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jen does not rhyme with penis
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| wanderlust |
[Jul. 7th, 2009|09:26 pm] |
| [ | audio |
| | kiss me like you mean it | ] |
Tonight, someone called me "the Roger Corman of slam poetry." I feel like I should plaster that all over the tour website, or at least the back of my chapbook.
SEVEN DAYS LEFT OF MY STUPID JOB, hurray for America. Oh my god, I want to hit the road yesterday. |
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| shameless solicitation |
[Jul. 5th, 2009|03:42 pm] |
| [ | audio |
| | and the rest is silence. | ] |
Today, instead of using my Livejournal to get some emo shit off my chest, I'd like to implore you (those of you who are culturally-minded and/or jingly-pocketed) to help the San Jose slam team get to Nationals!
(This is, by the way, the only time I'm ever going to post this here, so don't get too mad.)
You can do one or many of the following things:
1. Come to the San Jose slam on July 13th! Some of us (possibly including myself, their coach) will be there saying some poems. There will also be a lot of very, very good beer (bottomless cups are only 6 dollars). MACLA, 501 S. 1st Street in San Jose.
2. Come to the San Jose Battle of the Bay on July 21st! We will be competing against Berkeley, Oakland, and San Francisco, and once again, there will be a shitload of beer. Also at MACLA.
3. Click on this big yellow button and give us some money out of the goodness of your heart. This should really be illustrated with a picture of the entire team looking doe-eyed into the camera, but we haven't taken one. But I promise, we're all really pretty, and we'll send you a thank-you card or something. If I already love you, I might even make you some cookies.
DONATE TO THE 2009 SAN JOSE POETRY SLAM TEAM |
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| the hunger. |
[Jun. 17th, 2009|02:35 pm] |
| [ | humour |
| |  drained | ] |
| [ | audio |
| | birdsong and meows | ] |
At my work, we serve a club sandwich made with nasty-looking, too-bright pink ham that comes thinly sliced in a package the approximate shape and size of a brick. It smells like chemicals and sweat, and falls apart when you peel it off the brick.
I've never been any kind of vegetarian, except out of necessity or convenience; I generally don't buy or cook meat because it's expensive and I tend to fuck it up. Perfectly red cuts of meat in a glass case, roast turkeys, pigs rotating on a spit, racks of ribs slathered in barbeque sauce: yes, we are carnivores. It shows in our teeth. Make the animal into something beautiful, like giving it a proper burial. It was alive at some point, after all.
I'm beginning to think it isn't fair to eat animals you didn't or couldn't personally kill. We have these teeth for a reason. I could catch a chicken or a cow. I don't think I could catch a pig: I didn't eat them for a long time because of that. Do you know they sometimes use live dogs to catch sharks for eating purposes? It seems like cheating. You shouldn't get to eat a shark unless you catch it fairly.
I imagine that this ham was made by dropping live, squealing pigs into a giant blender, squeezing the mush through some sort of strainer to get the bones out, pressing that into bricks, and boiling the bricks in sewage and the tears of hoboes. That, in addition to the literally hundreds of chickens that die every day for this company's continued operation (seriously, just about everything we serve contains fucking chicken), makes me seriously consider giving up civilization for a life of hunting and gathering. I like meat. I just wish eating it didn't make me feel like a scumbag. |
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| little green men taught me how to do the bop |
[May. 29th, 2009|02:10 pm] |
| [ | audio |
| | "flying saucer rock and roll" - robert gordon | ] |
A favorite former professor of mine (who taught Experimental Film and Video, and also my seminar on the post-media age) just randomly mailed me some Popeye action figures with a note that said "I hope you can find something to do with these." Oh my god, I am stoked. Who's helping me make a Superstar-esque stop action film with them?
My biggest reason not to quit this job right now is that a tiny little bit of money is better than no money, and the bad of it are neutral (spending a lot of time in my car) rather than actively horrible (abusive boss). Fuck, I hope the San Jose job comes through.
I bought a High School Musical-themed folder to keep my team's poems in, and the picture on it cracks me up every time I look at it.
Rereading the manuscript I'm about to send someone, it's odd that my most honest-feeling poem is made up almost entirely of film references and annotations.
This is a really dull entry. I'm exhausted and I haven't really exercised in a while, but damn. Hope keeps on coming through.
The Pincushion Orchestra (formerly Kill Switch) is going to have a website soon and it is going to be amazing. AMAZING. Speaking of the Orchestra, anyone know slam folks between the Bay and (our one gig so far, in November) Vancouver who could use some sexy violent poetic fabulousness between September and December? |
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| sleeping is giving in. |
[May. 24th, 2009|01:50 pm] |
| [ | humour |
| |  optimistic | ] |
Sparrow said you must have hit your Saturn return and I think she's right |
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| Five Good Things About My Shitty, Commission-Based, Driving-Intensive, Badly-Paid Catering Job. |
[May. 21st, 2009|02:22 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | peet's | ] |
| [ | audio |
| | classical muzak + espressomusik | ] |
1. En route to the kitchens at 5:30 in the morning, the low-flying cargo planes, the electrical plants, and the (operational! but still appropriately run-down) drive-in movie theater look almost perfectly like the Americana fairy tale I've been looking for. Hollywood spends millions trying to reproduce this light; who knew the armpit of the Bay could be so gorgeous?
2. It's decent food and I feel okay about selling it.
3. The place is owned by a married couple. Not a corporation, no double-speak, little bullshit. The husband is creepy (although not molester-creepy -- he kind of looks like Aldo Kelrast, but the wife is okay.
4. After six hours of driving around, washing dishes, interacting with horrible things such as ranch dressing and hard-boiled eggs, and generally feeling sweaty and scuzzy, there is no better feeling than putting on a short skirt and some heels, even if I'm not going anywhere special. Especially if I'm not going anywhere special.
5. Every minute, I'm more compelled to get my shit together. Every time I enter an office building to wheedle seven dollars out of someone whose job I'm more than qualified to have, I count the days til Nationals, til the tour, til the next movie and I draw maps out of this muck. This experience is probably supposed to humble me -- fuck humility. It's making me calculating, it's making me cocky, it's making me bust out all that willpower I brag about so often. At this point, I can choose between working this job like I deserve it, and working it like a fuckin' artist.
I now wholeheartedly believe that the universe will give me what I need, even if it's not necessarily what I want. I worked so hard to be on a slam team, and I'm fucking honored to be coaching one. I think it will be better for me, this year. My inarticulate, obfuscating ass is sometimes offput by a new friend who cheerfully says what she means and asks occasionally-uncomfortable questions and considers relationships in a way that I have often villified in this journal (and I left this public for you, creeperface!), and I've learned and grown an awful lot from hanging out with her (more'n I've told you, I think). I said I'd never move back to Santa Cruz, and I think it and the edges of its cliffs have become my place of power.
It's true that I am as easy to hate as 12-year Scotch. I believe the boy who tells me I'm a taste worth acquiring, because he didn't say it while staring at my tits. I could never tell you that I am extrordinary (nobody loves a fuckin' diva) but these days, I cannot afford not to believe that I am. |
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| it's got a nice ring. |
[May. 20th, 2009|01:25 pm] |
| [ | humour |
| |  surprised | ] |
| [ | audio |
| | jeff mangum | ] |
So I'm not interested in writing any more blow-by-blow installments of How Jen G Failed To Make A Slam Team (how I saw signs and still failed, how all the judges were named Becky, how we all got drunk afterwards and I feel and so on and so forth).
However, I will be coaching the San Jose slam team this year! I know. I'm as surprised as you are! But it's happening and I have a plan and I still get to go to Nationals. Fuck yes.
Now I have to get my shit together. Anyone know of any jobs and/or inexpensive sublets in the San Jose area? |
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| don't lose your grip on the dreams of the past. |
[May. 15th, 2009|04:11 pm] |
| [ | audio |
| | "eye of the tiger" - survivor | ] |
Things I have spent my unexpectedly large tax return on so far: new front tires (and holy bajeezus, there's a huge difference in the way my car feels to drive), a real haircut (so I no longer have to disguise my mullet -- or the horrible thing that is likely to emerge should I personally cut off the mullet -- behind colorful scarves and lots of pomade), a new Divacup (oh my god, this is the best thing, I hate tampons SO MUCH), two new notebooks of my favorite variety, and a few cups of coffee. Notice the absence of "large amounts of booze." I'm so proud of myself.
Places I am not going this weekend: Boise, Idaho. My regrets, ladies. It would cause me to miss San Jose's team finals.
Places I am going this weekend: A drag show in Oakland. The beach. Santa Cruz.
Have: The guts.
To get: The glory. |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 4th, 2009|02:47 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | verve | ] |
| [ | humour |
| | sickish. | ] |
| [ | audio |
| | some sorta crappy elevator funk. | ] |
Okay, I put out the call on Twitter and Facebook, so apologies to those of you who see me there, too: but hey! Poet types! Please link me to awesome two-person team pieces in audio, video, and/or text form! I will love you forever for it!
For your trouble, here is a video about cats swimming:
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 30th, 2009|04:53 am] |
| [ | humour |
| |  frozen. | ] |
So I didn't make Berkeley finals,
but my brother brought a posse from Santa Cruz, and a couple randos I invited showed up to hit on me, and a lot of my friends came, and someone didn't show up so Kevin got to slam too (we ended up within .1 of each other), and Natasia made a fuckin' sign, and I didn't drop my poems, and afterwards lots of people told me I was awesome, and then I drank whiskey and watched a REALLY awesome film that involved zombies fucking each other in the guts (and pretentious Maya Deren references!), and right now there's a beautiful and warm non-rando sleeping in my bed (which is triple good, because the zombie-gut-fucking movie was fairly creepy and my house is fuckin' freezing).
It's been a pretty good night. |
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| i've seen better days, but I don't care! |
[Apr. 26th, 2009|02:44 pm] |
| [ | audio |
| | "honey honey" - abba | ] |
I've decided not to write the angsty poem or the whiny diary entry. Instead, here are some shameless plugs:
Tonight I am reading at an event entitled "Sexy Sundays" at the Silk Road restaurant in Oakland (at the corner of Broadway and Embarcadero). It starts at 6pm, and the guy who runs it pitched it to me by telling me there'd be a "mature, over 30 audience" and a battle-of-the-sexes type debate. I'm going to read the absolute foulest sex poetry I've ever written. You should come.
On Wednesday (the 29th) I am competing in the Berkeley slam semifinals. That starts at 8:30pm, 10 dollar cover, and I'd really appreciate it if you'd come and support. If you don't normally come to slams, this would be a pretty good one to start with. Pretty much everyone in it is awesome.
For your trouble, here is a picture of the Jonas Brothers:
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| it's very difficult to keep the line between the past and the present. |
[Apr. 26th, 2009|01:29 am] |
Tonight Joyce and I watched the fictionalized, made-for-teevee version of Grey Gardens, starring Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange as Little and Big Edies, respectively. Have you seen this shit? I actually found it much more upsetting than the original documentary.
It would be a waste of space and time to talk about the minutae of Drew Barrymore's performance (no one could ever be Edie, really -- and those who come close have to go way over the top) and how there weren't enough cats in the house. Just -- damn. I can't believe they made this film, but I'm glad they did: for the incredible costumes, if nothing else, and for the weight that seeing Little Edie (even a false Little Edie) young and beautiful lends to her later decay.
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| i'm afraid of the dark without you next to me. |
[Apr. 25th, 2009|02:55 am] |
I am up late again, and I am no longer drunk, and I can't sleep because I keep thinking about a campfire story (of sorts) I've heard a hundred variations on and all the versions are invariably creepy.
The common thread is that a bunch of people are playing a game (of sorts) at a party, the game where the players sit in a pitch-dark room and someone tells a grisly story (usually about a murder) and the "evidence" (peeled grape eyeballs, Jell-O guts, &c) is passed around in boxes and Tupperwares for the players to feel. Does anyone actually play this game at Halloween parties? I don't think I've ever played it. I imagine it's pretty lame when done properly, but in the stories it always turns out that the guts, the eyeballs, the severed fingers and toes and cocks are real. There was a variation where the storyteller (murderer) actually shot herself at the end of the story, and the last piece of evidence was her suicide note.
The best version is Ray Bradbury's "The October Game". It's worth reading, and fucking scary even though I already told you the ending, to the point where I won't reread it at 3 in the morning if I ever expect to get to sleep.
When I was a kid, I used to refuse to go to library storytime at school around Halloween, because I was afraid of fucking everything. Shel Silverstein was a problem. The word "hearse" was a problem. Alvin Schwartz was an enormous problem (I bet that fucker had a kiddie version of "The October Game" in one of his books). "Little Orphan Annie" (the poem, not the comics and certainly not the musical) was a problem. Certain fairy tales were a problem (I've got a vivid memory of some Native American folktale in which birds peck out a kid's eyes scaring the shit out of me -- to say nothing of "The Red Shoes" and "Great Claus and Little Claus").
Strange how important this seems now. Strange how campfire stories are no longer scary when there's an actual campfire present. I told David all the stories that used to scare me, listening out of the corner of my ear for the sound of a chainsaw, a cackle, a giant fishhook fucking up the car -- and somehow, I still felt safe. |
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| finding the root of all good. |
[Apr. 20th, 2009|02:21 pm] |
First, I'm suddenly randomly competing in Oakland's semifinals. Awesome! Come through: tomorrow (Tuesday) night at 8pm at the Grand Lake Coffeehouse at 440 Grand in Oakland. Hooray!
Second, I was surprised and thrilled to find out that this film was on Youtube. It rules, and it stars Fred Savage. Fred Savage makes anything about six times better.
Third, it is too hot to wear clothes. I feel sorry for my cats in their fur coats. |
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| when your circumstance is movie-size. |
[Apr. 16th, 2009|08:45 pm] |
Do you ever feel like you can't take anything completely seriously unless it's fictional, somehow? I don't know why I don't write poems for real murder victims instead of Laura Palmer, but I probably never will.
The American Republican Party, which I never really gave two shits about before, is becoming fictionalized. First there was Sarah Palin (that Saturday Night Live sketch made flesh), and now there's this tea bag business. Cute. Is this some sort of political Judy Blume novel? I feel like this is something the Saved By the Bell gang would have done to protest, I don't know, funding being taken away from the campus newspaper without a schoolwide poll. They would have learned about the Boston Tea Party, then Jessie would've been all LET'S MAIL TEA BAGS TO MR. BELDING, THAT'LL SHOW HIM and everyone learns a valuable lesson.
Also, I am freaking out about debt and money and not having a job. Do you have one? Can I have it? Please? |
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| stuffed. |
[Apr. 8th, 2009|01:15 am] |
Three days behind.
All that's come outta me today is pillow talk, and I'm saving that for pillows. |
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| in my platforms i hit the floor. |
[Mar. 20th, 2009|12:39 pm] |
Hello Livejournal friends,
I have a feature on Monday night, at an open mic [hosted by Mark States] at Priya Indian Cuisine in Berkeley [to wit: 2072 San Pablo, a block down from University]. It's at 7pm: I think it is free, and you get a discount on food if you're there for the poetry.
Also it would be really beautiful if you were there. OH, and here's the awesome bio someone (probably Mark) wrote to advertise it (I don't know who Jennifer Blowdryer is -- anyone?): Jen Genius is the quintessential working class archetype, Rosie the Riveter and Wonder Woman wrapped in one. She is a twenty-something version of Jennifer Blowdryer -incredibly funny, with carefully-layered characters and unusually scenarios. Jen is a member of the collective poetry performance group Code Octopus. Jen Genius went to college in Santa Cruz to learn how to make movies, but didn't move to Los Angeles afterward, so she sells baby equipment for a living. Sometimes she also does other things, like catalog old films, make gory short subjects, and write poetry. Her poem about going to see horror movies at a drive-in and her date, well, turns into a ... - it's a classic you gotta see! |
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| starfucker, just like my daddy. |
[Mar. 19th, 2009|12:31 pm] |
| [ | audio |
| | muhammed my friend | ] |
I am listening to Boys for Pele for the first time in a hundred years or so, and "Professional Widow" is skipping like Tori can't remember the words. give me peace...pea-pea-peace, love and a hard cock... The girl I was when I listened to this album all the time didn't sit around and howl while Love mythologized itself: she mauled it herself and made beautiful things from the entrails.
Tori was a brunette who dyed her hair red and looked poisonous.
you've never seen fire until you've seen Pele blow.
An illustration:
Edit: This song isn't from Boys for Pele, but it's currently my favorite song in the entire world. If I had a band, we would cover it. I want to kill this killing wish. There's too many stars and not enough sky. Boys all think she's living kindness. Ask a fellow waitress...
Here is what Tori has to say about it: "The Waitress" is how I can't control my violence, and in this one situation, we're both equals, we're both waitresses in this song. I don't go into the details of why. Why isn't the issue. The issue is that I thought I was a peacemaker, and this violence has totally taken control of every belief system that I have. It's a very scary thing, especially after you talk about anti-violence. |
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| come out and find the one you love. |
[Mar. 15th, 2009|11:05 pm] |
| [ | audio |
| | "sheila take a bow" - the smiths | ] |
The past couple of weeks have mostly felt like a hallucination, the kind you see in a David Lynch movie. Instead of telling you about them, I will write about something more pressing: scary movies.
I have now seen the first two Saws, and though Saw was better written, scarier, and cleverer in general, I found Saw II far more interesting. The babbling under the cut is going to spoil the ending, for those of you who care about such things.
( The Final Girl walks at midnight. ) |
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| THIS IS SO GOOD. |
[Mar. 7th, 2009|02:39 pm] |
Unsurprisingly, Michel Gondry directed this episode of Flight of the Conchords.
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| young and psychotic. |
[Mar. 5th, 2009|12:14 pm] |
| [ | audio |
| | daniel johnston. | ] |
On days like this I think about you. |
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| aiutami, aiutami. |
[Mar. 4th, 2009|08:56 pm] |
My heart is a sloppy, drunken pile of bad etiquette and carnivorous plants. This is where I rev up the chainsaw and cut 'er back. |
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 28th, 2009|06:09 pm] |
| [ | humour |
| | amused | ] |
| [ | audio |
| | "rebel girl" - bikini kill | ] |
Lloyd Kaufman on Barack Obama's inauguration:
I was moved as Aretha Franklin, a once fiery soul singer of the 60’s, sang as only a now sweet, grandmotherly type could (and with a bedazzled hat to boot!). And who could forget the poetry? Oof! The fucking poetry. I thought Maya Angelou was bad enough. Where’d they dig up that broad? I’m happy she was able to reschedule her reading at Denny’s so she could speak at Barack’s inauguration. |
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 24th, 2009|07:55 pm] |
For your viewing pleasure, here's our other film, entitled The Picnic. This one has a penguin and a bunch of blood.
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| egotism. |
[Feb. 22nd, 2009|06:53 pm] |
| [ | humour |
| |  hungry | ] |
I know I hate Hollywood and all, but every year when I watch the Oscars, I secretly plan what I'm going to wear when I accept mine. It will not resemble a bridal gown, Sarah Jessica Parker I am looking at you.
(Confidential to the other losers who are on the internets in front of their televisions: is it just me, or did Broadway just vomit all over the telecast? Jesus Christ, my EYES. I'd be lying if I said I didn't love the pain, though. Of COURSE it's a Baz Luhrmann thing.) |
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| high heels on latex body bags. |
[Feb. 20th, 2009|01:12 am] |
| [ | audio |
| | "horny in a hearse" - nekromantix | ] |
It would be cruelty to send Pippi Longstocking down that tunnel, but Coraline deserves it. Maybe she'll learn a lesson. -- Roger Ebert
The only thing I hated about Coraline was the title character. I will relish the nightmares I will inevitably have about twitching, glowing bug-furniture and saltwater taffy people. Also, I didn't know that 3-D is pretty much the best thing ever. I wasn't even around for the heyday of gimmick cinema (double features! pure exploitation! electric shocks! Smell-o-Vision!) but I miss it anyway.
I also watched Never Been Kissed today. Why are movie prom themes always so much more awesome than real ones? My proms and homecomings had themes like "At Last" and "Moonlight Dance" and "Purple Crepe Paper," and my experiences at them were those of background characters. On another note, I kind of hate the whole dynamic between the ladies at the Sun-Times office: the starry-eyed virgin, the slutty slutty slut, the Fat-n-Sassy Black Lady -- what is this, 1940? Luckily, Drew Barrymore is cute enough to get away with this bullshit, and all is forgiven.
I have just discovered the Nekromantix. Fuck yes. |
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| don't you wanna know how we keep starting fires? |
[Feb. 16th, 2009|06:56 pm] |
Here are my answers to Professor Kingsfield's Hair-Raising, Bar-Raising Holiday Movie Quiz:
1) What was the last movie you saw theatrically? On DVD or Blu-ray?
Theatrically: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. On DVD: Fiend Without a Face.
2) Holiday movies— Do you like them naughty or nice?
I'm a total sucker for stuff like A Charlie Brown Christmas and Going My Way, although Christmas With the Kranks was sort of mesmerizing, it was so hateful.
3) Ida Lupino or Mercedes McCambridge?
Ida has the edge for directing Hard, Fast and Beautiful and for being the diva guest star on every teevee show ever during the 60s and 70s (esp. The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour and the Adam West Batman), but I must say that Johnny Guitar would've been far less awesome without Mercedes.
4) Favorite actor/character from Twin Peaks?
This may be a bit obvious, but Cooper has my heart, even (perhaps especially) when he's murderous and possessed. Also, the giant.
5) It’s been said that, rather than remaking beloved, respected films, Hollywood should concentrate more on righting the wrongs of the past and tinker more with films that didn’t work so well the first time. Pretending for a moment that movies are made in an economic vacuum, name a good candidate for a remake based on this criterion.
Craig's Wife. Rosalind Russell is great, but that film needs to be creepier.
6) Favorite Spike Lee joint.
Bamboozled, though I haven't seen a lot of his work.
7) Lawrence Tierney or Scott Brady?
Brady, purely because he was Johnny Guitar.
8) Are most movies too long?
I paraphrase Roger Ebert: no good movie is ever too long. No bad movie is ever too short.
9) Favorite performance by an actor portraying a real-life politician.
Fuck it -- William Daniels as John Adams in 1776.
10) Create the main event card for the ultimate giant movie monster smackdown.
The Blob v. the brains from Fiend Without a Face. The Blob would own the brains, but become superintelligent upon absorbing them. Then we'd all be fucked, and the rest of the movie would consist of crappy love stories and wanton destruction of major American cities by way of giant superintelligent blob.
11) Jean Peters or Sheree North?
Sheree, for the million and three Lifetime movies.
12) Why would you ever want or need to see a movie more than once?
In order to appreciate its nuances. Also, to see it with different people, in different contexts creates different viewing experiences. (EDIT: I like this answer better: "What are you, a Palin supporter?")
13) Favorite road movie.
Six-String Samurai! Also, the obvious but true answer: Thelma and Louise.
14) Favorite Budd Boetticher picture.
Pass. They're all sweaty ball-fests.
15) Who is the one person, living or dead, famous or unknown, who most informed or encouraged your appreciation of movies?
David Crane, one of my favorite professors ever. I never looked at the medium the same after his lectures on Dada, Powell + Pressburger, Kenneth Anger, Stan Brakhage, and Vito Acconci (among others). Honorable mentions to Irene Gustafson (another professor), Carol Clover (wrote Men, Women, and Chainsaws), Molly Haskell (wrote From Reverence to Rape), Ken Russell (insane British director), and Laura Mulvey (wrote "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema").
16) Favorite opening credit sequence. (Please include YouTube link if possible.) Mulholland Drive. That video is followed by a tracking shot leading up to the Mulholland Dr. street sign in a very bright headlight, if I remember correctly.
17) Kenneth Tobey or John Agar?
Pass.
18) Jean-Luc Godard once suggested that the more popular the movie, the less likely it was that it was a good movie. Is he right or just cranky? Cite the best evidence one way or the other.
Just cranky. I don't think the two are related. However, Contempt was a pretentious turd of a movie and I believe it was his most popular, so who knows.
19) Favorite Jonathan Demme movie.
Stop Making Sense
20) Tatum O’Neal or Linda Blair?
Linda, mostly for The Chilling.
21) Favorite use of irony in a movie. (This could be an idea, moment, scene, or an entire film.)
What a question.
22) Favorite Claude Chabrol film.
Madame Bovary
23) The best movie of the year to which very little attention seems to have been paid.
I have seen very few movies lately, but I really liked Wristcutters, and I came into it never having heard of it.
24) Dennis Christopher or Robby Benson?
Pass.
25) Favorite movie about journalism.
It Happened One Night, and fuck it, Citizen Kane.
26) What’s the DVD commentary you’d most like to hear? Who would be on the audio track?
Velvet Goldmine, featuring Roger Ebert, Orson Welles, David Bowie, Iggy Pop, and Todd Haynes.
27) Favorite movie directed by Clint Eastwood.
You know what's pathetic? I've not seen any of them.
28) Paul Dooley or Kurtwood Smith?
Smith, mostly for Dead Poets Society.
29) Your clairvoyant moment: Make a prediction about the Oscar season.
Benjamin Button sweeps 'em.
30) Your hope for the movies in 2009.
More monsters, less flag-waving.
31) What’s your top 10 of 2008?
I don't even think I saw ten movies in 2008, but I really liked Repo! The Genetic Opera.
BONUS QUESTION (to be answered after December 25):
32) What was your favorite movie-related Christmas gift that you received this year?
My 1960s Bollywood poster wall calendar is pretty badass. |
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| quote. |
[Feb. 15th, 2009|09:57 pm] |
Pornography, it seems to me, is no different from war films or propaganda films in that it tries to make the visceral, horrific, or transgressive elements of life consumable.
-- Michael Haneke |
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| he was smiling through his own personal hell. |
[Feb. 13th, 2009|01:01 am] |
| [ | audio |
| | thank you for being a friend | ] |
Notes on Brad Silberling's Casper, which I saw many times when I was little and not again til now:
1. The film deals with life and death, and the existence of ghosts (and angels, I suppose) in a very curious and kind of fucked-up way. There's a serum (and steampunk-style administering machine) to make ghosts flesh again, people pop back and forth, a character actually kills herself in the pursuit of riches (only to be defeated when it's pointed out that she has no unfinished business), Casper himself is given flesh like glass slippers and fades back to being a ghost in the middle of a good-night kiss.
2. I saw this when I was a child? Yes. It's not as shocking as the time I revisited Ferngully and noticed how blatantly sexy it is (witness -- skip to about a minute into that clip).
3. Brad Silberling also directed City of Angels, which was my favorite film at the age of thirteen. It's a corny remake of Wings of Desire that stars Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan (featuring Dennis Franz as a renegade ex-angel and Andre Braugher as the Wise Black Angel), but I still kinda like it.
4. What's up with all modern cinematic haunted houses being so colorful? I haven't exactly seen all the haunted house movies made after 1990, but it seems like all the ones I have seen have been decorated in red brocade, purple velvet, and all kindsa stained glass. The one in Casper even had a disco ball.
5. The world is due for a more adult (non-corny) iteration of this story. |
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| Public Statement. |
[Feb. 12th, 2009|09:21 pm] |
| [ | audio |
| | love is a battlefield. | ] |
Look:
I'm sorry that I am not charming and pleasant all the time. I'm sorry I'm not a perfect feminist. I'm sorry I don't unconditionally love and respect all other women all the time. I'm sorry I am not my poetry. I'm sorry I am not my films. I'm sorry I am both my poetry and my films. I'm sorry I'm not very consistent. I'm sorry I'm a human being. I'm sorry I've been letting my busted heart show a little too much lately. I'm sorry I don't tell everyone everything. I'm sorry I don't lay my cards on the table. I'm sorry I misplace them sometimes. I'm sorry I overlook things. I'm sorry I'm an egotist. I'm sorry I'm a piece of shit.
I have always been a piece of shit. |
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| ANNOUNCEMENT. |
[Feb. 5th, 2009|06:14 pm] |
| [ | humour |
| | i hate my job right now. | ] |
| [ | audio |
| | but this makes things better. | ] |
Natasia and I won the motherfucking Viscera Award for "The Date," which will be officially premiered at the Fuck Valentine's Day extravaganza (Merchant's Saloon, February 14th, 8pm, be there or choke on a candy heart).
FUCK YES. |
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| zingo, zango, cuttin' with my saw |
[Feb. 4th, 2009|02:32 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | giggle | ] |
| [ | humour |
| | amused as fuck. | ] |
In the recap of last week's Berkeley slam, my po-mo suicide note poem (actual title: "The Girls' Guide to Escape") has been christened "Movie Sluts."
I lawl'd. |
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| lies. |
[Feb. 3rd, 2009|12:16 pm] |
On ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) uss_axwound:
that's it, from now on it's poems about sea creatures and Cool Runnings, and only sea creatures and Cool Runnings. Not at the same time or anything, that'd just be far too wacky. In fact, my first project is to write a sonnet for each actor in Cool Runnings, with absolutely no sea-creature related metaphors. The only metaphors will involve ice. Sometimes snow cones. Sometimes snow enemas. Sometimes the Donner Party. |
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| it's better in the matinee. |
[Feb. 2nd, 2009|05:13 pm] |
Ahoy: pretentiousness ahead.
Santa Cruz was also the town where I fell in love with my medium. Driving around campus gives me almost-sense-memories, of seeing Glaze of Cathexis, A Bout de Souffle, Bringing Up Baby for the first time. I don't remember the first time I saw Citizen Kane, but I remember the first time it clicked as a great film, rather than the number one on everyone's stupid lists, old musty technologically impressive whateverness. Reading Flicker next to the koi fountain. Hating the fuck out of Indochine. Dolls at the Pacific Rim Film Festival, that shitty serial killer movie at the Santa Cruz Film Festival. At Land, both for the first time, and on a hangover-and-potstickers morning showing it to a boy I was desperately in love with. The first time I ever saw Mahler. High Fidelity at the midnight movie. Doing storyboards at the Perg. Executing those storyboards badly but "passionately."
I could go on, but I won't. |
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| meme, part eight and a half. |
[Jan. 24th, 2009|07:34 pm] |
| [ | audio |
| | "crossroads" - cream | ] |
The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me! My choice. For you.
This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:
- You will get something.
- What I create will be just for you.
- It'll be done sometime this year.
- I'll need to know your favorite two colors, and favorite word, and mailing address if you live far away.
The catch? Oh, the catch is that you have to repost this in your journal. (Edit as necessary)
No purchase necessary. Participation required. Void where prohibited. Batteries may be included. Offer ends when my calendar falls off the wall. |
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| a cigarette building a ladder to the stars |
[Jan. 24th, 2009|01:06 am] |
| [ | audio |
| | "werewolf" - cat power | ] |
If the feeling of a decade is preserved best by its cinema, the air in 1970s America must have been palpably grainy, with scratches dangling imperceptibly in the air like glowworms. You know when your foot falls asleep? It feels like that. Everyone, regardless of race, had a sort of pallor to their faces, and forests looked like photocopies. You never saw the knife go into a person's body. Restored and thoroughly remastered films somehow seem less...real than those that have been allowed to age a little. The Wizard of Oz has never felt like 1939; I expect it will never get old. Maybe that's what makes it a great fairy tale. (However, no matter how well they restore Vertigo, it will always feel 1950s.)
The Last House on the Left feels real. It is also one of the rare horror films that depicts actual rape, rather than just symbolic knife, ice pick, axe, chainsaw rape. You could call it a rape-revenge story, only the woman doesn't live to avenge herself. I won't say what happens: rent it, if you've got a strong stomach -- with the exception of a few weird scenes involving bumbling cops, chickens, and a weirdly cheerful soundtrack, it's a lot better than a lot of flicks like it. Another thing that happened in the 1970s, was that bards with acoustic guitars lived in trees and hung out on the stoops of apartment buildings to sing songs about the seasons changing and waterfalls during quiet and not-quiet moments.
The 1970s in England involved a lot of strange costumes, anachronism and music that did not content itself with the background, music that kicked and screamed until the image listened. Everything I need to know about England in the 1970s, I learned from Derek Jarman, Ken Russell, and Nicolas Roeg. And Greil Marcus!
Also, this game: I am addicted! |
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| pray that when we die like martyrs, we get loved like saints. |
[Jan. 14th, 2009|04:25 pm] |
| [ | audio |
| | "being alive" - company | ] |
Saint Dymphna: matron saint of incest victims, mad people and runaways.
The story goes that her father, an Irish king driven crazy by grief after his wife's death, tried to force her to marry him. The court jester helped her escape, but the king tracked her down. When she still refused to marry him, he decapitated her. Her gravesite has been associated with miraculous cures of mental illnesses, and even today, the area has one of the best sanatoriums in the world.
This story grew into Aarne-Thompson tale type 510B, the persecuted heroine, which includes stories like Allerleirauh and Donkeyskin. Some of the stories end with the heroine marrying a prince, some end with the father getting his way. I've never read one that ended in decapitation, or (the logical conclusion) suicide. Fairy take heroines do not kill themselves. They run away, they freeze to death, they dance to death, they are poisoned, they die like saints or examples (see The Red Shoes).
The famous exception is The Little Mermaid, who chose to turn into seafoam rather than kill another person. Of course, Hans Christian Andersen sweetens it up with this business about the daughters of the air and the promise of hard work to procure an immortal soul. But unlike Donkeyskin, Andersen's mermaid story was not part of the oral tradition, and though it was probably influenced by other mermaid stories, it was mostly influenced by Andersen's shitty childhood, suppressed sexuality, and Catholic faith -- including the saint stories. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 13th, 2009|06:53 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | giggle. | ] |
| [ | audio |
| | children's music from around the world | ] |
Oh PETA, you so crazy. |
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