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Conversation overheard on my lunch break:
(I'm assuming) Patient, passing by: That's inappropriate.
Woman: What's inappropriate?
Patient: Your name.
Woman (puzzled): Why is my name inappropriate?
Patient (with emphasis): Deb-RA.
what the fuck?
so here, to make me feel better, is a message from Joss Whedon about Serenity, which opens in TWO DAYS and I nor anyone around me can understand why I'm so fucking excited about a movie I've already seen, and I probably got this from Whedonesque or something:
"Well boys and girls and boys dressed as girls and girls dressed as Kaylee, the time is almost upon us. This Friday we take that old rust-bucket out of the shipyard and see if she can breach atmo. It's been a long (to paraphrase a band I like) strange trip, and it'll be nice finally to show everybody what it is we've been tinkering with all this time. You already know you have my thanks, from the hardcore fans to the softcore... fans.... let me try that again. From the people manning the booths, buying DVD sets for their friends, getting banners seen everywhere on Australian TV, raffling artwork for ticketholders (Adam Hughes, take a bow), to the most casual fan who just wants to see the flick and won't ever even read this. You guys are the fuel in the engine, the Fire in the Fly, the weird green stuff coming out of Serenity's butt. (Hmmm. Forget that last one. I'm a little bit out of control here.)
Everyone needs something to keep them going. Mal has his ship. Zoe has her integrity. Jayne has Vera. And I've got you guys.
So what now? There have been so many posts about seeing it, seeing it again, the first weekend, the second weekend, being enthusiastic without being obnoxious (and yes, it IS hard to see over the pom-pom of a Jayne hat), buying tickets in advance, making a noise... I honestly wouldn't know what to add. I can tell you this: the movie will play in about 2200 hundred theaters, which is a good number. Too many, and you get empty theaters with no energy - not enough, and you get, well, not enough. It may be hard to find in some areas but it'll be out there. Leave no multiplex unturned! This is going to be a ground war, peeps - we have to hold the valley for a long while. However it opens, it needs to HOLD. Instead of the Alliance we'll be fighting viewer apathy, fear of something new, the urge to wait for DVD, and Jessica Alba in a bikini. (Although I have it on good authority that she spends 90% of the film in a huge wooly parka. Make sure that gets out.)
The day this puppy opens, I'll be seeing it with my family (don't worry, there's a lot of them, and they're all paying) and then I'm off to Europe to learn the word 'Browncoats' in nine different languages - 'cause like I said, it's all about holding. I'll never be far from a computer, though, so I can check in with y'all. Thanks for every damn thing.
And remember, amidst all the urgency to make this an event, all the work and the worry, to take two hours and just enjoy yourself. That is, after all, what all this fighting's about.
-joss."
Last night I was distracted by everything--my heartbeat (which I thought was way too fast and I was Going To Die, and thinking about how your heartbeat is too fast doesn't actually slow it, oddly enough), the incessant sirens on my block, people banging the front door to my apartment coming home, the repeated switching of my internal radio from the Kinks to one line--one line! of "Company In My Back" by Wilco--and the line was "holy shit, there's a company in my back," and while I find Jeff Tweedy's drawl and the obscure lyricism exciting under most circumstances very much not so at one in the morning.
I am not sure whether or not I would have thrived if I lived in the sixties. I do know, however, that the cumulation of the past two nights are making me very close to saying that I am putting a moratorium on dating anyone unless they look like this man:
Because that's the most fangirlish, groupieish thing I could possibly say, therefore I am contractually obligated to say it. Because that's all girls are good for in music, you know.
" REPORTER: You don't sing protest songs anymore.
DYLAN: All my songs are protest songs. All I do is protest.
PHOTOGRAPHER: Suck on your glasses.
DYLAN: You want me to suck on my glasses?
PHOTOGRAPHER: Just suck your glasses.
DYLAN: Do YOU want to suck my glasses?
REPORTER: How many other protest singers exist?
DYLAN: About 136.
REPORTER: You say about 136—-or exactly 136?
DYLAN: Either 136 or 142."
(I done stole this from their myspace page, and post it here because it is possibly the greatest picture ever)
There are going to be updates on the flickr page later today tomorrow. And they will be good. I promise.
Why, in late 2005, do people still think it's funny to assume that my middle name is "Lee" when I tell them my first name is Sarah?
IT'S NOT EVEN THE RIGHT SPELLING.
I had a nightmare last night, of the There Is Someone Upstairs And They Are Trying To Hurt My Mom variety, and someone in my family had already been shot but I didn't know who, and I don't know if it was that or that my mom kept telling me I had fat fingers which made me wake up crying, and it turned into a Grosse Pointe Blank style dream cause my dad gave me a BB gun only I of course didn't know how to shoot and I shot out the air conditioner and a bunch of other stuff in the house, and my dad kept complaining that the 911 dispatchers were a bunch of liberals and the response time if we called them would be like ten minutes and someone was already bleeding and we needed them now, and we ended up finding where the intruders were and they had cut off my mom's EAR, and we taped their ankles to their wrists and then I woke up.
I am convinced between this and the waking up at three in the morning that I've been doing lately because I am sure that I left the stove on or didn't set the alarm I am destined to never get a full night's sleep again.
ALSO! ACHTUNG EVERYONE WHO HAS FOUND THIS SITE LOOKING FOR THE ARCADE FIRE'S VERSION OF "JINGLE BELL ROCK." It is not on the FTP anymore. I took it down. Because my home access is fucktipated I don't know if I'll ever be able to put it up again. If you had been reading this site last December, you would have been able to find it then, but noooooooooooo, you only come looking when you need something from me. IS THAT ALL I AM TO YOU, INTERNET?
I am trying to focus on that picture rather than think about this, which is one of those things that makes me want to bang my head repeatedly into the wall of my cubicle until I pass out and/or bleed.
The best part of the Evolution Schmevolution series on The Daily Show, a poorly-recounted recreation:
Ed Helms is exploring the relationship between monkeys and humans and asserts that we cannot possibly have evolved from monkeys because we cannot be caged...and cut to a picture of Ed Helms typing in a cubicle.
There was a minor server-type hiccup there, I guess, but I'm back.
Sometimes I wish I had more exciting (in a personally wow-isn't-my-life great sense) things to write about rather than just cryptically quote people who say things about the government and yell about the aftermath of Katrina, but this'll have to be where it is right now.
I have an assignment next weekend to photograph this one kid's band, and the pictures will eventually end up...somewhere other than in my possession, so, um, yeah, that's new. Why I was chosen to be the photographer I'll never know--oh wait, it's because the singer told me he couldn't think of anyone else to ask. I gave him shit for that but I have secretly and probably incorrectly decided to find it flattering.
I'm reading this right now. No reason, why?
And unless the previews are totally misleading, which they often are, Marissa and Ryan are TOTALLY GOING TO GET EXPELLED FROM HIGH SCHOOL ON TONIGHT'S O.C. OMGWTF.
See why I haven't been writing much in my own words lately?
"New Rule: America must recall the president. That's what this country needs. A good, old-fashioned, California-style recall election! Complete with Gary Coleman, porno actresses and action film stars. And just like Schwarzenegger's predecessor here in California, George Bush is now so unpopular, he must defend his jog against... Russell Crowe. Because, at this point, I want a leader who will throw a phone at somebody. In fact, let's have only phone throwers. Naomi Campbell can be the vice-president. Now, I kid, but seriously, Mr. President, this job can't be fun for you anymore. There's no more money to spend. You used up all of that. You can't start another war because you also used up the army. And now, darn the luck, the rest of your term has become the Bush family nightmare: helping poor people. Yeah, listen to your mom. The cupboard's bare, the credit card's maxed out, and no one is speaking to you: mission accomplished! Now it's time to do what you've always done best: lose interest and walk away. Like you did with your military service. And the oil company. And the baseball team. It's time. Time to move on and try the next fantasy job. How about cowboy or spaceman? Now, I know what you're saying. You're saying that there's so many other things that you, as president, could involve yourself in... Please don't. I know, I know, there's a lot left to do. There's a war with Venezuela, and eliminating the sales tax on yachts. Turning the space program over to the church and social security to Fannie Mae. Giving embryos the vote. But, sir, none of that is going to happen now. Why? Because you govern like Billy Joel drives. You've performed so poorly I'm surprised you haven't given yourself a medal. You're a catastrophe that walks like a man. Herbert Hoover was a shitty president, but even he never conceded an entire metropolis to rising water and snakes. On your watch, we've lost almost all of our allies, the surplus, four airliners, two Trade Centers, a piece of the Pentagon, and the City of New Orleans... Maybe you're just not lucky!
I'm not saying you don't love this country. I'm just wondering how much worse it could be if you were on the other side. So, yes, God does speak to you, and what he's saying is, "Take a hint."
-- Bill Maher, Sept. 9, 2005.
"We talk a lot about bearing witness, and this is an important act, but it's only the starting point. The chimpanzee with a point-and-shoot can bear witness, and I recently read on cnn.com about a robotic war correspondent that someone has developed. Presumably this could bear witness too, if it ever worked. A true photojournalist is a witness with a conscience, someone with a clear sense of right and wrong, and a burning need to communicate his or her moral position. It may not even be your sense of right or wrong, but it is their motivating force.
Like I said, if all of this morality talk makes you feel uncomfortable then that's your problem, not photojournalism's. It only becomes photojournalism's problem if its practitioners agree with you, because then we end up with just the thrill seekers, the voyeurs and the manipulators, and we turn documentary photography into a hollow shell. That morality is the core ingredient of photojournalism may mean that it's out of tune with the times, but not out of touch with humanity or history."
Peter Howe
coughAMY!cough
TV On The Radio, Dry Drunk Emperor (right click, save as)
full lyrics over here
Please refrain from talking ever, ever again.
(Image courtesy this guy)
If you have no idea what I'm talking about, go here.
I can't believe that someone actually SPOKE THEIR MIND about this shit.
Another thing I meant to mention:
My friend and I watched CNN two nights ago and we saw a cameraman being interviewed; we could have sworn that he said that he was taking Harry Connick Jr. around to look at the damage and to talk to the people. We thought we had misheard, because if it's such a war zone that's impossible to get into how could one tiny jazz singer do it? Turns out that not only did he go there, he went twice. If ONE GUY was able to get in there without being shot or drowned or jacked or lost or getting his car flooded or catching black people's disease, where the fuck was everyone else? Why is it that a jazz singer is able to get there without any problems and oh, say, food and water can't? And why aren't more people asking that?
Radio interview with New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin (mp3)
"Now, you mean to tell me that a place where most of your oil is comin' through...a place that is so unique, when you mention "New Orleans" anywhere around the world, everybody's eyes light up...you mean to tell me a place where you probably have thousands of people that have died and thousands more that are dying everyday...that we can't figure out a way to authorize the resources that we need? Come on, man. You know, I'm not one of those drug addicts; I'm thinking very clearly, and I don't know whose problem it is, I don't know if it's the governor's problem, and I don't know if it's the president's problem, but somebody needs to get their ass on a plane, and sit down, the two of them, and figure this out. Right now."
Please
help
them.
