before: I didn't like this movie.
Me: Oh, I'm sorry.
Him: It was about faggots.
Me: Well, yes, I suppose that's true.
Him: That's sick.
Me: Some people think so.
Him: You don't?
Me: No, I don't.
Him: Are you a dyke?

Yes indeedy. You can't make this stuff up, people. So...I'm going to get paid to talk about movies & clean & organize shelves stuffed with movies. It makes my movie-loving, compulsively clean & systematic self well-nigh giddy. Oh, yeah, plus I get free movies. I mean, I could probably get a better-paying part-time job. But the way I look at it, I already have one job for which I don't much care. If I'm gonna have a second job, I better damn well like it. And this is...perfect.

5) Also, this is entirely politically irresponsible of me, because I know absolutely nothing about his governorship, but goddamn. Whenever I remember that we live in a world where Arnold motherfuckin' Schwarzenegger is the GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA, things get just a little more...sparkly. I love it, I do, I confess. I don't think you could dream up something more deliciously absurd. Hee hee! Related: the commentary track for Conan the Barbarian is the single most fantastic commentary I've ever heard. Easily as good as the movie proper. (Governator: "She's so hot. I'm so hot in this scene" John Milius: "She's like a...Valkyrie." Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Surely they were both drunk. Schwarzenegger is a total chauvinist, which I inexplicably love.)

Hurrah!

These are some things that I particularly love today:

1) Peppermint tea

2) The Criterion transfer of Naked. It even looks good on my old TV set.

3) Dinosaur L (I said NO, thank yooouuuu....)

4) Mmmmmangoes!

5) Feelin' like a fourth grader. Yep, in my quest to prove that April Model 1978 is in fact completely obsolete, my newest fascination is book making. See, it occurred to me recently that at present I seem to be drawn toward the tactile. Rather than subvert these fascinations into something more ephemeral, I thought well why not just make things I can touch? I ain't a writer, & my drawing skillz are stuck in stick-figure land (tho' it be a mean stick figure indeed), but I see no reason whatsoever to let that stop me. I made a book last night! With velcro & wiggly eyes & o-rings & junk mail! (I successfully fought the urge to add glitter.) Here's a small detail of one page:


As usual, my grand plans exceed my technical capability by a wide margin. Sheesh. We'll see. You don't know how much I want to catch one of these flitting momentary obsessions & pin it down, already. How is it possible that the older I get, the less attention span I have?

6) Portland Maps. I often bemoan the fact that everybody in my neighborhood looks like me. What do I mean by this? While Buckman ain't quite an army of April clones, it is a 739-acre area with 7,923 people who:

• Are most likely between the ages of 22 & 39 (52%)
• Are whiter than an arctic glacier on a sunny day (81%)
• Have yet to breed &/or are not overly keen on cohabitation (52% one-person households)
• Got no strings to hold them down (84% are not home-owners)
• Stand a solid chance of being male (52%) or female (48%)
  

I am a 29-year-old child-free white girl who lives alone in a rented apartment. Thanks, Portland Maps, for proving me right!

7) Spring. Not this spring, this year, this here. But in general. And SUNSHINE. Glorious rich yellow sunshine that is both absorbed & reflected by the green of the trees & the grass.

8) Making the soundtrack for the wedding I will never have. See, it all started with Kid Creole's version of "If You Want to be Happy". If you don't know the song, click the link. You'll understand. The vision of playing this as the first song at my unwedding made me gigle giggle (no semiconductor, I) madly for endless minutes (the looks on people's faces would be freakin' priceless), so I thought, why stop there? This project is saving me from an increasingly bilious resentment toward other people's weddings; therefore, it makes me happy.

9) And actually, I kind of love everything. Probably in theory - I wouldn't test me with, say, a puddle of puppies or a basket of babies. But I am, how you say, a happy camper.

AMAZING

At some point this summer I've got plans to visit the places where the exteriors for the "Twin Peaks" pilot episode were shot. You know, the biggies: the Great Northern, the falls, etc.

Somebody has done all the work in finding the locations for me. They even found the friggin' branch upon which the bird in the opening credits perched.

In Twin Peaks for the photo comparisons; More In Twin Peaks for the actual locations.

Wow. I'm super-psyched.

White People! Get Funky!

Ohmanohmanohman. HOT CHIP. If you didn't see 'em in the last month, too bad, unless you live in San Francisco or are attending Coachella, because their U.S. tour is otherwise ovah. (I suspect they'll be back through before too long, though.) Holy cow. I saw 'em at the Doug Fir in November 2006 & was suitably impressed by their fantastic-ness. But last night! Oh, last night. They were...magnificent.

Portland must have some fairly ridiculous laws involving concert venues & alcohol, because nearly every place with live music is 21+. Being old & crotchety, I have no problem with this. I don't want my overpriced beer jostled by a passel of hyperactive young 'uns wearing too much eyeliner. The Crystal Ballroom, however, is one of the few all-ages venues in town. It's a weird set-up - the stage is in a corner. The room is "vertically" divided in half by a low black barrier. If you want beer, you have to be in the half that's further from the main stage. If you want to hang out with high schoolers, you can be in the half that's right by the stage. Hmm...beer or teenagers? I choose beer. Luckily we arrived early enough to score prime spots right up against the divider. So I could put down my sweater & my purse & just freak out. PLUS have a great view of the stage. It was sweet.

The opening act was Free Blood, which has some correlation with !!!. They're a duo - let's call them Mr. Beard & Adorable Brunette Girl With Bangs. All the music was pre-recorded, although they did bring out a guy on guitar for a couple numbers. It was altogether too reminiscent of karaoke for my taste. In a sense, that's the point, but when I think about, say, Jamie Lidell live...well, he twiddles his knobs while he's singing. And alls by hisself, at that. Free Blood's performance made me feel at least two shades pastier white than I already am. Plus, when they danced together onstage, it inexplicably looked to me like some sort of chicken mating ritual. The music was fine, & I will totally listen to their album when it comes out, but the live show felt unnecessary.

Anyway, Hot Chip put on what is easily one of my top ten favorite shows of all time. Mebbe even top five. They. Fucking. Rocked. Christ on crutches. I was a four-on-the-floor booty-shaking machine out there. Up down all around. The band arrangement was different this time. At the Doug Fir, it was mostly five guys rockin' out behind keyboards. Last night only Joe Goddard was manning a board. They played more like a typical band - guitar, drums, etc. Plus, maracas! Oh yeah. The lights were good, the sound was good, the band was great. It gave me a whole new appreciation for the most recent album, Made in the Dark, with which I'd previously had some problems. And, ooh, the only song they played from their debut album Coming On Strong just so happened to be my favorite song from that album - "Crap Kraft Dinner". Because really, who does have time for a jack-your-body loser? But I think my favorite moment was during the encore performance of "No Fit State" when they dropped my favorite part of New Order's "Temptation" in there - "Oh you've got green eyes/Oh you've got blue eyes/Oh you've got grey eyes...". (Although, erm, technically speaking, every part of "Temptation" is my favorite part.)

You know, Hot Chip may only be going to heaven if it tastes like caramel, but me - I'm only going to heaven if Hot Chip is there. I hope they let me shake the maracas. I am nothing if not a funky white girl.

In Full Fluff

New favorite picture of Audun, taken last night:


So dignified, right? You'd never guess that this is the same cat who spent five minutes chasing my hand's shadow on sunlit living room walls this morning.

Also: Xavier's polydactyl kitteh paws OMG2cute!!!!11!!!


Sigh. I wouldn't trade my cats for all the strippers & blow in the world.

What's A Girl Like You Doing On A Knight Like This?

Okay, okay, I owe a few post-things. I'll get to them soon, cuddlies, promises! Things have been busy. In the meantime, I simply must say a few words. Seven to be precise.

Alice in Wonderland: An X-Rated Musical Comedy.

GENIUS. It was made for me! Alice. Musical. 1970s pr0n (real breasts & hair on their ladyparts!). Also, any movie that has a credit reading "Underwater Nude Volleyball Sequences by Jacques Coote" is pretty much guaranteed to be good. Especially if there is not a single underwater nude volleyball sequence in the movie. Played on a double bill with Star Wars according to questionable sources. (The acting in Alice is better, for the record.) Now imagine if we lived in a world where fantastical song-&-dance sex films had won out over sexless preadolescent Wonder Bread space-capades. It's a real shame that this country progressed a bit only to then enter a decades-long slide. We put the puritan back in prurient. Because I cannot imagine any sort of "respectable" distributor releasing this today, but 20th Century Fox put this corker out back in the day.

My intensive research has shown that there are three versions: R, X, & XXX. I understand that this release by Subversive Video has the X & the XXX versions. I cannot figure out which version I watched - there were some rather thorough anatomy lessons that I've not previously encountered in X-rated movies, but I understand the XXX version is pretty seriously hardcore. Whichever version I watched had a few cum shots but nothing that made me ill (they ain't exactly my bag - I'm more Emmanuelle than Splendor in the Ass (although that is my all-time favorite porno title) - softcore porn served with a generous helping of wonky French philosophy is not just up my alley, as it were, it's the alley that's named after me). The disc boasts possibly the crappiest transfer I've ever seen & appears to use a well-worn VHS dub as its source, but it's still totally worth watching if you can find it. (EDIT: I figured out the DVD I watched was not the Subversive Video release but rather from some outfit called Arrow Video. And it is the XXX version. Because I hadn't actually quite finished the entire movie when I wrote this post (guilty!), & near the end there is a random three-ish-minute fuck-tage, which did make me feel a wee bit sick.)

The lead actress, Kristine De Bell, has an engaging on-screen persona & is a convincingly innocent libertine-in-training. For you Meatballs fans out there (I have a soft spot...), she played A.L. in that fine movie. Overall Alice is really quite sweet with some clever moments (Mad Hatter: "Oh, that's not my HAT size..." Hee hee!) & a simple little if-it-feels-good-do-it message.

Plus, the scene & song from which this post's title is derived are freakin' priceless.

Lay Off That Whiskey & Let That Cocaine Be

Hahahahahacokehahahahaha.

You really have to look at the entire series of pictures...

Truly stunning. My personal favorites involve the coke & the root beer.

Super-meta-ed-out

Like I'm staring at a window that reflects a mirror that reflects a pool of water that my double is staring into.

To wit: Last night an April asked me if I was born in April.

We know how I feel about that question. And I ended up catching a bit of foot-in-mouth disease.

"You're an April! You can't ask an April that question!"

After I chided her, I was informed that she was in fact born in April & that her parents did in fact have no imagination. She actually spent the first week of her life with no name.

I find that a bit disquieting. And I wonder whether her middle name mightn't really be "Mayjune".

LOL

Shit like this is what teh internets are fucking made for...

Song charts. How did I not know about this? I'm glaring at you, Mandy.

You can't beat that one for sheer simple brilliance, but I'm also partial to this:

Which reminds me, I need Blur back in my life. To the Music Millennium!

These Shoes Sing To My Soul

This is the present I awarded myself after I managed to select a pair of boring plain brown flats (for comfortable non-sneakered city walking) without crying or throwing up:


Lots more views are available here. I wish Zappos weren't so expensive (for ince, I picked these up on clearance at DSW for $42 less than what they're charging), because I would dearly love to support their shoe pornography on a financial basis.

And yes. This post's title is an accurate recount of the exact words that came into my mind when I saw these. What can I say? They were made just for me.

Also, let the record show that I indulged in mad shopping this weekend past & purchased not one single sparkly thing. Marvel at my self-restraint. Bow down before my greatness.

Finally, speaking of sparkly...I spasmed when I saw these. If I ever see them on sale I will buy them, but they are waaaayyy too impractical for me to throw $100 at 'em.

My Bitches Wear My Collars

Let's be clear about one thing: I adored the first Elizabeth movie. The palace intrigue, the betrayed young princess, the sumptuous costumes, the oh-so-meaningful shadows & light. ALL of it. I get into that bodice-ripping double-crossing soap operatic stuff like nobody's business. It is a shameless & naive love, & Elizabeth the first is a near-perfect example of its shiny dollar store beauty. It also bestowed upon me a decade-long adoration for Cate Blanchett that no number of middling Oscar bait vehicles can diminish.

There are two things of which I was unsure: (1) Why did they make a sequel? and (2) How did I not even know it existed until the Oscar nominations were announced? The former remains a mystery, which goes a long way toward explaining the latter. I don't know what's wrong with me lately, but I have not seen a movie made in this century that I have actually enjoyed since early November, when I saw Ang Lee's Lust, Caution (N.B. It's totally worth checking out). Well, I did like the Lindsay Lohan stripper movie. But I also hated it, so I'm not sure it counts. Don't do this to me, brain. I love tawdry! I love slick! I love sprawling epic! Lately every movie I've watched ('cept M. Hulot's Holiday & Mon Oncle) has bored me senseless. I actually fell asleep in a movie theater during Michael Clayton last week. I was sober. The last time that happened, I was drunk, high & stuffed full of Vicodin. I cry foul.

ANYWAY. Back to Elizabeth: The Golden Age. It's pretty awful. Everybody looks bored out of their minds. Abbie Cornish, who plays Elizabeth's little handmaiden (& is called Bess though her full name is ALSO Elizabeth OMG totally meaningful!!!1!!1!!), is boringly pretty in an utterly typical fashion & appears to have all the mental faculties of Tupperware (& that curtain in the picture at left looks almost exactly like the shower curtain I had before I got my silver disco-tastic one). The usually yummy Clive Owen, who generally manages to be the only generically handsome leading man type that I crush on & I admit provided quite the impetus for me to move this to the top of my queue, delivers the most ridiculous lines as though he believes them not one iota. You must say the platitudes as though they emerge from the very bowels of your shallow soul, man! His clear disdain for his words makes him a poor character. And, really, the entire cast seems to be comprised of somnolent Cesares. Sheesh. With the sole exception of Ms. Blanchett, who (1) appears marginally interested & (2) has the dignity to believe in her dialogue cliches. Should you insist upon watching it, just compare the moment at which Owen says, "We mortals have many weaknesses; we feel too much, hurt too much or too soon we die, but we do have the chance of love" with Blanchett's delivery of "I have a hurricane in me that will strip Spain bare when you dare to try me!" It's no more possible to believe that Sir Walter Raleigh has any fucking clue about love than it is to doubt inner fury with which Elizabeth burns. Actually, the scene in which she exclaims with righteous fury, "You ask my permission before you fuck. Before you breed. My bitches wear MY collars" whilst slapping the bitch in question is the single moment of fabulosity in the film entire. (Though...if her bitches really did wear her collars, it probably would have been a way more interesting movie.)

The problem is, this Elizabeth is simply not as compelling or interesting as the first film's. She has already chosen power over love, & apparently the writers' solution to creating romantic intrigue is to make her a whiny vicious sex-starved shrew. I don't know. Shouldn't it, to paraphrase Mel Brooks, be good to be the queen? I mean...surely she could get herself some ass right quick. Which wouldn't really solve the whole love-hungry thing, but at least it'd take care of the sex, right? UGH. I really fucking hate it when movies make me play feminist. It is so very irritatingly inimical to my nature. My solution then? Focus on the production elements to maintain interest. And, oh my, I want, I need, I long for a foyer that would do justice to this:



We'll ignore the raging obviousness of that purple. I, um, actually got bored enough to take my own pictures during the film, in case I couldn't find any online. So here's another:


And, holy cow, the horse frills & THAT MARVELOUS CAPE:


I want that cape. Were I a butch lesbian, I would probably have serious Cate Blanchett fantasies from the armor, too.

I also decided that feathers are totally ready for their accoutrement-status comeback in both clothing & home fashion(love the collar too):


Seriously, I'm starting to think I may have missed my calling. I would be a fantastic decorator.