...was Nomia Maki of the now sadly defunct Pizzicato Five. The P5 rocked the retro with unbelievable efficacy - always exactly two decades behind the curve with retroactive soul funk and high-life bossa during the 80s, retroactive glam rock during the 90s, and retroactive pop during the 'aughts.
Those who know me will easily understand the attraction.
I have begun the viewing of The Devil Wears Prada. It was a toss-up between that and The Thin Red Line for "what to put on while I do my thang", where "thang" usually refers to fabric-hacking. Alls I can say about "The Devil Wears Prada" thus far is "there'd better be a goddamn moral to this story".
A few days ago, I had the opportunity to watch Apocalypto. And I took this opportunity. And I exited the theater two hours later quite surprised. All through the viewing a single thought repeated itself in my head. A single, surprised thought: "Wow. This isn't shitty."
You see, usually when watching a flick, I'll think to myself "God, this is shitty." Or perhaps "Wow, this movie is fantastic." But in this case what I found remarkable about the movie was not that it was awful, nor that it was terrific, but precisely that it *wasn't* awful. Do ya get the distinction? It was the prominent potential for shittiness, the very fact that Mel Gibson had gone traipsing through a minefield of cliches clutching $40 million dollars to his chest and somehow emerged with a halfway decent movie in hand.
After seeing the trailer for the first time, I imagined Mel Gibson giggling to himself and thinking "hee hee hee, we'll have people speaking gibberish, and... and guys with their butts showing... and we'll paint some white people brown oh my god this is going to be so fucking AWESOME!" And with tasty trivia bits like this:
Many substantial speaking roles in the film were filled by Mayan people who had never acted before. For instance, the sick little girl who curses the hunting party as they and the captives pass right before entering the city, was played by a seven year old who lived in a dirt-floored hut in a village not unlike Jaguar Paw's.
...I feel justified in my repeatedly stating "wow. I can't believe this isn't shitty."
Today was a Good News-Day™. By this I mean that the news headlines of this particular day seem to indicate that the world as a whole might be improving, if even just a little bit. Which is unusual, of course. Because the world is shitty.
But not today. No, today brings us a scant but pleasant pair of newsitems. First, we have word that "Spain takes lead in closing down the websites that tell girls it's good to be anorexic":
Health authorities in Madrid have acted to close a pro-anorexia website, accusing it of endangering the lives of teenage girls.Four months after the city led the world in the Size 0 debate by banning ultra-skinny models from its catwalks, health officials are shining the spotlight on the growing number of “pro-ana” websites that glorify starvation diets.
Wow. Just wow. But it gets better.
The regional government has asked a judge to determine whether the owners are criminally liable for the content.
CRIMINALLY. LIABLE. It does seem to me that the spaniards just might be in possession of the only government on the planet which actually utilizes its resources to consider legislations with the citizenry in mind. *cough*. Bravo. Go Spain. Keep being... Spanish.
The other piece of good-news-day-news is titled, "Neo-Nazi leader arrested on child porn charges".
Um. Yeah. In any case, this is the organization our friend Kevin represented. Feel free to visit and check the site out. You can draw your own conclusions regarding their stance. Don't worry, no one will be watching.
As I was walking down the path I happened upon a large-ish glittering abandoned object which I could not immediately identify. So naturally I ran up to it giggling, cameraphone drawn. What the hell is it? I will tell you what it is: It is a bottle of cheap rum (sans rum, but with some flowers stuffed into it) inserted into a cheese grater and loosely attached by means of string about the mouth/cap threaded through the grater's holes. To this already bizarre apparatus, an umbrella handle was affixed using wads of red electrical tape. I'm going to guess that this particular rumgrater needed to be portable.
This is yet further proof that reality bends in my presence, and that truly I am a primal force of retardedness.
Fate, it would seem, is not without a sense of humor. One which belongs to an asshole, that is. Earlier this day, I'd had myself a chat with a close friend regarding my tension, the escalating sense of unease that's been incubating within me for about a month now. Here follows the paraphrased transcript.
Boob: Maybe you just need to find some more leisurely leisure activities. Things to relax you. I mean, you always seem to be doing fairly stressful things, even for fun. Lying in bed and reading, for instance, might be less stressful than whatever it is you're currently doing.Me: Mmm... not when you're reading The Republican War on Science
Boob: O-kay. Well something else then. Sharpening knives always relaxes me, in a mechanical way.
Me: Well, I have sewing but sewing isn't something I can do all the time. I mean, in order to sew, I need to have something to make, alter, or repair.
..."am I asking for fate to intervene?" - this thought always enters my mind when I make sentences which begin with "but". And I kid you not, mere *seconds* after that thought had passed, I knelt down to reach into my (lovely salvation-army-scored vintage 70s Coach shoulder-) bag and an enormous tear erupted down the ass of my pants. 'Tis a miracle indeed that one of my buttocks did not sink into the (nearest) ocean, and 'tis a miracle indeed that I had a spare sweatshirt at the office with which I could conceal meiner buttocken for the rest of my goddamn day.
