Okay, Day 4, DNC -- I don't know. I need a little more substance. But I feel for Obama because I'm sure he's got detailed plans. It's just that his constituency would fall asleep if he tried to tell them. The Nirvana song "Smells Like Teen Spirit" kept running through my head as I watched his speech. "Here we are now, entertain us..."
I'm guessing we'll all know more once the debates roll around.
And you've made a shrewd choice Mr. McCain. I commend you on your strategy. Can't wait to see how she handles herself. Here's hoping for the best (and that Romney is slated for something Cabinet related...).
The Connells are back in my CD player after several years of obscurity. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed their college-radio style. Rhapsody is lacking their best albums -- One Simple Word and Fun & Games -- so here's Boylen Heights, still pretty damn good. The first song I ever heard from them was "Fun & Games" as a mere apple-cheeked youth of 18 and I listened to it this morning on my way into work. It still makes me smile despite the cynicism of the actual lyrics. My suggestion is that you listen to it ASAP.
And have a fab weekend. I'll be buying Lebanese cheese. Are you curious? Good...
UPDATE: oooh I almost forgot....GO DAWGS!!!!!!! Win that title boys. Give the finger to the non-believer and just move that football. It's gonna be wild in Athens for the next few months...
A few pre-lunch thoughts on the the DNC, Day 3. (I have some very detailed ideas but rather than use this forum as a place to start debate -- when there's no real chance of hearing the opposing viewpoint in any meaningful way -- I'll just say if you want to know more, ask. I'll tell.)
1. There's no way to overstate the historic event that took place in Obama's nomination. I'm so pleased to live in a nation where we change the rules as we learn and grow, both legally and ethically -- and then live up to the standards we set for ourselves. It was a marvelous thing and about time.
2. My choice of candidate remains firm. And I'm comfortable with that.
3. Bill Clinton needs to seriously get the f@*k over himself already.
4. They should have put Biden's mom on the ticket.
That is all. Except that Charles Krauthammer is my new hero in intellectual acuity. I don't know that I agree with everything he espouses but God his mind functions so methodically and his arguments are so well-reasoned that it just causes me to stop and really consider -- just really consider. For the most part I look around and see a bunch of half-reasoned arguments being touted as Gospel truth and for someone to just explain themselves and what they think to the degree that there are no holes to exploit -- well that's just a beautiful thing.
Peace.
[Happy Birthday Em! -- uh, yesterday...I can be so bad...but if it makes you feel any better I called my dad today and he had to take another call on his cell so he put me on hold and sort of forgot about me. So, ya know, I come by it honestly... You'll be benefiting from the guilt for a while.]
Enjoy a few pics from the beach. Forgive the blurriness of some. I'm still playing with the lenses and settings on my camera and am working out the kinks. I'm playing catch up for a few days and therefore have little to say. But I have been watching the Dem convention and I'm sure -- almost 100% certain -- I'll have a few opinions in a couple of days...till then...
After I clean the bathroom, finish a freelancing piece and go for a run, I'm headed South to Fernandina Beach. Never mind that's there a hurricane there right now -- will that stop this intrepid traveler (and her fierce friends)? No. No it will not.
I had to go get some coffee this morning when I woke to discover an empty can -- this is something akin to finding that dude Jigsaw from Saw standing in your kitchen: a true horror scenario. As I was driving back I noticed some graffiti on the side of a building. I'm assuming the writer wanted to spell the word with two "a"s because of the angry scrawls that accompanied the phrase but it came out "I love [it was actually a heart] Satin."
Satin is nice.
This one goes out to the Help Desk.
ps: Shana, thanks and I like you, too and Bets I will pass along your sage words to the haters. Blogging is useful for venting. And apparently getting a little sympathy. You guys rule.
UPDATE: Pity party over. Amen. Read at your own risk...
Mom, Pop -- I know you taught me to be strong in my convictions, to be clear about what I think, to educate myself in order to make informed decisions and to own what I know to be true even in the face of hostility and -- sometimes even worse -- unpopularity.
But dammit everyone hates me. Even people that like me hate me. And I keep getting yelled at. Can't I just give in and pretend that the contradictions make sense and the inexperience is immaterial? Please? I'm losing all my friends...
I hate election years. Lucky for me I tasted the sting of ostracism early so I know I can survive it. But it sucks. It really, really does.
My cool friend at work introduced me to this artist and the lyrics of this song made me feel a little better. Thanks Larry. But hey man, don't get to know too much about me cause I don't want you to discover you hate me, too.
It is best not to taunt the most winningest Olympic athlete in history before competing against him because he might respond by making you think you're actually going to win until the last 15 meters or so when he smokes your arrogant ass. You got so owned.
I've been reminded a few times lately that I used to write a lot about music -- which Elvis Costello so famously likened to "dancing about architecture" (although there is some debate about this. In fact, I heard it was Thelonius Monk who said it first...). In any event, I agree with whoever said it. Hence the "used to" -- also my mother sort of drilled it into my head at an early age that you can't hang out in dance/music halls all the time and be a lady. I'm not saying that's true -- just that it got in early and deep and so being a music writer always felt like something of a rebellion, and something you put away when you stop feeling like no one understands you.
Anyhoo, because I've been reminiscing a bit, I decided to give you a nice little mix of Athens music I like. Please understand, this is not intended to be representative of what Athens has offered or does offer. Just songs I like. That's all. Rhapsody's changed their format and I'm currently not able to link to individual songs, only whole albums. But hey, ya know, they're all good...However, here's the listing of tracks I'd like you to hear:
Dayroom -- Cheap Wine The Glands -- Fortress The Whigs -- Give 'Em All a Big Fat Lip Japancakes -- The Waiting The Star Room Boys -- Both Our Towns (love this one) Lona -- Love Country Jucifer -- The Movements of Swallows Neutral Milk Hotel -- Two-headed Boy
Okay, first off, does anyone else think that Putin's explanation of why Russia was just forced to invade Georgia sounds a great deal like Hitler's justification (which later proved to be less than accurate) for invading Poland? Bill Kristol asks some pretty interesting questions in this Op-Ed. I sincerely hope this doesn't escalate...
Second, I am just so thrilled with the US Men's relay team and their anchor Jason Lezak who somehow, and I mean against every known law of physics, managed to out length a 6'5" frenchman in the last few pulls of the race, breaking the world record and creating one of the greatest Olympic races of all time. I was hanging around at the pool last weekend with my childhood friend Sara and her husband was a little concerned about leaving their son in the pool by himself for a second. Sara calmly reassured him by reminding him that he was talking to two people, she and myself, who could "be down at the end of the pool in like two seconds." And we could, too, because on our freestyle relay team (and, for that matter, the medley relay team) she and I swam on for the better part of 10 years together, she was the anchor, the fast, last swimmer whose job it was to pull our butts out of whatever fire we had gotten ourselves into. She looked like a freaking paddle boat in the water. I was the fly girl (in every sense of the word, yo) and breaststroke was always my albatross, too, so I have a soft spot for Michael Phelps. But Sara was Lezak. She totally would have caught up to and overcome Alain Bernard. And then we would have gone to Pizza Hut with matted hair and wet clothes and talked about how awesome it felt to win.
Have a large with extra cheese guys. You earned it.
Because I felt funky until I watched some dance. And then the funk became FUNK
First order of business on this fine Friday -- my mother informed me a few days ago that I needed to change my family history from a recent post. Apparently, by the time my grandfather returned home from WWII he was already married to my grandmother and had five of their seven children. So, his getting shot off the mule by a former girlfriend's brother happened earlier -- in the 20s Mom says -- the first time he came home from the Army. Mom, you're my first and best editor. Thank you for your directness without the added layer of disgust and disappointment (which doesn't always happen with editors -- present editor excluded because she's a joy who puts up with me even when I'm being a little slack.)
Anyway -- today I just want to talk about dance because Joshua won last night on SYTYCD and it's too cool that this untrained street dancer (which is really significant in dance because very few great dancers start out that way -- your muscles have to be stretched and trained to move in certain ways) is just so innately in tune with his body and the way it moves that he managed to look like a genius in lyrical, contemporary, jazz, ballroom, etc. etc.
I've included a clip of my favorite of his routines and another of the popping contest -- again, very cool. I consider myself passable in many forms of dance but popping just eludes me...
I've been fortunate in my life to grab opportunities for fear of later regret and therefore can say that I have learned the choreography of two of the choreographers featured on this show -- Mia Michaels and Dave Scott. Ask me sometime and I'll show you...
The Salem Witch Trials weren't just a river in Egypt
Okay, here's my Dark Knight deconstruction:
I liked it. It surprised me. Heath Ledger was great. Do I think it was the greatest movie ever? No. Morgan Freeman was, however, in the greatest movie ever and it was called The Shawshank Redemption (get better Morgan!).
But here's what I found most interesting: I think it's fair to say that a great many comic book geeks might publicly decry something I've no doubt attracts them to Batman as the Dark Knight. I offer up this dialogue from the film for consideration:
Bruce Wayne: People are dying, Alfred. What would you have me do? Alfred Pennyworth: Endure, Master Wayne. Take it. They'll hate you for it. But that's the point of Batman, he can be the outcast. He can make the choice that no one else can make, the right choice. For the most part, the Batman writers, especially Frank Miller who was responsible for the revamped Dark Knight series, recognize that people as a general rule ostracize those who refuse to follow society's rules. The people of Gotham hate Batman because -- which the Joker takes great delight in pointing out -- he's just not like them. He colors outside the lines and follows his own rules based on his own understanding of right from wrong.
All these people who flocked to this movie and admire Batman as a total badass would -- if a person such as this existed -- and the point I'm making here is that they do even if in a slightly less flamboyant form -- hate, hate, hate him. And ostracize him. And kick him to the curb. And call him evil. And side with his enemies. This is our flaky human nature. And it's well understood.
What's fascinating is that I'll bet most of these people -- who say "greatest movie ever!" and love, love love Batman -- would never admit that they would be the haters who called for the head of the Batman on a stick. They would be the ones on the ferry boats seriously discussing blowing each other up.
But the Batman would believe in you and he would spit in the face of the Jokers who didn't. Would you come through for him and toss that detonator out the window or put it back in the box? Or would you save your own skin and then call for the Batman to be taken down because what he asks of you by believing in you is just too hard, dammit?
And that was the best thing about the film. Christopher Nolan throws those moral ambiguities in our faces and always with a "this is a real issue" flourish and then, just as quickly, reminds us that this is a film and it does have a Hollywood ending. If we're lucky enough, we leave the theater marveling at the irony of our hero-worship for the Batman while publicly reviling those like him in real-life.
Fascinating.
Also, Christian Bale is almost painfully attractive. I mean my God...
I've been listening to this song over and over again lately. I like to turn it up loud in my car and sing at the top of my lungs while driving. I'm aware that's kinda weird so don't look at me like that...
I was going to write a post deconstructing The Dark Knight today. But Sunday was revelatory in that two people who mean a great deal to me were struck with family tragedy and so I'd rather use this space to let them know I love them and am available -- any time, any day. Some think it's hokey but I really do believe there's a method to all this madness. But we can talk about that later. For now, my prayers are for you and my thoughts are with you.
Finally getting to go down the river tomorrow. Steph, you're a good friend.
Here's some Friday music that just makes me feel all light and happy inside. Reminds me of all the British invasion bands, and this song in particular.
Okay, Day 4, DNC -- I don't know. I need a little more substance. But I feel for Obama because I'm sure he's got detailed plans. It's just that his constituency would fall asleep if he tried to tell them. The Nirvana song "Smells Like Teen Spirit" kept running through my head as I watched his speech. "Here we are now, entertain us..."
so here's Boylen Heights, still pretty damn good. The first song I ever heard from them was "Fun & Games" as a mere apple-cheeked youth of 18 and I listened to it this morning on my way into work. It still makes me smile despite the cynicism of the actual lyrics. My suggestion is that you listen to it ASAP.
