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Entry tags:
- beyonce: also a free bitch,
- brother,
- david bowie,
- faggotry,
- family,
- friends,
- gerard way: lesbian feminist,
- glambert,
- glass half full shit,
- lady gaga is a free bitch baby,
- links,
- movies,
- my chemical romance,
- philosophy,
- placebo,
- school,
- stories,
- tag-a-riffic,
- the common ish,
- too many footnotes!,
- velvet goldmine,
- video
Hodgepodge.
Tonight I made Little Brother watch E.T., because somehow he managed to make it to age thirteen (nearly fourteen!) without seeing it even once. I don't know how that happened. Clearly I fail as a mentor.
E.T. is something I'm slightly embarrassed to admit to getting emotional about, because it's about a white suburban kid who befriends a cuddly alien and that is pretty uncool! But I tear up every time I watch it anyway, because I am a sucker for stories in which Lonely, Alienated Children Befriend Strange Creatures.* Elliott is the first movie character I ever remember really relating to, and I really wanted an E.T. when I was little. Except one that looked a little less weird and ugly and didn't make so many fucked up noises. I also wanted a bike with a basket on the front like Elliott's with which to transport said E.T., and a really huge closet to store it in so my mother wouldn't find out about it. I didn't get any of those, not even the bike with the basket, but it was nice to dream.
Anyway, I think the movie would have gone better for LB if he hadn't just watched the video for "Telephone" fifty bajillion times in a row. He ended up giggling and singing to himself every time E.T. said he was going to phone home and, during the climactic scene in which E.T. goes back onto the spaceship, wondered aloud if Lady Gaga was going to be in there.
Kids these days.
Oh, speaking of Lady Gaga, would you like to hear about how she and Beyonce totally saved my life on Friday?
Okay, so maybe "saved my life" is a bit of an overstatement. But they definitely made it better.
On Friday morning I had to give a seminar in my Political Philosophy class. This scared me shitless for several reasons, namely:
1) It was on Foucault's Discipline and Punish, a book I had yet to finish.
2) It was for a class taught by Professor Trnka, a teacher who manages to be both kind of foxy (by way of intellect and a truly unique accent**) and absolutely terrifying (by way of intellect and a truly unique ability to call people on their bullshit).
3) oh my god talking in front of people asl;jkjk;fr
By the time I got up there in front of the class- at the FRONT, man, people were LOOKING AT ME- I was pretty much a wreck. Sweaty palms, shaking hands, the whole nine yards. I stammered so much I had to restart a couple of times, and my mouth was really dry which meant I made little clicking noises that Trnka could hear from the back of the room- he offered to get me a soda, because he is a lovely, scary person- and I'm pretty sure I mispronounced the word "ascetic." It was HORRIBLE. And the whole time I was thinking, This is the worst day of my life, this is the worst day of my life, this is the worst day of my life. Because it was.
I finished, after what seemed like roughly ten thousand years, and asked, "So, um, any q-questions? Or, um, comments? Um, um, uh."***
Nobody spoke. Nobody moved. Crickets chirped. A few dogs barked. I may have heard a siren in the distance. And I thought, THIS IS THE WORST DAY OF ANYBODY'S LIFE. EVER.
Then a girl in the front put up her hand.
"Have you seen the video for 'Telephone'?" she asked. "Because I think it's relevant to this discussion."
And so I put it on, and we all watched it, and had a class-wide discussion on the philosophy of Foucault as it pertains to Lady Gaga. And I thought, This is the best day of my life. Because it was.
The end!
The night after Lady Gaga and Beyonce saved my life, I went to a costume party. I was waffling over what I wanted to be for a while- I've already been a riot grrrl, a zombie Catholic schoolboy, Daria Morgendorfer, and Donnie Darko, so I was starting to run out of ideas. And then I watched Velvet Goldmine twice in one week and started listening to Without You I'm Nothing again and, well, this happened.
I wasn't really going as anyone in particular; I just wanted to look like something threw up a ball of fabulous.
I ended up looking like David Bowie and Adam Lambert had a baby and made Jack Ferry take it shopping.
(Fun fact: just out of frame here is a picture of Mr. Bowie himself as Ziggy Stardust, doing his makeup before a show. I have it taped to my wall as an inspiration to be the best glittery pansexual alien freak I can be.)
I also ended up using pretty much an entire bottle of glitter body spray.
And there were boots.
It. Was. AWESOME.
Things currently making my life:
The Iggy Pop/Gerard Way interview, still. Even though it is mostly a back-and-forth consisting of "You're GREAT, Iggy!" "No, YOU'RE great, Gerard!" "Oh, know what else is great? Green Day!" "And golf!" "And babies!" "Gosh, everything is so great." "Just like us." "Yeah."
This nostalgic post about the early days of the Internets. I find it difficult to picture a world without lolcats. I mean, obviously I know it existed, I was ALIVE, but still. Weird.
Health care! Granted, I'm Canadian so I already had it, but still, hurrah. (The Stupak Amendment is still getting me down, though.)
This. Yes. A thousand times yes.
Baby otters.
... my mother just poked her head into my bedroom to inform me that she stole a turkey. I think the poor woman may finally be cracking under the stress.
* The Iron Giant is also something I get absurdly teary over. Actually, E.T. and The Iron Giant are pretty much the same story, except one has kids riding bicycles into the moon and the other one has, um, atomic bombs. I think The Iron Giant is a better story overall, but I don't remember watching it in a pair of footie pajamas so E.T. has the upper hand when it comes to turnin' on the waterworks.
** His parents are Ukrainian-Canadian (hence the single-vowel name), he was raised partly in London, and he spent a good lot of his college years in Prague. Try to imagine what that sounds like. Then add a drawl, expressive hand gestures, a look of vague disdain, and a little black cap. Yep. TERRIFYING.
*** No, really, that's how I said it.
E.T. is something I'm slightly embarrassed to admit to getting emotional about, because it's about a white suburban kid who befriends a cuddly alien and that is pretty uncool! But I tear up every time I watch it anyway, because I am a sucker for stories in which Lonely, Alienated Children Befriend Strange Creatures.* Elliott is the first movie character I ever remember really relating to, and I really wanted an E.T. when I was little. Except one that looked a little less weird and ugly and didn't make so many fucked up noises. I also wanted a bike with a basket on the front like Elliott's with which to transport said E.T., and a really huge closet to store it in so my mother wouldn't find out about it. I didn't get any of those, not even the bike with the basket, but it was nice to dream.
Anyway, I think the movie would have gone better for LB if he hadn't just watched the video for "Telephone" fifty bajillion times in a row. He ended up giggling and singing to himself every time E.T. said he was going to phone home and, during the climactic scene in which E.T. goes back onto the spaceship, wondered aloud if Lady Gaga was going to be in there.
Kids these days.
Oh, speaking of Lady Gaga, would you like to hear about how she and Beyonce totally saved my life on Friday?
Okay, so maybe "saved my life" is a bit of an overstatement. But they definitely made it better.
On Friday morning I had to give a seminar in my Political Philosophy class. This scared me shitless for several reasons, namely:
1) It was on Foucault's Discipline and Punish, a book I had yet to finish.
2) It was for a class taught by Professor Trnka, a teacher who manages to be both kind of foxy (by way of intellect and a truly unique accent**) and absolutely terrifying (by way of intellect and a truly unique ability to call people on their bullshit).
3) oh my god talking in front of people asl;jkjk;fr
By the time I got up there in front of the class- at the FRONT, man, people were LOOKING AT ME- I was pretty much a wreck. Sweaty palms, shaking hands, the whole nine yards. I stammered so much I had to restart a couple of times, and my mouth was really dry which meant I made little clicking noises that Trnka could hear from the back of the room- he offered to get me a soda, because he is a lovely, scary person- and I'm pretty sure I mispronounced the word "ascetic." It was HORRIBLE. And the whole time I was thinking, This is the worst day of my life, this is the worst day of my life, this is the worst day of my life. Because it was.
I finished, after what seemed like roughly ten thousand years, and asked, "So, um, any q-questions? Or, um, comments? Um, um, uh."***
Nobody spoke. Nobody moved. Crickets chirped. A few dogs barked. I may have heard a siren in the distance. And I thought, THIS IS THE WORST DAY OF ANYBODY'S LIFE. EVER.
Then a girl in the front put up her hand.
"Have you seen the video for 'Telephone'?" she asked. "Because I think it's relevant to this discussion."
And so I put it on, and we all watched it, and had a class-wide discussion on the philosophy of Foucault as it pertains to Lady Gaga. And I thought, This is the best day of my life. Because it was.
The end!
The night after Lady Gaga and Beyonce saved my life, I went to a costume party. I was waffling over what I wanted to be for a while- I've already been a riot grrrl, a zombie Catholic schoolboy, Daria Morgendorfer, and Donnie Darko, so I was starting to run out of ideas. And then I watched Velvet Goldmine twice in one week and started listening to Without You I'm Nothing again and, well, this happened.
I wasn't really going as anyone in particular; I just wanted to look like something threw up a ball of fabulous.
I ended up looking like David Bowie and Adam Lambert had a baby and made Jack Ferry take it shopping.
(Fun fact: just out of frame here is a picture of Mr. Bowie himself as Ziggy Stardust, doing his makeup before a show. I have it taped to my wall as an inspiration to be the best glittery pansexual alien freak I can be.)
I also ended up using pretty much an entire bottle of glitter body spray.
And there were boots.
It. Was. AWESOME.
Things currently making my life:
The Iggy Pop/Gerard Way interview, still. Even though it is mostly a back-and-forth consisting of "You're GREAT, Iggy!" "No, YOU'RE great, Gerard!" "Oh, know what else is great? Green Day!" "And golf!" "And babies!" "Gosh, everything is so great." "Just like us." "Yeah."
This nostalgic post about the early days of the Internets. I find it difficult to picture a world without lolcats. I mean, obviously I know it existed, I was ALIVE, but still. Weird.
Health care! Granted, I'm Canadian so I already had it, but still, hurrah. (The Stupak Amendment is still getting me down, though.)
This. Yes. A thousand times yes.
Baby otters.
... my mother just poked her head into my bedroom to inform me that she stole a turkey. I think the poor woman may finally be cracking under the stress.
* The Iron Giant is also something I get absurdly teary over. Actually, E.T. and The Iron Giant are pretty much the same story, except one has kids riding bicycles into the moon and the other one has, um, atomic bombs. I think The Iron Giant is a better story overall, but I don't remember watching it in a pair of footie pajamas so E.T. has the upper hand when it comes to turnin' on the waterworks.
** His parents are Ukrainian-Canadian (hence the single-vowel name), he was raised partly in London, and he spent a good lot of his college years in Prague. Try to imagine what that sounds like. Then add a drawl, expressive hand gestures, a look of vague disdain, and a little black cap. Yep. TERRIFYING.
*** No, really, that's how I said it.
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I appreciate your summary of the Iggy/Gerard interview.
Also HI GLAMAZON BAMF FACE
GAGAAAAAAAAAA
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I had a dream about that interview the other day! It involved Gerard and Iggy sitting on a couch gushing over each other and then making out. Since dream!Iggy looked almost exactly like Ewan McGregor as Curt Wild, I was pretty okay with it.
SPARKLES I HAZ DEM
PS
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I used to get all anxiety filled about ET, the part where the guys in Haz-mat suits show up still frightens me.
Did you know that M&M's turned them down to use M7M's in the movie? To which Reese's Peices are still saying "HA!"
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Oh God, the Haz-Mat suits. That scene featured heavily in so many of my childhood nightmares, dude. (So did that scene from The Brave Little Toaster with the evil clown.)
That is AWESOME. Reese's can kick M&M's ass any day of the week.
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I ended up looking like David Bowie and Adam Lambert had a baby and made Jack Ferry take it shopping
AHHHH RPS PLOTBUNNIES!
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IF YOU WRITE IT I WILL READ IT
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and every 10 yrs i watch et - why every ten - because it makes me cry a lot... and i t hink because seeing eliot in his longjohns was one of my firsst sexual experiences - i'm olddddd ok?>
and no worries re not finishing D&P - all you neeed to know is things were built to make you feel like you were being watched and then people realised that you didn't need people to watch them - we modern folk watch ourselves pretty darn well we've incorporated the idea into our daily lives - hence blogs, facebook, webcams
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How old were you when it came out? I'm not sure if I was born yet.
Yeah, I got that much from what I read. I do intend to finish it! Just... not anytime soon. Kind of ironic that I'm talking about it on a blog, I guess.
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