esprit de l'escalier

A quirky movie

My roommate, our girl friends and I went out to see Miranda July's feature film, You and Me and Everyone We Know the other night. Maggie had seen Miranda July perform before and was excited. I was entranced by the trailer and excited. Anne and Allison were excited because of John Hawkes-- they are big Deadwood fans.

We went out to eat beforehand and stocked up on snacks. We were the first ones in the theatre and settled ourselves, chattering and gossiping, passing our candy back and forth. It was fun and reminded me of high school. Then the movie started and we all laughed long and loud throughout almost the entire film. That's something I love about my friends, they aren't afraid to laugh at the movies. Quiet laughers probably have little use for me, since I have trouble keeping it down. I make them nervous, I think. I see no point in laughing quietly. If you are going to laugh, laugh, and be proud of it. Anyway, we all enjoyed the movie. Everyone in it was so appealing looking. Miranda July has this fragile inquisitive face. Everyone is trying to understand life and to connect. I thought it was marvelous. The colors were great as well.

I enjoyed Roger Ebert's review of it. (Just to prove I don't get my jollies on nasty reviews only. I guess I just like a sense of justice or something.) This is from his opening paragraph:

It's a comedy about falling in love when, for you, love requires someone who speaks your rare emotional language. Yours is a language of whimsy and daring, of playful mind games and bold challenges. Hardly anybody speaks that language, the movie suggests -- only me, and you, and everyone we know, because otherwise we wouldn't bother knowing them.

Doesn't that alone make you want to see it?

I just was poking around on the movie's website and found that there is a blog by the cast on there, which is kind of fun.

Articles around the web...

There is nothing more enjoyable than reading a critic eviscerate a movie. I don't know why I enjoy it so much-- I guess it could be seen as pulling the wings off of butterflies-- that is if the critic is taking to task an artist for creating great art. Usually the critic is taking apart some work of bloated ego, or some mass-generated, thoughtless "blockbuster". I think it's a little bit of both in this case. I miss the old Spielberg. The Spielberg with a warm heart. This is the opening of the Salon review by Stephanie Zacharek:

Steven Spielberg's "War of the Worlds" is the ugliest little movie of the summer. Extravagant in movie terms but stingy in emotional ones, it embodies all of Spielberg's bad impulses and almost none of his good ones: It's a grand display of how well he knows how to work us over, and yet the desperation with which he tries to get to us is repulsive.

I wasn't going to see this movie anyway, but it's always good to have your instincts validated.

Rick Santorum is such a mean-spirted SOB. (Via the Huffington Post.)

My favorite thing I saw today was through Amanda Marcotte at Pandagon.

My Mom sent me this link, which gives you a visual of all of the US and coalition fatalities in Iraq since March 2003. It's very interesting. Thanks Mom!

Boise, ID

My friend Stacey just moved out to Washington state for a job. She and her mother packed her up in Iowa and drove out a couple of weeks ago. She's got her trip logged up on her blog, and it's perfect Stacey: upbeat and inquisitive, joyful. She wrote these long paragraphs about the sites she saw. My favorite, though, is her entry for Boise, ID:

e) Boise, Idaho. Awesome town. Very clean, very picturesque, fantastic locally-owned record store.

For some reason it just makes me laugh. The "very clean" makes me think of the grandfather from A Hard Day's Night-- very clean old man.

Entitlement Generation

This article doesn't surprise me too much-- it seems like it has taken the media long enough to label us. To a certain extent, I agree. What drives nuts about my peers is the fact that we don't seem to understand taking responsibility for anything. For someone with an over-developed conscience, this always frustrated me growing up. Hell, it frustrates me now. But who likes to be labeled? Especially like this:

Now, deserved or not, this latest generation is being pegged, too — as one with shockingly high expectations for salary, job flexibility and duties but little willingness to take on grunt work or remain loyal to a company.

I know most of my friends have high expectations for our jobs and that most of us aren't happy with what we are currently doing. Most of us don't like what we are doing in general, or feel that we aren't treated well by our supervisors. Not that we aren't able to take our lumps, but life seems unbearably lumpy at times. Especially in your first job.

I agree with this guy:

"It's true they're not eager to bury themselves in a cubicle and take orders from bosses for the next 40 years, and why should they?" asks Jeffrey Arnett, a University of Maryland psychologist who's written a book on "emerging adulthood," the period between age 18 and 25. "They have a healthy skepticism of the commitment their employers have to them and the commitment they owe to their employers."

I would love to hear other people's thoughts on this. Am I just biased because I don't like what I'm doing?

My Daily Horoscope

I read my horoscope everyday, from at least two sources. I don't put much stock into them, I just think they're funny, especially when they portend bad things and I'm in a particularly stressful place. Lately the Yahoo! ones have been very positive, which tends to make me more nervous than the bad ones. This one sounds like I should start a cult:

Overview:
You're a tremendous force for good now, but if you team up with one or more likeminded individuals, your powers increase exponentially. Compensate for each other's weaknesses and build on your strengths.

From the Trib:
Taurus (April 20-May 20). Today is an 8. The next phase you go through could be one of apprehension. Don't worry, just put in the corrections.

Silly me, I thought I *had* been in a phase of apprehension. Apparently it's only going to get worse! :)

I was going to include my Onion horoscope as well, but I clicked on their site to find it redesigned, and I can't say I like it. It's a little too Gene-Rodenberry for me.

Tee-hee

I love the women that gave us TWoP, they're hilarious.

No more coffee

I need to remember that coffee is not the sweet panacea for me that it is for other people. I forget this sometimes, like this morning, and think that it will just give me a boost of much-needed energy and focus. Instead it leaves me jittery, anxious and overly self-conscious. I'm trying to focus, but my brain is twitching, over-analyzing faults that are probably not even there.

The day ahead and behind

I got home very late again this evening. I went to see Rebecca Gilman's updated adaptation of Ibsen's The Dollhouse. Her version takes place in 2004 in Lincoln Park and is currently playing at the Goodman. It was enjoyable. I laughed, I grimaced and felt uncomfortable, I felt concern for the characters. All things I want to do when I see theatre. You're not learning anything if you don't feel a little uncomfortable at times. It's like eating your spinach. You may not like it, but you need the fiber and vitamins. That's what's so wrong with our country, we try and be comfortable all the time. Heaven forbid if you make anyone feel mildly uncomfortable or to think from someone else's perspective. Sometimes I think I'd rather go back to Hobbes's state of nature and start all over again. Sometimes I think we already have.

Anyways, I got in late and it's almost midnight and I need to get up early tomorrow. I'm driving to Iowa tomorrow after work and had hoped I would get in earlier today to pack and gather up the things I'm going to need. I'm trying to download a book from Audible.com, but it's being persnickity and not working. I started listening to audiobooks for my car rides and it has changed my life. I pay way more attention to the task at hand (driving) and don't space out as much. I also get to up my book intake! Fantastic! I just wish that a) Audible's search engine worked better (I find it surprising in a day so ruled by Google that bad search engines still exist) and b) that Audible wouldn't give me issues everytime I try and download something! Good grief!

My bunion on my right foot is a little puffy this evening. Too long in the sandals, I imagine. I don't understand why I have such problems. Isn't having large feet bad enough? I don't wear high heels and try to wear comfortable shoes!! My roommate likes to quote Rupaul in situations like this: One must suffer for fashion. Though I hardly think my dansko sandals are fashion forward.

Tomorrow is supposed to be ridiculously hot. I need to sleep.

(This is an update. I just finished reading Ibsen's The Dollhouse. I thought I should. I'm one of those types that likes to read the book before seeing the movie, just so I can be snot-nosed about it later knowledgably discuss the differences between the two later. Anyway, Gilman's version's ending is *drastically* different than Ibsen's. And I'd like to talk about it. Has anyone seen Gilman's and read the original and is interested in discussing them?)

End of kickball season

The outlook wasn't brillant for the Mudville nine that day; The score stood four to two with but one inning more to play.

Last night was the last game of the summer WAKA season for the Kicktators. It was the first came of the tournament, and we were seventh out of nine, playing the second best team, Ferocious. The night was warm and dusty-- we haven't seen much rain in the city in a while now-- and we played hard. The game started well-- our fearless co-captain Kristy started and she kicked herself a double. Then Andy got to first, and Rachel got a double, getting both Kristy and Andy home. That more or less ended the inning. (I kicked, but got out running to first.) A strong start to the game. Kristy loves this game. Loves it. She gets disappointed when we lose, and I don't want to let her down, so feel especially bad when I screw up. I think this is what has caused my competitiveness for kickball. You should have heard me out in far right field! I was getting downright shrill in my admonitions of my fellow 'Taters! Shrill! About kickball! But it's so much fun! The worst part about WAKA kickball, though, is that the games only last 5 innings. Once you hit your stride and warm up the game is over! Last night I was so wrapped up I was honestly surprised and upset that game had ended.

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright,
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light;
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout,
But there is no joy in Mudville-- mighty Casey has struck out.

Actually, the game didn't end that dramatically. Rachel got out at first on a bad call. Neither ref had really seen what had happened (the dust and all), so we kinda got screwed on our last out. I was a little cranky afterwards, but we walked to the bar and I was able to let off some steam to Kristy, and to wax poetic on my new-found love for kickball. Then we went to the bar, ate ridiculously cheap hamburgers and play flippy cup. While the Kicktators may not excel too highly in kickball, we are strong of spirit and excellent at flip cup.

Amanda Marcotte gets it right again...

I love to read Amanda Marcotte's views on Salon's letter to the editors, because I usually read them too, and it's fun to read someone else's opinions on them. Amanda is right on the money again today, on the letters about Ayelet Waldman's most recent Salon column.