the voice of god

no wonder kevin smith chose this man to play megatron in dogma. the film as it evolved on screen (as opposed to in its original form) may have been disappointing, but alan rickman was not. when is he ever?

this reverie brought to you by robin hood: prince of thieves. i hadn't seen it since, oh, say 1990, and if you haven't either i heartily recommend it, if only for alan rickman's over-the-top self-parodying sheriff of notingham. i would choose him over kevin costner six times out of seven, even with that greasy hair. he's reprising the greasy hair look in the harry potter flicks, as well as his *siiiiigh* smarmy charm.

he steals the movie the same way tim curry steals the three musketeers from chris o'donnell, an exemplary case, to be sure, of taking candy from a baby. the real question is, between tim curry and alan rickman -- the two most spine-tingliest voices in the english speaking world -- WHO do you choose?

epidemiology

this week's vocab word and 3x cooler than 'etiology' or 'ontology.' no, i don't promise that i spelled any of those words right.

two of my wonderful high skool friends just left my house where, by the way, i am. back in dc. eating price club cookies, lox, cheese, and fruit the way you only can in my kitchen at all hours. watching any channel of tv you want. why oh why do i ever leave?

oh wait, i remember. family drama. at least it was novel to have something else waking me up at 7:30 besides my body saying "go check your mail!" but i am very happy to be home. in fact i'm sad i don't get to spend more time with my family this break. one brother is in florida. my dad's about to depart for new mexico, to settle a case he filed 36 years ago. my mom's currently with my other brother en route to rochester, ny.

however, today my mother insisted on buying me an awesome communist jacket. "red china" via ralph lauren.

low-grade flu

of the soul. no iowa for me. no hide and seek in cornfields, no overalls, no chance that i will live in the midwest in the foreseeable future. the letter kindly informed me that out of 368 applicants, they chose 25. i idled away time in my subsequent class trying to do the math: 1/16 or thereabouts? no matter. no funny vowels for me. no blue eyes. no best poetry program in the country, and it's okay.

6 to go.

vs.

at INDIE CONCERTS, people stand. at FOLK CONCERTS, people sit.

at INDIE CONCERTS, the average hair length is two inches or up. at FOLK CONCERTS, the average hair length is two feet and down.

at INDIE CONCERTS, everyone is pale. this is also true of FOLK CONCERTS.

girls who attend INDIE CONCERTS are slightly taller than those who attend FOLK CONCERTS.

people at INDIE CONCERTS wear sneakers. people at FOLK CONCERTS wear birkenstocks.

these are not STEREOTYPES. this is something grander: glib, under-researched TRUTH.

BLARGH!

out of impatience cross-bred with proactivity, i started calling graduate programs today to find out when they sent/are sending their letters. and i had two heart-attacks to learn that answers from two of my skools, both which mean a lot to me, will be making their way to the mail room in the next couple days.

i can't seem to calm down. if this turns into a panic attack, i could take my sedative stuff, but then i'll fall asleep for sure working for the friends library this afternoon. i think the solution is for someone to hit me over the head with an anvil and when i wake up, in several days, tell me briskly how my fate has been decided.

i am still a worthwhile person. i am still a worthwhile person. oh why oh why did i apply to graduate skool in the first place? why am i hyperventilating for the opportunity to write poetry in corn fields, or, as the case may be, cambridge?

LOTR is titanic!

i really liked ROTK; i was even rooting for it to win best picture. but by the time the ceremony meandered to its vanishing point, i had no enthusiasm left for the film. it was a foregone conclusion from the first award and how many more times did we need to see peter jackson's and fran walsh's matted hair?

besides, giving the picture "best adapted screenplay" is a crock. yes, the trilogy was a huge achievement, but come on. best screenplay? someone did bring to my attention that screenplays consist of story as well as dialogue, god knows that's true, but still, come on!, what dialogue there was was excusable at best. the screenplay categories are virtually all that's given to small, deserving flicks like american splendor.

although one of my favorite moments came as francis ford leapt to his feet hollering for his daughter when she won. that, and when the two presenters in a row thanked the wives they've loved since middle school. take note: it's way cuter to have loved since middle skool than since high. esp. if love in middle skool manifested itself by sending your lady live rats.

i wish bill murray had won. i'm glad charlize did. billy crystal was on about 75% of the time and what more can you ask? now: the top five best looking people at the 76 Academy Awards:

5) renee zellwegger who has evolved out of the emaciated chicago look.
4) angelina jolie (adam: what's that smudge on her arm? me: that's a tattoo. adam: that shouldn't be allowed.)
3) catharine zeta-jones
2) johnny depp. involuntary shrieks erupted whene'er the camera looked his way.
1) diane keaton. bless you, woman; you looked stunning.

major props to gorgeous women susan sarandon and jamie lee curtis. the latter was quoted as saying, "i've never felt this beautiful." and to the lovely adrian brody who not only looked smashing but made fun of himself onstage too.

hang tough

i've had a productive day, for a sunday. i printed out a copy of the (completed) 2nd draft of my screenplay and handed it off for the next someone to read. i had brunch w/ addie then played nine men's morris, hex, and go, once she taught me how. and then we saw audrey's breathtaking one woman show. so much talent, so much courage, so much will is required to put on a show like that, i can barely comprehend it. certainly it was one of the best performances i've seen since i've been here and one of the ones i feel most should be taken outside, beyond.

it's hard to shake off. the oscars! yes, and. this is the last week before spring break. i can't quite think about what happens afterwards. instead. here's a poem i wrote, thinking into the future as far as i could.

disorder

there will be a table,
lions inscribed in china, paws up to
three glinting glasses
There will be napkins drawn through
rings as though in magic: each
produces a lap! wine dripping from fingers
like shower-water

there has been a revolution
Now the table has no head
and our bourgeois shame sits heavy
on the pillows, eats leadened bread,
looses wine on the china with real grief
We will stagger through
the story, graceless and spurting, propelled
by the need to pass from one end
of the night to the other
and the next.

it's rough, it hasn't been edited yet (that's what rough means). if you have suggestions, please.

top five time!

list of things i'm most afraid of:

5) my closet. if you saw my closet, you'd understand. beyond my particular closet though lies a more generalized, inexplicable fear of Closets, similar to my fear of Bathrooms. no, i don't believe in psychoanalysis.
4) norman bates [coming out of my closet, dressed as his mother, wielding a knife]. this is horror movie week for my film theory class: lots of watching celluloid women crumple bloody and dead. theory on the subject is actually interesting but it doesn't make up for 3 nights in a row of me sleeping with the light on.
3) honors. people keep giving me inspirational speeches and all i want to hear is "congratulations, it's over."
2) george bush and mel gibson. though i agree with her, i wish maureen dowd would try being wise without being "witty," cuz the "wit" falls flatter than kim novak in vertigo and threatens to obscure her point.
1) thin envelopes in my mailbox. any envelopes in my mailbox. the mail room. being twenty feet from the mail room. living above the mail room. etc.

in case you like links

reviews for il passiono:
new yorker*
washington post
boston globe
nyt
the onion
more ...

and an interesting "guide to the Passion pundits" at tnr. it features our friend kyle's rabbi of choice, danny lapin.

* if you can get your hands on the print copy of the magazine, the cartoon that accompanies david denby's review is priceless.

it's fat tuesday! eat more fries!

in honor of today, which precedes a frightening tomorrow, i am prepared with your permission to ignore politics. here you will find neither rants re: nader nor rhetoric re: bush, regardless of how upset news about them has made me. honestly, what else can you expect from either?

so, right. how about that pop culture? the oscars are coming up! (vote here for the blanches) i saw the dreamers on friday: lyrical, naked, complex, and featuring the kind of blood rarely visible on screen! isn't "the o.c." the best show on television, especially now that sex and the city has floated off the air!

i was fortunate enough to be surrounded by friends during the SATC finale who shrieked and groaned and laughed appropriately. i loved miranda and samantha's storylines. charlotte's was more predictable, although she did have the episode's biggest laugh (harry moans about their adoption troubles and c. replies: "we're jews. we've been through worse than this.") and i was glad at least that carrie came back to new york where she belonged even if mr "his name is JOHN?" big has to shepherd her. she deserves no better.

aw. i'll miss that show. i felt very connected to Women's Culture; i could feel the Power of Sisterhood whizzing through me as i sat on my couch, laughing at yet another dirty double entendre. aw. but really. the good-natured raunch, the good-looking men, the witty dialogue, occasional bursts of feminism. i'll miss it.

dear kyle,

after reading your thoughtful post on jonah's livejournal, i can't say i'm convinced of your position. i mean, i'm sure you're not an evil propoganda-spouting spam robot, but you sure do sound like one! for instance:

Some people, not really representative of Jewish people, but rather self appointed Jewish spokespeople, such as Abraham Foxman from the Anti-Defamation League, seem to have been attempting to denounce this film for months as being anti-Semitic. The news reported that they even stole the script last year! But here's what some Jews say (Jews who don't make it their job to tear apart other people): Protesting Gibson's Passion Lacks Moral Legitimacy by Rabbi Daniel Lapin.

that's silly! i have no desire to "tear apart other people," kyle; i'm just offended by your film.

here are my two reasons: one: passion plays are an old european genre of drama intended to evoke strong emotional response in audiences. overwhelmed with love of jesus and empathy for his suffering, medieval christians wiped their eyes and killed some jews. even if mel gibson doesn't intend his passion play to have this effect, it's astounding to me that he can ignore the history and dismiss legitimate sensitivity concerns.
two: the other day, i saw a movie about nazis. it was a very good movie and very affecting, which meant i walked out thinking "i hate germans." i am a rational, well-educated, tolerant, leftish, western female vegetarian. had a german crossed my path, i would have kicked hir in the knee. or at least glowered.
the passion has been described as a similarly intense emotional experience. in the film, jewish mobs cry for jesus's blood. pontius pilate reluctantly spills it and only agrees to finally crucify jesus when the jews won't stand for anything less. penultimately, the high priest of the jews calls down a curse on his people, declaring them guilty of deicide. i mean, wow! people aren't going to leave that movie with a high opinion of "the jews," are they?

besides all that, kyle, it's hard enough for those of us who are trying very, very hard to have love in our hearts & to ignore the barrage of publicity leading up to the passion's ash wednesday debut without you smearing your chirpy thoughts ("To sum up my impression of The Passion: it's a work of art") on our friends pages. i wasn't even planning on writing this rant until i read your comment. but i hope at least i have shared with you my viewpoint, and maybe you can take it back to mel.

sincerely, &c. &c.

want to cry?

on a sunny saturday, who doesn't?

here is why you should raise your child to be a judge and not a president or a governor. i'm so impressed with new mexico. who expected the barely-blue state to be next? i was thinking maybe miami and indeed it would be fun watching jeb's face contort in impotent gubernatorial rage.

i was talking to a queer friend about all of this, a radical in many respects who is fascinated by queer family and marriage at the moment. she is as excited as i am by the coverage. she also reads it to happy-cry. what an unusual february this is. it's light and dry and history, instead of dozing backstage until black history month surrenders the microphone, is actually being made before our eyes.

i have made two important decisions this february. i am not going to quit honors; i am going to stick it out and scrape by. and i am not going to skip a week of skool in order to join my b.lovd in europe. if you see these as signs of responsibility, fiscal or otherwise, don't get too excited: i still don't do my own taxes.

love is love is love

first, hail mary.

when i got back from my film screening on italian neorealist classic roma, citta aperta, about the resistance in occupied rome, i was so full of hate i had to eat crackers. after two crackers, i could breathe regularly and without snorting. after four, i could realize that a whole different generation of people inhabits germany so hating "germans" is not productive or fair. after several more, i could think rationally that even during wwII, not all germans agreed with nazi policy and other people from other countries were just as vile.

it took a lot of chewing, followed by a lot of reading about glorious san francisco, to return to my resting state of not hating anybody in particular. people really have to stop showing me movies about nazis though. instead of becoming desensitized over time, i've gotten increasingly angry at each i see.

enough about nazis! san francisco, san francisco, bless you.

anni-day, for real

i know it's real, because my anni-day co-celebrant woke me up this morning with a long distance phone call. i stumbled directly from my dream, in which i watched irish women throw white flowers off a balcony, into the fuzzy voice of my darling, who is not shaving while in europe because razors are too expensive.

i felt somewhat like a dorothy parker protagonist, one of the young ladies who receives a ten minute phone call from her sweetheart overseas before he ships off to fight the war some more. in my case, my soldier is fighting against the deflated dollar. in a strained thin voice, he exhorted me, eat grapes for me.

anything for you, my soldier.

it was a charming way to wake up, though the image of those irish women (tearfully? joyously?) throwing white flowers lingers in my mind in a whistling way. last night i made a movie. yes, my first movie ever. yes, two minutes long, but just guess how many hours of preparation went into it. (don't guess. it's depressing.) even for all that prep, it's not perfect, since for this assignment we're not allowed to EDIT. still, i could have walked on water once i finished.

the stop-animation bit is my favorite part. also my first attempt at anything like, it's not as much terribly smooth and convincing as it is fun to watch. we also were forbidden from adding music. when you see the stop-animation dancing, you'll have to imagine the music for yourself.

post v-day

so much sugar yesterday. i was a happy girl. selling all them roses from 12:30 to 5 (and buying and distributing a few) tired me out, as did realizing i'd missed my boy's happy v-day call from across the pond, but chipper k-ross showed up, matching me in crimsonness -- i was arrayed in pink skirt, red t-shirt and red sweatshirt; he in red pants, red polo shirt, and pink jacket -- and offering himself as my date for the evening.

at dinner, we witnessed a graphic reenactment of the valentines day massacre and, as i mentioned, ate so much sugar. if it were a choice between sugar and meat, i'd give up meat in a heartbeat. it helps that i'm vegetarian. but if it were a choice between sugar and film theory, i'd give up film theory! between sugar and beer, i'd give up beer! i'd give up mice, the 29th of february, and the british legal system for the icing off another cupcake. witness my resolve.

a choice between sugar and movies, though, that would be difficult. last night, after an exciting if neverending several hours of poker, i finally watched american splendor, the year's most egregious oscar snub for direction if nothing else. this afternoon, i finally watched witness for the prosecution. both movies have layers; i love layers.

st. cyril and co.

roomie brigid informed me that today is not even st. valentine's day -- it's st. cyril's along with some other guy; the two of them created the cyrillic alphabet. this reminds me of the best response i got while peddling Roses for Valentines Day! for comotion: one girl shook her head, leaned in and whispered, "that's pagan."
(2nd best response: one boy walked by, shook his head, leaned in and whispered, "fuck love.")

all that said, happy valentines day. last year on this day i woke up in a hospital, the only time in my life so far that i've had the pleasure. i plan on dedicating at least an hour today to being grateful for not being sick and whatever else i can think of. for instance, that comotion sold NOT JUST the 500 roses we initially procured, but a whopping 700 !! and made a tidy sum of very necessary cash too. someone even bought me a rose. thanks, someone.

i will almost definitely feel less friendly towards our roses after i spent several hours this afternoon bundling and distributing them. on the other hand, it's not like i have anything better to do today -- or anything at all, actually, for which i am (add it to the list) grateful. i am not accustomed to days where i have to be On On On without a break. i need little breaths of alone-time fresh air. but yesterday i had to a thousand things, including my film theory seminar, a job interview, and attend an opera, one after the other.

oddly, the opera revived me. a student both directed and starred in it -- no mean feat. it wasn't too long, the stars' voices were incredible, and the story was easy to follow if a little silly because, well, it's an opera. anyway, i was very impressed. my spirits were glad to have been buoyed and were such good sports from that point on that i rewarded them by drinking nand laughing and not concentrating on a damn thing til the wee hours of the morning.

mass., here i come!

i am going to marry this woman and have her babies. this is not even a joke. if you want to laugh, though, check her entry on the grammys.

2nd choice: carrie fisher. my heart melts. and she wanted to be dorothy parker too!

mr. a. schlesinger, of kennedy administration fame, speaks here this evening. sorenson would be cooler but, off the top of my head, i'd guess he's been torn apart by alien devil wolves. i suppose this fella will have to do.

all today, i kept furrowing my brow at the calendar, trying to figure out why "february 11" started so many bells ringing between my ears. then of course i realized that four years ago on february 11th was the beginning of my highskool graduation weekend. the 13th was actual-graduation: ugly blue gowns, processions, hebrew songs, corny speeches. i spent 13 years of my life in that skool, yet i have the sense that my upcoming graduation on memorial day might matter even more.

which is to say, in ten years, when someone invites me to go yachting on memorial day, i will smile reflectively, brush away a tear, and sigh, "ah memorial day. the day my kingdom of swarthmore was torn from me ..." then i will proceed to get rollickingly drunk, in memory of my two roommates, "irish" and "lush."

ETA: so schlesinger is actually a groovy old pink-shirt wearing bespectacled dude. he lost a couple points in my book for inadequate audience prep (if you're going to talk about mr. palmer of the palmer raids at swarthmore college, you have to mention that palmer is our most infamous alum). otherwise he impressed me greatly, making a solid historical case for his argument that the bush doctrine is a dangerous deviation from america's foreign policy and that dissent in wartime has always been the norm.

i wish i'd recorded some of the quotes he used from sen. taft, presidents (t) roosevelt, eisenhower, and truman, and many others. my favorite was, and yes i know i've heard it before, "war never prevents anything, except peace." also eisenhower who apparently said that if someone approached him to discuss a policy of preventative war, the president would throw that fool out of his office.

he seemed a little shaky at points (man he's OLD) and i was nervous he wouldn't make it, like the priest who died in the middle of that wedding i went to. his principles carried him through and for that as much as anything swarthmore rewarded him with a resounding standing ovation.

worth the wait

i knew that if i kept checking in periodically -- i.e., every ten minutes -- at dooce, i'd be rewarded by a heartrending, funny, beautiful essay in the style of anne lamott's operating instructions. indeed, i was not disappointed, and you will not be either (assuming you click on that link, you fool).

like operating instructions it certainly doesn't make me want to have a baby. but it reaffirms my belief that witty writers should crank them out, as long as it doesn't interfere with their witty writing, in order that i may gape at them in awe and wonder at them while laughing my ass off.

remedies

i left the library this early-afternoon with my arms full of my 19th century fetish. wuthering heights, in video and novel form; northhanger abbey/persuasion in one volume; and quills, which i've never seen. if anyone's interested in drooling over dresses, brooding men, and/or aberrant sexualities with me, please let me know.

i had gone in looking for a b&w soviet film i need to see for my film theory seminar. but, as the wise men say, life is like a box of chocolates, &c.

besides consuming bronte and austen and way too many saltines, i've been distracting myself from the gaping newness of ben's absence with people. a delightfully bouncy Nields concert friday night, followed by a heavy-on-the-gossip, light-on-the-sleep sleepover. an epic dinner that incorporated several overlapping friend groups and locations. a truckload of inappropriate jokes i'd be embarrassed to repeat here (for example: how do you get a nun pregnant? dress her up as an altar boy! how embarrassing).
then last night the barn party which, if i'd been in the mood or dressed for it, would have been smashing. a melange of high-energy people, ranging from those i don't know to those i'd forgotten to those i only talk to when [they're] drunk. i snuck up to visit my old room at one point and was startled by the familiarity of the lavendar walls. i remember painting them -- indeed, i have pictures -- back when the barn was less intimidating because i lived there.

so here's bullshit

the washington post editorial page piously claims to endorse gay marriage but wags a finger at the "judicial arrogance" that is "forcing gay marriage down people's throats in undemocratic fashion."

first of all, i wonder, how could judges force something down people's throats in DEMOCRATIC fashion? by taking a vote? by taking turns?
that aside.

nothing makes me angrier in this debate than the argument that judges are somehow outside their rights when they make decisions based on precedent and evidence that change some detail about our society. my impression was that is exactly what they're paid and appointed to do. this kind of thing --

Given the moral and religious anxiety many people feel on the subject and the absence of clear constitutional mandates for gay marriage, judges ought to be showing more respect for elected officials trying to make this work through a political process.

-- is preposterous. judges should show respect for elected officials? i thought the legislative body was a separate and distinct entity for a reason.

politicians answer to the people. they can only be as radical as their consciences and purses allow. judges, however, have a responsibility to look forward, beyond the current political climate, and make strong, declarative decisions that pull our society forward. and hurrah for them. if judges in the 50s and 60s had bowed to that kind of pressure and waited to implement civil rights legislation until politicians/the country were "ready" for them, we'd still be living in a segregated country. well, a country even more segregated than the one we live in now.

like with civil rights legislation, of course there will opposition at first. that doesn't mean it's not good or just or, most importantly, the wave of the future.

who wants to celebrate may 18 with me?

i know it's silly to be all giddy and excited, but i am giddy and excited, baby. same-sex marriage legalized in massachusetts! 1/50th of america, at least, has caught up with the most advanced parts of the world.

on the sober side of the issue, i recognize that this means the right will get inflamed and push even harder for an amendment to ban same-sex marriage. the right is in a perpetual state of near-inflamation anyway. bush has so much on his plate right now, it's conceivable he'll continue putting the issue off. for the first time since he came into office, according to cnn, his approval rating has dropped below 50% (to 49%, but still). the people whose minds have changed about him recently and who he needs to woo hardly seem to be the kind of people who would forgive all for a pandering-to-the-xtian-right move like that.

still, congratulations, massachusetts! you are, for the moment, my favorite state.

sweeping the nation

so kerry's kerry-ing a majority of states this evening, but let's be honest about what's still on everyone's minds. now, i didn't watch the superbowl. at 9 pm, friends were forcibly restraining me from leaping in front of the dense pack of boys and changing the channel to sex and the city. but i've read enough about the boob incident to form an opinion and i feel it's one that's supported by the pictures linked to above: janet jackson's breast did not expect to be exposed right then. justin timberlake 100% pure creep. if some soon-to-be-forgotten spotlight-craving jackass twenty years my junior stripped me part-naked in front of millions of people, i'd beat him to death with my microphone.

janet jackson has chosen the more peaceful, feminine apology route. that's her right. vengeance is mine, saith the lord. i will repay.
the least she could have done is pantsed him, though. i mean come ON.

apropos of nothing, my grandmother turns 91 today. let's hear it for my grandmother. i'll bet she doesn't even know who justin timberlake is.

anni-day

no matter how much i steel myself for eating alone, returning from having eaten alone leaves me downcast. these are the times when i feel like maybe it's time to graduate, when i sit in sharples by myself looking on increasing numbers of people i don't know or know just enough that it's faintly embarassing that they're seeing me by myself.

i do need to get used to it since so many of my friends have moved off-campus and since ben, who's been my houseguest for a couple weeks and will be for one more, will be moving off, in his one way, soon. i nearly brought a book today but was waylaid by the fact that surely the only scarier thing than a stony-faced girl eating alone is that same stony-faced girl eating alone while reading dracula.

yesterday we celebrated our anni-day (3 years!), not because it was technically our anni-day but because on our technical anni-day he'll be galavanting around europe. even if manifactured, and come on, what holiday isn't?, the day was lovely. we watched fellini's 8 1/2 which was a visual ballet from start to finish, and surreal and self-referential in that way i can't get enough off. (it reminded me of one of my favorite films, all that jazz, and not coincidentally i'm sure.)

then we went into the city for mod romance: first to tritone, on 15th and south, and then across the street to bob and barbara's. since i expected something flamboyant from the latter, the quiet, quirky scene was initially a little disappointing, but the old-skool blues/jazz band buoyed my spirits. at tritone, all was sublime. candles! music! deep-fried candy bars and pabst! the food was good and warm and cheap -- our several course meal, including appetizers, main dish, side dish, drinks and dessert was less than $20 each. and we got to carve our names into the table. i reccomend it highly for your own mod romance needs.

little neurotic babies!

holy shit: the most annoying comic character ever may be getting hitched. does that mean we need to worry about potential badly-drawn offspring?

i hate it when things that are supposed to be empowering -- i.e., "cathy," the first widely published comic strip to be written by a working woman about a working woman; or, say, maureen dowd -- are actually smug, snide, or irritating.

last night i meant to watch city of god, which was being shown with moderate legality on campus, but after sitting through the entirety of d.w. griffith's intolerance, i simply couldn't handle it. my knees cried, Not three MORE hours of being bent and stationary! my hands cried, Not three MORE hours without doodling! my eyes -- well, they just cried, and yours would too, because intolerance is an epic of epic proportions, and epics are bad enough when they have sound, color, and coherent plots.

certainly, it's better than birth of a nation, the other epic for which griffiths is known. this one doesn't have scheming mulattos and a noble ku klux klan. it does however continue with the theme of very pale victimized childlike women and the terrible tragedies that befall them.
i don't want to sell d.w. short. he creates a pretty amazing replica of ancient babylon and the battle scenes are direct ancestors of those of lotr. heads succeed in rolling rather believably. i'm just not a fan of his moral messages and three hours of anything can be hard to take.

fcuk

pfffff. what does new hampshire know? they didn't pick clinton way-back-when. maybe they have a thing against arkansasians (wow that word looks weird spelled out) that explains their not voting for my boy clark.
all i can say is, i hope the only viable candidate doesn't drop out of this race.

on a different political note, i am shocked, SHOCKED, that cbs would dare to deny airtime to an anti-bush ad while allowing a pro-bush one. cbs should not be deciding what is "too controversial" for the american viewing public during the superbowl. several things have outraged me over the past several years of bush administration secrets and lies, but only the valerie plame leak has gotten to me as much as this.

click on the banner to find out the details and, if you're so inclined, to express your outrage in email form.

honeypie, honeypie

i can't believe i forgot the friggin golden globes this year. and they went exactly how i would have wanted them to! LOTR won best drama, lost in translation won best comedy and best screenplay. bill murray won, as did meryl streep, al pacino, and jeffrey wright for angels in america. and i was CLUELESS.

going away for the weekend, to ben's father's 50th birthday in brighton beach, must have disoriented me. it was indeed a disorienting experience: six hours in a russian restaurant that aspired to be the moulin rouge and succeeded only in being, if possible, more postmodern. i'm not even using jargon for jargon's sake. the floor show was not only the best floor show this side of rocky horror; it was also the most amazing explication of postmodernism i've ever seen. pastiche/high art + low art IS the mix of opera, ballet, and acrobatics with russian rockettes, stripper-like women in cages, and pounding flourescent techno. nothing in the floor show made any sense or correllated in any way with that came before or after, but that seemed to be the point.
it was all surface, fishnet-stockinged high-heeled surface, and the russians ate it up, along with the six thousand steaming plates of lamb that kept arriving to each table.

i was almost too busy goggling at the fishnets and heels to eat even the veggie-friendly salad appetizers. in my wool pants, button-down shirt, and sweater, i felt and looked like a nun.

i am, however, glad i went. it was definitely an experience. i took lots of pictures, though not one of the many clusters of fishnetted, high-heeled girls smoking under the "thank you for not smoking" signs (the restaurant would do marginally better with signs that read, "thank you for not ashing on the carpet") or the last stripper-like woman who danced in the cage, wearing a sparkly shirt and nothing else.

then go to new york

i'm off for the first of my indeterminate number of weekends away from swarthmore. this one is in honor of ben's father's birthday. being as he's russian and everything, a whole rowdy group is descending on an authentic russian restaurant in an authentic russian part of brooklyn. i mean, you think 'russian,' you think 'vodka' -- and you think 'vodka,' you think 'fun,' right?

it's too cold to do anything outside. or maybe it's too cold to do anything that doesn't involve vodka.

first fight. then fiddle.

i have my schedule settled. my potential classes, in order of relative skate-through-able-ness to lip-biting hair-tearing difficulty, are:

contemporary women's poetry
vampires in film, literature, and music
video production workshop
film theory (seminar, but only one credit)

on wednesday, when i had both video production and film theory, my profs each screened three experimental films. the grand total of six experimental films wiped me out.
(i know the word "experimental" is vague; essentially, it means NO DIALOGUE, NO STORY and NO ENDING, LET ALONE A HAPPY ONE.)
however, in the future it seems as though the video production class will focus on teaching us how to use a camera and then trying us by fire, and the film theory class will focus on, well, theory, making this past wednesday's experience a unique one.

the video production class is exciting because i will actually be learning a skill. this is a first for me at swarthmore. i've never even held a mini-dvd camera and by the end of the semester i will have made three short films. not as practical, maybe, as learning to change a tire or file taxes, but one has to start somewhere.

and vampires! who wouldn't be thrilled to learn about vampires! especially from a cute/dorky guy who seems simultaneously animated by the material and determined not to take it, or himself, too seriously.

thanks to everyone who passed on condolences re: gephardt, whether by email, in person, or shouting them across the cafeteria. the party went off well anyway. people rallied: they said "at least it wasn't dean" and poured themselves another glass of wine.
on that note, i have a bet going about whether the nomination will go to kerry or clark. i say clark. feel free to add your opinion and maybe i'll defend mine.

party prep

countdown to the caucus. this is serious business. if you don't believe it, come to our victory party this evening: where there's lamb, there's serious business.

it's always nerve-wracking to me to realize i don't know something that 24 hours from now i will know. even though i couldn't possibly know what i don't yet know, it irritates me that my future-self will know something my present-self doesn't. for instance, will i get into grad skool? i'd really they let me know before they let me know, you know?

speaking of rubbish, someone should buy the rights to my subconscious mind. not only do i come up with ridiculously creative horror scenarios, i dream some crazy shit. last night i dreamt i was carrying a wicker ring. once i dropped it i couldn't find it again until i had the brilliant idea to turn off everything in the world that wasn't wicker.
instantly, i found the ring. i turned the world back to normal again but i'd changed something irrevokably. as the pompous and irritated authority figure informed me, i'd "fucked with impossibility!" now EVERYTHING was possible -- which meant, of course, everything was chaos.

please hope gep pulls through tonite. there are excellent political reasons but more importantly, if he does, it will make my family very happy.

things we said today

anxiety dreams the past few nights. in them, i throw books at people's heads, curl into a ball on the floor and sob. people turn away from me. i wake up sorethroated and thirsty.

it must be related to returning to college. i'm about to return to college for the last time. well, actually, i suppose there's returning from spring break too. perhaps i should instruct my subconscious not to be so melodramatic.

still, over and over again, i find myself telling people it's almost over. cuz it is.

at times like these, i like johnny cash.

"animals laugh at me"

finally, an article on dogville, the latest and most controversial lars van trier movie. this is the one that was called anti-american and for a while couldn't get a distributor. i think it sounds fascinating.

it will be released this winter, i've heard. maybe they'll release it on the same day as the passion of mel gibson, and then all the righties in this country can go into their theaters and the lefties can go into ours. yay!

while browsing the internet, i came across this several-days-old-but-still-active discussion thread on book people vs. movie people. it's written by a fella who uses too many semi-colons, tends to ramble, and who raised my eyebrows by suggesting that the vast majority of novels should just be 50 pages long.
he raises several interesting points about the literary world, which he indicts as being an extention of the academic one. in essence, he says that book people don't have a sense of humor (about books or about themselves) while movie people necessarily do. moreover, movie people, unlike stodgy book people, glory in mixing art and trash and enjoying both.

it does remind me of my very first fiction teacher who drew a vertical line down the middle of the blackboard to segregate "FICTION" from "LITERATURE." when we called out an author, she wrote that author's name down either on one side of the line or the other. as i recall, there was no cross-over and there was no hazy in-betweenness.
that was my first introduction to that kind of thinking and it troubled me.
she did, however, say that it's perfectly okay to love both fiction and literature; it's just important to recognize the difference between the two.

mr. 2blowhards doesn't think so. i once had a long argument where i argued the side of my fiction teacher. really, though, it doesn't bother me overmuch. if i hadtohadto choose, i'd say i'm a movie person by his definition at least since i want to work in movies and not publishing. but i loved books first, including/especially fiction-not-literature: tom robbins, marjorie morningstar, gwtw, rebecca, douglas adams ... and earlier, Choose Your Own Adventures, encyclopedia brown, the babysitters club. i look back on that reading with fondness. in fact, hell!, i just reread a douglas adams book, and that was after i reread two of the harry potterz. man, slumming it.

all better

i was a teeeeny iiiitsy bit depressed today after i got feedback on my short[screenplay] "EXIT" which i'd entered in its first contest. the judge liked it but didn't love it and, naturally, it didn't make the top ten.

short[screenplay]s about sex offenders finding love in purgatory over games of marbles just don't do it for everyone, i guess. however, i did get high marks for originality.

i read the tvwop recap of the apprentice and it was all better. you know, the terrific new reality series where the dumbest-yet-most-attractive mbas in the country compete for the honor of someday working for donald trump. i'd say something snarky but believe me, the recap more than does that for me. hoo boy, i can't remember the last time i laughed that hard.

wait, yes i can. it was earlier this evening when my father recounted his maiden attempt at a group cross-country skiing lesson.

dad: so we get to this mogul --
mom: mogul? MOGUL?
dad: and the teacher says go over the mogul and immediately i fall --
mom: MOGUL? MOGUL?
dad: -- breaking the bindings on my skiis. the teacher's really nice about it and she gives me her bindings. so then i try to go over the mogul again and i fall again and break HER bindings --
mom: paul, there was no mogul. you were on flat ground and the teacher just said, "move FORWARD."

pause.

dad: well, at the very least, it was a bump.

two amazing finds

charlize theron in monster. whatever you have heard is in no way exaggerated. it is worth it, honestly, for you to spend $8 and 2 hours of your life, watching one of the most depressing rape-victim serial killer movies you will ever see, because charlize theron is astonishing. she transcends the material. moreover, she makes christina ricci look like an amateur.

it doesn't even feel like acting. you get the sense watching ricci that she's agog not because her lover has become homicidal but because she's in the presence of a hurricane.

the movie gets extra props in my book for its hands-off approach to direction and pacing: nothing fancy or distracting, just straightforward unsentimental storytelling. the voiceover is the one exception to this but first time writer/directors can be forgiven for that.
it also gets props for not making a big deal about the love story which lies at the film's center. neither of the two women has been in a queer relationship before but neither goes through any sort of traumatic coming out. neither agonizes over self-perception. it's refreshing.

of course, the movie is as dark as you would expect from something called "monster." that leads us to the next great find: metacritic.com, a site which catelogues all the opinions that matter and presents them in an approachable way. i've been obsessed with their 2003 awards page since ben pointed me to it. the most honored films of the year are ROTK and lost in translation, my two personal favorites.

is there a medical term for over-emotional?

besides "female," i mean.

ha HA.

really, i hate television. really. it's canned, predictable, idiotic -- and that's just the reality shows. but i became addicted to bravo's Celebrity Poker Showdown the same way i became addicted to baseball back in october, watching on the edge of my seat, shouting along with the commentators, flushed and giddy.

and this time, unlike in october, i was rooting for the winner.

i've also become (nearly) addicted to reruns of west wing on bravo, making the fledgling network hbo's rival for my most-watched. and hey, i'm a demographic they care about, right? i should treasure this while it lasts, while my opinions hold any cultural weight at all.

contributed to my overarching happiness are my terrific script conference with sam today; the last of my grades posted FINALLY this morning; and sense and sensibility which no number of viewings can or will ever decrease in quality or effect on me. it teaches valuable lessons, such as, Never trust a man who carries shakespeare's sonnets around in his pocket.

the best thing about my new black boots

the looks on people's faces as i swept past them that clearly said, "i'm sorry -- for a second i could have sworn you were carrie ann moss."

still laughing, two hours later

the best line i've ever read in esquire -- and even better in context where it follows hypermacho interviews with jack "if i were an arab-american i'd register myself. some things are more important than civil rights" nicholson and wonder "tough women abandon the feminine and that's too bad" woman --

adam west (you know, Batman): "i hate to disappoint you, but the batmobile only went 33 miles an hour."

for the record, i suppose i should say i used to be a hardcore jack nicholson fan. that was before i knew about the misogyny, the obsession with golf, the business about him being an accessory, and not the pretty kind, to roman polanski's infamous affair. but i admit, my life is just a little bit emptier without him, feminist bashing ("there are 3 times more single women over 40 than single men. that's the women's movement for you. that's chickens coming home to roost") and all.

just for kicks

you will never believe how many pairs of shoes richer i am now than i was four hours ago. i can barely believe it. o, the times i'd gone out searching, always alone, for that perfect pair of knee high black boots... to no avail. the perfect pair of knee high black boots, i had almost come to realize, was a phantom that existed only on the legs of film professors.

then i remembered the secret: bring your mother with you shopping, and if possible your aunt.

the gates of heaven (montgomery mall) swung wide to the three of us, curly haired ladies in blue jeans and ski jackets. angels (store employees) showered us with shoes. in one place, we got -- and by "we" i mean "i i i" -- not one but TWO pairs of knee high black books for $75 total.

the nordstrom angels, my personal favorites, tossed in a really cute pair of red steve maddens, also cheap, just for kicks.

the next time you see me, consequently, you have to compliment me on my shoes. as i've virtually doubled my collection, you have an excellent likelihood of catching me in a compliment-worthy new pair.

jack

hollywood has the right idea. never do anything once if twice will make you more money.

unfortunately, after master and commander, i actually thought pirates of the caribbean was a little lackluster. so ... bruckheimer, so overdone. i was also distracted the entire movie, thinking, "who IS that guy? why does he look so goddamn familiar?"

(the answer to that question, as to all others, is "orlando bloom! christ! you call yourself a movie-goer?")

someone seriously needs to do a compare/contrast between m&c and potc. for instance, on the compare side: both titles end with "c." both include a character from the lotr trilogy, only modified so as to be shorter/taller. both have a phenomenally attractive captain named jack.

in pirates' favor, i have to say i find swaggering, eye-liner, a headscarf and a killer brogue more attractive, altogether, than a whole bunch of muscles and the ability to play the violin.
also in pirates' favor, geoffrey rush can give me an apple anytime. hooooooooooboy. makes me want to run out and rent quills.

but when it comes down it, pirates just goes on and on and the script can't sustain it. but when it comes down it, of course, who cares? skeletons! geoffrey rush! johnny depp!

on a completely different note, last night my grandmother told me i should elope and save everyone the trouble. not that i'm planning on getting married -- this came almost out of nowhere. now, my romantic sensibilities have never manifested themselves in a dream of a storybook wedding, but i was still caught a little off-guard.
a few moments later, my grandmother said, Or don't get married at all. soon no one will get married; it will totally out of style. just so long as you meet someone nice.
to that, i could happily say, Okay.

i know there's a word for this

a couple months ago, my two brothers and three boy cousins were all assembled at my house and they wanted to see a movie. master and commander had just opened and, noting my audience, i suggested we go see it. nuts to that, they responded in one voice. let's see the station agent!

as it turned out, the station agent was a sweet, small film, the kind of that enables critics to use scrabble words like "quirky" and "poignant." my two brothers and three boy cousins, needless to say, were underwhelmed.

movie time rolled around again. master and commander, i suggested again. aw, you just wanna see russell crowe, they said. and to shouts of "yeah, remember how much she liked titanic?" and accompanying hoots of laughter, my two brothers and three boy cousins marched me off to see shattered glass.

in the darkness of the theater while the credits rolled and my two brothers and three boy cousins sat struck dumb by yet another well-acted character exploration with no profanity, sex, or explosions, i leaned over and whispered, "i told you we should have seen master and commander."

yesterday, at long long last, i swashbuckled into the theater by myself, prepared to be entertained. instead i got soaked. master and commander must be the wettest movie since titanic. those poor sailors get smacked around by gleeful waves, sheets of rain, everything but poltergeists flying around emptying buckets on their heads. but my oh my, is it a good movie.

i mean it. russell crowe is the kind of onscreen presence that makes your eyes go wide and your head fill with one expanding thought: "movie star!" he's balanced perfectly by paul bettany who, much more my personal taste, kept me happily distracted as chaucer during the otherwise silly "a knight's tale." lanky + british = mmmm ....
the crew, which includes one of the hobbits, holds up their end of the bargain too, a feat which is assisted by an actually quality script and really assured direction by peter weir ("the truman show").

i was so excited in its aftermath that i started walking home in the balmy 5 degree weather. my father caught sight of me and whisked me away. in the car and back at home, i calmed down -- until my friend ari called and invited me to watch the first half of angels in america at his house and i got all revved up again.

on a more somber note, ari asked me what the highlight of my semester was and i could not think of a thing. there must have been some head-above-the-rest thing this past fall and for the life of me i can't call it to mind.

twists and turns

so it turned out i was going to new mexico.
then it turned out i wasn't.

no biggie, i can adjust. see? look, i'm adjusting. my father and i might venture out next week instead, which would also be fine. now i just have to cobble together a list of things to keep me occupied at home with all my friends away. yesterday, while classic and very enjoyable, can't be template: i stayed in bed until 5 pm, in my nightgown, re-reading harry potter iv. i stopped only to eat (though, for lunch? i made this sandwich? maple-smoked cheddar, red onion, sliced egg, and raspberry chipotle sauce ... mmmmmm ...)

this was neccessary, of course, because while at swat w/ ben, i re-read the whole of harry potter v. my conclusion is that v was exactly what i wanted to read at the time that i read it, and still good and exciting and all that, but iv is of better consistency and iii is best of all.

on january 19th my mother is hosting a victory party for dick gephardt. not just any party, the official washington dc party -- the candidate will call our house, we'll have a speaker, and tickets will cost. i've been helping her plan. for something like this, i feel, you have to go all out. big gap adds modified to read "GEP" on the walls. blown-up old pictures from dick and primers that blare, "SEE DICK RUN! GO DICK GO!" crepe paper and balloons of course and the kitchiest hors d'oeuvres you can find.
i only regret i will not be here to participate.

what's better than best?

you wouldn't think that getting a lovely laptop for hannukah could get any better. yet it has. ready? i'm WIFI. !! that means that not only can i be one of them cool people in coffee shops reading porn/salon.com, or on planes watching whatever dvd they want intead of mad love for the fourteenth time -- now i get to do all of that without the irritating cordage!

so. exciting.

barely an hour after i got home from my sojourn (vermont -> ny -> swarthmore -> philly -> dc) my little brother was dragging me to best buy. for some reason, he paid for my wifi card, except for $15 which he asked of me. and the cashier frowned at HIM and told him he should be ashamed! considering that my older brother purchased my new cellphone for me, it seems there's evidence to support a claim that i'm the family princess. i guess it evens out in the end, though, since i have to menstruate and earn $.70 for every dollar they earn. (i've never had this discrepancy explained to me, by the way -- what accounts for the gap, besides looks?)

anyway, i had a lovely, really lovely, time in vermont and new york and the philly area. little adam and mark came to stay with ben and me and were ideal guests. we zipped around the mountains, visiting picturesque 200 year old towns, each of which comes equipped with a library. interestingly, we didn't see a single dean sign. perhaps vt is less enchanted with the increasingly god-oriented candidate than the rest of the country.

speaking of his increasing god-orientation, a reporter asked dean at a recent press conference, where he was acting pious, what his favorite book in the new testament was. he replied, "the book of job." later he corrected himself, saying that of course job is part of the old/my/his wife and 2 children's testament.
so what's your favorite new testament book? the reporters asked.
the gospels, he said.
which?
all of them.

now that's politics.

where everybody knows your name

this is the second library ben and i have been in in two days and in both, the librarians have known their patrons personally. that's enough to make me want to move to small-town vermont, especially when they're cute and yuppie (but they still have cheaper gas than even rural upstate new york) and victorian and decorate with tasteful xmas lights.

til now, it's just been the two of us in my grandparents' lovely house. two friends are joining us today as should be a segment of ben's family. in the serene interval between our arrival and theirs, i've read 2.5 lemony snicket books, bought 1 audio cd (of book 3: the wide window), watched four movies, cooked, slept, walked, washed dishes, missed my grandfather and my dog, and laughed at ricki lake.

the movies, in order of sublimity, are as follows:
1) breathless. as good as everyone says it is; maybe better. this godard 1959 classic set the new age standard for sexyviolence and nihilism but unlike the vast majority of other such movies ever made it succeeds in seeming unique, beautiful, & surprising. extra plus: it features a fantastic female character who chooses independence over love.

2) caddyshack. actually funny. who knew?

3) my life as a dog. as ben sez, it's what gives foreign films a bad name. sure it's sweet and well-acted. it's also meandering, weirdly paced, long, and somewhat pointless.

4) bridge over the river kwai. speaking of long and somewhat pointless. sir alec as a self-important colonel who feels like civilization rests on his shoulders does not disappoint but the rest of this film, about the brits under sir alec's command in a japanese prison camp forced to build a bridge, would make edward said choke on his own vomit.

still left to see: shampoo, amarcord, jules & jim, & i'm blanking on the others, all courtesy of the chappaqua public library. and sometime we truly intend to get some skiing in.

a kander-and-ebb kristmas

no chinese food today, as it turned out. i did however find myself wandering around dupont circle, unsure of where exactly visions was, until i realized that all i needed to do was follow the jews.
sure enough, they led me to the free screening of cabaret. i think i liked it better this time -- the first time i saw the film i was skeptical of the ending.

then i took the metro home and participated in the following scene:

two middle-aged black women and one young white woman stand on a usually bustling street corner made eerily vacant by christmas, dark, and cold.

a vintage blue car slowly pulls up to the curb next to the three women. the older white guy inside rolls down the passenger side window and asks, "any of you ladies need a ride?"
the two older women give him a definitive No and he moves on.

several minutes later, a run-down red car pulls up to the curb next to the three women. the older white guy inside rolls down the passenger side window and asks, "can i take you ladies somewhere?"
the two older women give him a definitive No and he moves on.

the three women exchange incredulous glances. this is northwest washington, connecticut avenue -- what on earth is going on?

a minute later, a black suv pulls up to the curb next to the three women. the young white guy inside signals to the crowd. the older women open their mouths to give him a definitive No but are silenced by the young woman moving to accept the driver's invitation.
she turns around and explains, "this one's okay. it's my brother."

fin

my parents bought me a laptop for hannukah. bless them and bless this giftgivin time. and bless vermont where i'll be for the next week. mm, vacation -- my last winter break ever.

happy december 25th!

i overdid it on the nyquil today and ended up sleeping through christmas eve dinner. not that we celebrate yoshke day. another jewish family came over and my mother made ducklings and roast onions and i was upstairs, blissfully sleeping in pants and socks.

that, despite having recently seen 28 days later (scary) and 21 grams (sad).

i only have one grad skool application left to send out (scary? sad?). this feels somewhat like a cusp-of-the-future moment. an old friend and i were wandering around a mall and she dragged me over to kay "the k stands for kheap!" jewelers and for the first time in my life i came face to face with diamond rings.

check out the Design Your Own Ring link from that site. it's currently making the hair rise on the back of my neck. then of course there's the spending guidelines which recommend the traditional 2 months of salary. they even offer a thingy that calculates for you what that would be.

it's kind of like an online quiz, only creepier. for instance, "what shape reflects YOUR love?
The luxurious oval shaped diamond is a definite favorite. Oval shaped diamonds are guaranteed to leave an everlasting impression of luxury regardless of how they are worn. This piece is destined for lovers who demonstrate both creativity and dependability. Fun-loving women who allow their true wild-side to shine through often prefer this shape as well."

or -- like captain planet -- heart!: "Heart shaped diamonds beautifully and simply reflect a relationship that is meant to last "happily ever after." Although the heart is feminine and delicate, its spectacular shape captures all the attention it deserves, as this shape is very difficult to cut. The heart shape conveys the endless love that exists between two people and reinforces the genuineness and passion that only true love shares."

ew ew ew. ew. but the alternatives are also gross: she'll never know .... as seen on tv.

funny how i started off talking about christmas and ending up talking about consumerism. actually, that's a pretty hackneyed point; i apologize. i'm going to see movies with the jews tomorrow at visions. very exciting. have a happy holiday everyone and may you give/receive all the shiny objects you wish.

acetaminophin

that's a stab in the dark, btw. i never claimed to be a speller.

of all my weirdo pseduo-phobias -- bathrooms, driving, lighting matches -- the one i most still need to address is taking pills. curing headaches via nyquil for its painkillers seems somewhat roundabout.

i haven't been able to accomplish much recently. i'm paralyzed. my little brother has the flu and i'm so paranoid i'll get it all i do is wash my hands. but um. i am having a good break.

the return of good movies

now that i'm home, i can turn my attention to movies EVEN MORE exclusively. (i enjoy my life.)

my father and i went to a matinee of return of the king in a huge two-tier theater with a curved screen and an audience that shrieked when the lights went down and throughout at Classic Movie Moments. sometimes i clapped along with them, giddy, as a testament to the fact that for the first 2.25 hours i was swept away by this film.

i think my resting heart rate for the duration of rotk was 106. that's about what it was the last days before i heard from swarthmore and i know because my p.e. teacher made me take my pulse in front of the class. when he realized it was over 100, he looked at me like i might be crazy, or dead.

the POINT is, it's such a kickass film it feels like a workout. you break out in a sweat. you alternately tense and relax. and afterwards you feel goofy and fulfilled.

my only quibble is with the last half hour. what is with the 10 different endings, each schmaltzier and more mythical than the last?

it's so good though. isn't it? so scary, and thrilling, and well-directed and well-paced. i even thought the script was better. check plus, peter jackson. and thanks.

peddling donuts

me: would you like to buy a donut for an excellent cause?
lady: oh, i'd like to but i just can't. i'll give you some money though.
me: thank you. are you sure you wouldn't like the donut?
lady: no ... go give it to someone thin.
me: YOU'RE thin.
lady: you haven't seen me naked.

in less than two hours of selling, veronica and i sold 108 real donuts. many we sold more than once, since many soft-hearted administrators "bought" donuts, or even whole boxes, without taking them. virtually all of them were on atkins and they weren't convinced when i told them these donuts were low-card. they did, however, find veronica and me excessively cute.

i'm done w/ everything. it's a great feeling. i handed in my film final and my screenplay draft (held together w/ clothespins) to my prof at the same time. she was much more excited about the screenplay, which left me a little miffed i had bothered at all with the finals.

who cares! tomorrow i go home. top five movies to see:
#1 Return of the King
#2 Big Fish
#3 21 Grams
#4 Mystic River (finally)
#5 damn, there was a fifth. it's escaping me now. no matter! happy break, everyone.

!!!

i finished! i finished i finished i finished my first draft. 109 pages, half of which it took me a semester to write and half of which it took me this past week. ignoring that -- and many other things, including its roughness -- i am very excited to report i have a full, functional first draft.

and no, you may NOT read it, no matter how well-intentioned you are, until i have spent the requisite few weeks revising it and feeling more solid about it.

meanwhile, just celebrate with me. YEAH baby!

poor miss moore

i braved the snow this morning for blue pancakes and far from heaven with k-ross and msrabi.

that was my third retro film of the weekend. #1, on friday, over milk-godivaliquer-&-kahlua cocktails in plastic cups, was the disappointing fast times at ridgemont high. by the near end, one of my companions had wandered off, another asked if we could just stop watching, and i had been playing snood for twenty minutes.

more successfully, #2, on saturday, following a grocery run that took several of us into philadelphia for a classy dinner at whole foods, wayne's world. so pomo it makes clueless look positively mild. and still fun to watch.

perestroika tonight, which i've never seen produced before in any form, will serve as #4. before i leave on wednesday, i should round off the retro to a round #5, i think. perhaps only if i indeed finish a draft of audacia.

dum da dum

i've hit page 92. that means 100 will be a piece of cake -- and i'll have written 50 pages in less than a week -- and i should almost definitely go for a full draft, however long that turns out to be. oh dear oh dear. it's rather exciting.

how do people feel about flashbacks? what's the consensus? annoying or better than chronological story-telling. it's so hard to know.

hilarity ensues

howl, howl, howl, howl, howl.

not me. the wind.

i'm on page 72, which would be excellent if it seemed like i could stop at 100 but i'm not sure i can. it is very difficult to keep the big picture in mind when writing a screenplay. individual scenes are so important, and making sure one scenes leads logically into another, and keeping the story moving.

i've seen lots theater recently -- senior company last friday, angels in america sunday (beautiful, btw; i can't wait for the next installment), the directing pieces last night -- and lots of film: thelma and louise, waiting for guffman, the tall guy, being there (i fell asleep but i could tell it was lovely). even dance: the gammalan concert, terpsichore, and k-ross's party. all this art should be having a tremendous effect on me. perhaps it's the kind of thing that would show up in an x-ray.

anyway, back to plowing ahead in the story of audacia dangereyes. maybe it'll be okay if i don't finish a whole draft so long as hit 100 pages before i go home.

out of the ________, into the _________

high pressure situation day! first i had dinner with my future, or what i hope is my future: killer indy producer and actual breathing living Member of the Academy christine vachon. (i keep thinking vachon means "pig" in french. subsequently i keep thinking this is wrong. i only just learned today that "liebstod," the only german endearment i know, means "love-death." anyway!)

christine vachon arrived in pajama pants, which looked like they once belonged to m.c. hammer, tucked into black combat boots. now THAT, my friends, is a new york filmmaker. her clothes said Fuck hollywood, as did her attitude, her lack of makeup, and, in fact, her oeuvre. damn that's hot. i wish i could be a successful creative non-sellout.

after dinner, during which i failed to make an impression on ms. christine -- to be fair, there were about 15 of us and patty's son stole the show -- i heard her speak, watched clips, and participated in a Q&A. that always means, for me, that i sat scribbling quotes into my notebook and looking intently at her JUST IN CASE she should happen to be tortured by the thought, "who IS that girl with the pigtails and the intense gaze?" and immediately sign me to my bright and glorious future.

there was no signing involved. there was nothing but me saying goodbye and thank you as i left, holding the leftover lasagne patty let me take home to feed my weeklong guest. now i'm going, braced, to the trans workshop where hopefully i will not accidentally say something offensive or expose ignorance any greater than everyone else's about the issues at hand.

christine vachon says she's fearless. i wish i could be fearless. i mean, for god's sake, christine vachon is only christine vachon and the cool kids are only the cool kids (hi cool kids!) and someday i'm really going to be somebody ... or something.

update!

roy h. is speaking here tonight. the zionist group is bringing him as an example of an israeli college student. allow me to say, WHAT??

for those of you who don't know, or vaguely remember, roy h. went to my high skool. i retain only a vague impression that he was hot as he graduated several years ahead of me.
his younger brother, m., however, is an infamous holy terror. m. rode the bus with me and would tell casually about his sexual escapades in the beit midrash. (dude! we had to PRAY in there!) one time he came to one of my brother's parties at our house and in trying to run from the family room to the patio didn't realize there was a GLASS DOOR in the way.

he fell on the door, shattering it the way you've never seen anything shatter in your life but only dazing himself. his mom came to pick him up soon after. my mom wondered how to break the news to her.

the ensuing conversation went as follows:
my mom: you son had an accident and shattered our glass door.
his mom: oh dear. ... i hope you have insurance.

i don't mean to imply that just cuz m. is a delinquent his brother is. but, uh, the odds are against him.

edit

i've taken this down in the interest of not embarrassing myself any further. thanks for the supportive comments.

my outrage is better than your outrage

because mine gets published! check out my letter to the new york times magazine. it's the last one on the page and it's in reference to an article from two weeks ago (unfortunately you have to pay for it now. the intro paragraph should give you an idea). judson said the author medicalized gender. if i were really smart, i woulda thought of that -- but i was smart enough anyway to get published.

forgive my bragging, but i am 2 for 2: one letter in the washington post last year, one in the times.

in other non-outrage related news, i'm back from what has never been my favorite holiday. of late my family has been hoofin it up to vermont and celebrating there. after a few days with all of us in that house either micromanaging or snapping pictures it usually gets a little, um, special.

this year we gathered in dc. it seemed in some ways like an extension of the funeral, since it was the same folks gathered in the same place. but there were also important holiday elements, like more corners to escape to and more tvs to watch and a computer to fight over. ultimately it was really good and i enjoyed seeing my family under less strenuous circumstances.

and no, i did not eat the turkey, but, yes, i had plenty to eat.

cake or death

cake, please!
okay, here's a real question. how many movies have you walked out of or stopped?

my list:

• waking life GOD that film is a pretentious waste. those conversations are not deep. they're intellectual roadkill. we have those conversations during the first week of college before we realize college students are meant to limit their conversations to the subjects of teleology and poop.
  
• playing by heart
  
• age of innocence

i mean, as a general rule, i don't see bad movies, so as a general rule i don't stop or walk out of things no matter how badly they are in need of stopping or walking out of. case in point: love, actually to which i subjected not just myself but four others on friday.

a bit of advice, gov. when you're making a romantic comedy -- or eight at once -- you do not need to begin with a pious lecture to your audience about how Love is All Around Us.
your audience is watching your movie either because (a) they believe that already, fervently, and expect you to back them up; (b) they are skeptics reasonably willing to be convinced; or (c) they think liam neeson, emma thompson, alan rickman, & colin firth are terrific actors and wouldn't be in a movie all together if it were rubbish. for the (a)s, the lecture is redundant. for the (b)s, it induces vomiting. for the (c)s, it starts heart palpitations and alarm bells ringing and the unpleasant thought, "christ, what i have gotten myself and/or four others in for?"

romcoms are by definition not radical acts of resistance against the man (tho wouldn't it be could if they were?). still it's downright CREEPY to populate a supposedly sweet movie with adulterers, wannabe-adulterers, chronic sexual harassers, and men in positions of power who take advantage of their female underlings. especially when you're not given time to know these people or understand their intentions, if they have any besides "it's christmas! i'll do what i like!" in the spirit of jesus, the original hedonist, of course.

rant To Be Continued and To Lead Up to a Point about Do The Right Thing.

teleology

at dinner tonight, someone brought up teleology, which, in respect to history, refers to the belief that events happened because they had to, one after the other, to lead up to the present moment. more than anything it affirms the endpoint. the present.

teleology falls under the rather expansive category of Things That Are Not Okay.

i do not espouse teleology. i find theory tedious in general; i'm not going to spend my valuable snood-playing time decided whether to identify as 40% New Historicist, 40% Feminist, 20% Kid in the corner who didn't do the reading.
however, when i dismiss ani difranco or the indigo girls [simply?] because they featured prominently in a rearview mirror part of my life, i am being teleological. ditto when i make fun of my old poetry or old friends or pre-swarthmore modes of thinking.

they should teach classes here in how not to be disdainful of the past. (SOAN 087: RECLAIMING ANI. 1 credit. cross-listed under MUSIC AND DANCE and EDUCATION.) it's SO tempting. so easy. who wasn't an underdeveloped twerp at the age of 13?
it might be a touchy subject to me because i still look more or less the way i did when i was 13. under such circumstances, naturally i would want to differentiate myself from my tween self as much as possible, in the only way possible.

but um, i was kind of cool when i was 13. i didn't care what people thought of me. i spent no time or money on fashion. i wrote limericks. i asked out a boy. even after that didn't work out (see entry, November 19) we remained friends. my posse of friends were the coolest people ever; i didn't NEED a boyfriend. in fact, when a boy asked me out -- a boy i thought i really really liked -- i surprised both of us by saying No.

good to remember. go ahead, try it!

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blueberry pie

i needed to write six pages of my screenplay this afternoon. i wrote eight, AND did my laundry, AND put it away, AND wrote my review for the phoenix (on the station agent, one of three indie, character-driven, written-and-directed-by-a-white-man flicks i've seen lately. two of the three have starred the remarkable patricia clarkson, who is to this year what carrie-anne moss was to 2000).

the way i see it, i have earned my right to enjoy tonight's screening of midnight cowboy. after that, however, and more or less for the next two weeks, it's back to work.

between 3 and 6

my first night back at skool, i considered a play, a movie, an evening of games, and decided i wanted quiet. a book and a bed.

at 1 a.m., the fire alarm went off.
at 1:45 a.m., the fire alarm went off again.

at 2, i finally crawled back into bed. at 3:30 i finally fell asleep.

i woke at 6, at 8, at 10. at 10 i got out of bed, urged by an unusual feeling of activity around my nostrils. i wish i could say i woke up, bleeding out of my face, after dreaming of mountain climbing or hand-to-hand combat with donald rumsfeld.

it has stopped. my worry that all of a sudden today someone will point at me and shriek, "ohmygodBLOOD!" has not.
otherwise, i'm fine. it's good to be back.

shiva

the jewish ritual of mourning involves spending a lot of time sitting in little chairs. they look like something out of a fairy tale, especially set among the high-backed chairs and sofas of my living room.

already my time among the little chairs is winding down. tomorrow my cousin eric drives me to skool, barring the same kind of unforeseen circumstance that detained us earlier in the week. i've been gone since last friday. i'm braced to see that skool life has managed to continue without me, but people have been exceptionally sweet.

i spoke at the funeral yesterday.
i shoveled earth into the open grave.
when the limo dropped us back at the house, the electricity had gone out. it came back on just before the 7:30 service in my living room. before then, the candles everywhere and sheets over the mirrors gave the appearance of a seance.

and now, what.

everyone says "not yet," no one says "yet."

yet.

as it turns out, it was the end. i'll be at home for a while.

for whom the phone tolls

as it turns out, this is not the end exactly. this is the beginning of the end. i head back to swat tomorrow morning in time to make it to my film class. but of course for the rest of november i'll be hovering over my phone, waiting for it to ring.

at least i got a chance to sit with my grandfather, to thank him for everything he's done for us, particularly the challah he made every friday night for shabbes dinner. he got to call me ester bloomie. he got to hold my hand. i'm his only granddaughter. he's my only grandfather. at least we got a chance to say goodbye.

i look

three red bumps plotted on my face like the vertices of a triangle. glasses. hair parted straight down the center, pulled straight back into a ponytail. i don't know how many days i will wear these clothes. i only expected (packed) for a weekend.

family trickles in by plane, train, car, phone. everyone murmurs, feeds each other. when the need strikes each of us, we move to a different room in my grandparents' apartment and face a different wall, a different window. or sometimes. we hold each other. the rabbi comes when called, surprising pleasing me, and stays, encouraging my grandfather's stories. for the rabbi's sake, my grandfather speaks more than he has all day and in a stronger voice. he likes to say the word, to call him simply "Rabbi." the rabbi listens until the tape in the player runs out. he speaks to my grandfather with respect, not the way you fear people will speak to a man in the last stages of cancer.

the siddur sits open on the kitchen counter to the "viddui" page.

my father sits open in the kitchen dressed for the yeshiva, white button down shirt, dark pants, dark kippah, reading, not the New York Times, but "Psalms." he says things in yiddish to my grandfather, who answers in kind.

deli, chinese in the fridge. i make tea. everyone loses it but no one really does. it is as though we carry ourselves in our fists. politics. movies. a day passes, a full day, not just the time between lunch and dinner. there is no lunch and dinner. there is tea, deli, chinese. coffee cake. my grandmother tells me gently i made the tea too strong. i make more.

inevitably, because the family has gathered, it feels like a celebration. we make jokes. we suggest movies to see. we try to watch the english patient but who has patience for it even outside of this apartment? my grandmother amazes me. my uncle amazes me. everyone amazes me. my father, my mother. my grandfather tells the rabbi, She'll be America's Poet Laureate someday.

he is conscious, at least for now. he knows who he is, who we are, if not who we'll be. of course, he amazes me. the rabbi asks him, Do you want me to read the viddui, the confessional? my grandfather says, Not yet.

thank heaven for ...

- rational human beings and courts that work with them:

Allowing Congress to practice medicine without a license endangers the lives and health of women," said Vicki Saporta, chief executive officer of the federation.

- billionaires with consciences:

When Ray Kroc died in 1984, she took control of the San Diego Padres, which her husband had purchased 10 years earlier. And though Ray Kroc had been committed to philanthropy, opening the Kroc Foundation in Chicago to support medical research, his wife took giving even more seriously

my dad gave the salvation army $1 million once, $1 to each of three other national charities. it wasn't his money to distribute, it was the government's, but it pleased him that for once government money was being allocated the way it should be.

it makes me wish i had a lot of money to give away. first i'd have to have a lot of money, which would also be nice.

- tamara jenkins, writer-director of slums of beverly hills, is going to be my honors examiner. for you non-honors-program-swatties, that means my senior year will culminate in an intense discussion with her about my screenplay thesis. she will read and then grade my thesis. considering that slums is the most authentic, effective film about an adolescent female, this is (a) intimidating, and (b) um, fucking amazing.

planning my last semester

how about:

- film theory & culture (req. seminar, only 1 credit, w/ patty)
- film production workshop (hands-on camera experience)
- VAMPIRES in film, lit, and music (!!)
- olde english (learning the lang, man)

die bold!

swarthmore makes it into the new york times, and not in reference to its football team! the article is in the business section, which sucks a little, but it's also FIVE PAGES LONG. and, if i may say so myself, sympathetic toward the students involved.

�It�s very different from the way that Diebold has been doing things.� Mr. Rubin, who has received a cease-and-desist notice from Diebold because of his research, said, �The solution is to stop selling insecure voting machines and not to continue threatening students who are only trying to protect our democracy.�

that's right! tell 'em! democracy!

i'm feelin peppery cuz i just saw the one-and-only blacklisted american film, salt of the earth (1954). it deals with so many issues that it's hard to know which straw broke the projectionist's back: the mexican-americans demanding equality? the women demanding respect from their men? the workers standing up to the evil white mining bosses? the fact that the film was made by a member of the infamous hollywood 10?

the dvd case says it was the only american film to be shown in china for fifteen years, which probably makes it the most watched movie of all time. it's funny: of the messages in the film, many of which are revolutionary, especially for 1954 (!!), the one that comes across least strongly to me is communism. it's about workers' rights and the power of unions, but not in a What Would Mother Russia Do? kind of way.

how to teach the worst workshop in history

[censored out of worry/wisdom. if you want to see the full text, you can find it as a friends-only entry on my lj. if you REALLY WANT to see it and don't have a damn lj, leave a comment and i'll email you the entry.]

november and november and november ...

usually november is one of those months where depression claims me, like february. by "usually" i mean "habitually," at least here. the past three years i've gotten beaten down by november, by assassins or paranoia or plain old american malaise.

come to think of it, novembers in high skool were never too hot. one november i fought with my best friend on and off and passionately all month, culminating in a letter that went on longer than the month itself that i wrote over thanksgiving weekend at my cousins' house in westchester.
another november -- november 19th, to be exact -- i asked out a male friend of mine over the phone. he laughed and said no. later, when he realized i hadn't been joking, he apologized to me, chagrined.

yeah, november. up to no good.

the weather hints otherwise, to the point where i'm not sure what to believe. the store i wanted to go to today was closed. the movie i saw was mediocre. i missed my train by three minutes. the next movie i saw was mediocre too. none of it made me sad, though, ameoliorated as it was by company, the afore-mentioned weather, and frank o'hara's lunch poems.

the smartest course of action seems to be, Stay low, don't try anything risky, don't play assassins, don't give in to the feeling that your friends have stopped liking you, and enjoy the unseasonable warmth.

it feels like june!

or at least may. it's AMAZING. i almost regret not getting up til 2. almost.

at around 2 last night my body had definitely had enough. it was enough of a rough week (what with my exorcist-type relationship with the toilet that one morning, and the two nights made possible by NyQuil) that even though i was feeling up to celebrating halloween by halloween, i reached my tolerance early-ish. this made an unfortunate shivery walk back to my dorm from ross-n-reb-n-ian's place.

but the party at ross-n-reb-n-ian's place was largely delightful. my costume went over well. the glasses, as it turned out, MADE the costume: what's a nerdy half-earnest superhero without glasses? i carried around a vinnie's tampon case -- black and red, it matched the rest of me: red stockings, topped with red'n'black thigh-high socks, my red'n'black velvet suit, a red'n'black tablecloth cum cape -- filled with Consciousness Raising slogans.

when people asked who i was, i presented them with a notecard that read something along the lines of "What would bell hooks do?" or "Look at your vagina in a mirror!" with the exception of one person who merely Looked at me, as though to say, What, do you think you're funny?, it was a hit.

terrific costumes abounded. reb made a frighteningly accurate droog. kross flitted around as a neon bug man. we had 2 greek philosophers, several characters from harry potter including a basilisk, donatella versace, charlie chaplin, buffy and willow, AND, my favorite, little adam as eminem.