the piano is gorgeous. the end. maria pointed out that i need to buy a cover for it or something so it stays pretty. thanks again, mom & dad and grandma for the awesomest christmas present ever!!
maria, clayton and i just got home from seeing ‘american gangster’. which was really good. you should see it. will denzel ever not be fantastic?
this movie was so good i had goosebumps the whole time and had to buy the soundtrack immediately after. go see this.
so guess what was released today? the serenity collector’s edition. guess what i bought today? correct. and guess who came over so we could watch all the new special features? that would be pat.
god we’re nerds.
thursday clayton and i drove to sherman oaks and walked around the mall – maria was working there that day so we stopped to see her too. afterwards we went to meghan and josh’s and played the wii. thursday night, clayton’s cousin james came into town for the weekend. friday we got up early and maria made a great breakfast. then we saw ‘superbad‘. it was even better than the trailers let on. after the movie we visited the griffith observatory – it was fantastic! the building is beautiful and the exhibits are really eye-catching and engaging. we got to touch meteorites, see evidence of cosmic rays in an alcohol vapor chamber, and watch a tesla coil spark! next time we go we want to visit at night and see the planetarium show.
friday night ryan was in town to play a show in los feliz – part of a music festival thing. he spent the day driving down from san francisco and got held up by a terrible accident and then, no joke, saw a car driving down the freeway at 50 mph…on fire. anyway, i drove to pat’s in west hollywood and we hung out there for awhile and had a couple beers until ryan arrived. then ryan left for his show and pat and i went to forty deuce for the jazz burlesque show. it. was. awesome. the dancers were amazing and the band was really good. after the show we went to the dresden and listened to marty and elayne play with some amazing guest vocalists. ryan met us after his set and we stayed until closing. on the way back to pat’s we stopped at in-n-out and picked up some delicious burgers. by the time pat and i got to his apartment, ryan was already there and camped out in the blanket nest he sleeps in at the foot of pat’s bed. we ate, watched adult swim, ryan passed out in all his clothes, and that was goodnight.
saturday ryan had to go to a recording session, so pat and i spent the morning…uh…and afternoon…lazing about and watching cartoons and terrible sci-fi movies. and i do mean terrible. that night maria, clayton and i had some sushi for dinner and turned in early because we had to get up early the next day to go to…
the beach! sunday we drove to west hollywood to pick up maria’s friend from st. louis, elaine. we went to famima!!, the best convenience store ever, and picked up stuff for lunch. we drove out to malibu and set up camp at zuma beach. it was a beautiful day – the beach wasn’t too crowded and there were a lot of dolphins. we stayed for a long time – about 5 hours – then drove home, stopping on the way for my second in-n-out of the weekend. clayton and i both got sunburned – the lesson: reapply often and remember to get the sunscreen everywhere!
after in-n-out and some coupling, i left home to meet pat at the movie theater. we saw ‘stardust‘ which has the most surprising robert de niro performance…ever.
this week? not much planned. hopefully hanging out with meghan before she goes on another shoot, definitely watching some ‘serenity’ special edition dvd extras with pat. i really have to study for the california driver’s test too – i guess it’s actually pretty tough and i need to get a new license before my trip in september because my illinois one expires on my birthday. getting my new bank account taken care of would probably be good too. also is my car registration expiring? hmm…gotta reorganize the kitchen too. good thing i made those blueberry lemon muffins today – might need the fuel!
update: check out the video cooking for ratatouille for a little insight into how/why the food in this movie looks sooo good.
tonight cecile and i saw pixar’s ‘ratatouille’ and it. was. fantastic. it was hands down the best movie i’ve seen this year. probably the best movie i’ve seen since ‘the prestige’ or (big surprise) ‘finding nemo’. i highly recommend it! i’m totally going to see it again with my parents next week and maybe even again after that!
…WAS FUCKING AMAZING!!!! go see this! do it! do it!! i haven’t had such a good time at a movie since ‘the prestige’!
for the love of god, do NOT watch ‘cannibal ferox’ if you don’t want to see a slew of adorable animals horribly killed and eaten. antonio and i were freaking traumatized after watching that movie.
oh, and if you have an aversion to graphic violence against humans including cutting off of penises and the eating of said penises…yeah, this movie probably isn’t for you either.
…soundtrack was good though.
there’s a whole comic about the theory of ‘male gaze’ over at qwantz. takes me back to mass media with everyone’s favorite, most quotable, visiting gay film prof at NU.
“remember, it’s ‘gaze’ not ‘gays’.” uh…yeah. we got it, thanks.
…has been oddly busy. i somehow managed to go every day the past week with just enough sleep to be functional. barely. did a lot of fun stuff, but just didn’t get the 10 hours a night i need.
…i’m like a possom ok? i require a lot of sleep.
the week started out on the wrong foot sleep-wise when i saw the ratatat show monday night at the empty bottle. the show was AWWWWESOME. loud and danceable and they rock so hard live! when they started playing ‘seventeen years’ for the encore the crowd went insane. they had a cool video projected behind them and during the encore they turned on the fog machine and just let it go. by the end of the show the whole stage was swathed in fog and when ratatat finished playing, as the last incredibly loud notes faded away, they stepped back and just sort of disappeared. totally fit the moment. i went to the show with jon, andrew and christina. we met josh and some of his friends/coworkers and katie and a bunch of her friends came too. doors were at 9:30, there were two openers and ratatat probably started playing shortly before midnight. i think i got home at 2:30 or something like that.
the next day i was next to useless at my internship. luckily i was doing inventory so all i had to do was precisely count pieces of art and lift semi-heavy portfolios of art worth hundreds of thousands of dollars – heck maybe millions, i have no idea. anyway, after monday night i was behind on sleep all week.
i was totally in the zone at work – doing like five different things at once, trying to change some stuff in my application. i was having a great day and getting a ton of things done. i had a little bit of a backache, so i took two excedrin. no sooner had i taken them when we got a surprise delivery…new herman miller chairs! it was a fantastic surprise. the day kept getting better and better.
except, remember those excedrin? bad idea. i forgot that excedrin has caffeine in it and i do not react well to stimulants of any kind. this is why i pretty much only drink green tea, never drink coffee and certainly don’t drink any red bull. i could feel it coming on but was powerless to do anything. by then it was probably too late to eat anything (i’d had only a banana to eat so far that day) to counteract the caffeine. i spent the next four hours twitchy and fidgety and distracted. i couldn’t sit still and couldn’t concentrate.
…which would’ve been bad enough, but soon after the chairs arrived, our internet service went down. for the rest of the day. so not only was i knocked out of the zone and wacked out on caffeine, i also couldn’t work (probably not the worst thing since the caffeine rendered me unable to concentrate). at aaron’s behest i started to read “vas: an opera in flatland“, which is this insanely awesomely designed book that aaron’s friend did the design for. everyone in the office seemed to have heard about it, but no one had read it all. i finished it. i spent all afternoon reading it. by 3 or 4 i no longer felt so anxious. finally. i went home at 5:30, tired and sluggish from the post-caffeine crash and totally dejected after my great day turned upside down.
friday night travis, kareem and i went to an art show opening. bobby, the registar at my internship, had a new exhibit up at 65 grand. none of us knew what to expect, really. we got there and the entrance was this sort of shady looking doorway behind a restaurant. we went up 2 flights of stairs to what i guess is the kitchen of the gallery owner’s apartment. it was packed with people and there was art everywhere. hanging from the ceiling, on podiums, on the floor. i was worried someone was going to step on the artwork! the piece i liked best was ‘hive’ – a really disturbing paper and paint beehive-shaped sculpture that hung from the ceiling over the crowd. the bottom was open and gaping, as if something inside had forced its way out. we hung out there for awhile and drank some free beer, then decided that we wanted to see some more art.
on the second friday of the month, artists in pilsen usually open their studios to the public, so we drove down there to check it out. unfortunately once we got down there we found out that it was cancelled. soooo we drove back up to travis and kareem’s place and rented ‘kiss kiss bang bang’ which was outstanding. kareem bought three packages of kettlecorn and i think we probably ate all of it. i highly recommend ‘kiss kiss bang bang’ – so funny and a lot of fun to watch.
saturday i got up about five hours earlier than i would’ve liked. i picked up cecile and we went to the lincoln park archery club‘s open clinic at their range on the lake off of recreation drive. neither of us had done archery since high school. there were a good number of people there – probably 30 at the height. the club had all different sizes of bows, including compound bows. everyone took turns and it was a lot of fun!
after archery we went to hot doug‘s and had some delicious alligator sausages with spicy remoulade and blue cheese and tater tots. full and sleepy, we went to dominicks to get stuff for josh’s bbq. after a pit stop at toys r us we went to josh’s, where jon and josh were just getting things ready. i was going to go to nako’s performance but i was still pretty sluggish post-hot doug’s so i didn’t make it. i fell asleep for about half an hour and when i woke up mark and jocelyn and some others had arrived. a bunch of people came and we sat outside and listened to music and drank and ate good food. at about midnight, josh, andrew, jon, ben and i walked to another party on milwaukee. i hung out for about an hour then drove ben home.
sunday i got up about five hours earlier than i would’ve liked. i got on a few buses and met lindsay and erik at earwax for brunch. i hadn’t seen or talked to erik since high school so it was cool to catch up and hear what he’s doing now. after brunch lindsay and i went to the renegade craft fair in wicker park. amy was there selling her wares and dawn was helping her out. their booth was next to the folks from poketo. the poketo people seem very cool – they and dawn and amy were fast friends. i bought some of amy’s cards and a tshirt and some wrapping paper.
after renegade i went home and managed to get about half an hour of resting in before i had to get ready for the faith in place fall harvest celebration. i picked up antonio and katie and we spent the next hour stuck in pouring-rain traffic on our way out to oak park. we got there about half an hour late but managed to get some delicious desserts and hear the main presentation. dawn won a bunch of stuff in the silent auction, including a bunch of coffee, tea and hot chocolate for the office and a 3 day weekend at a vacation house. antonio, katie and i were all pretty tired from the weekend so we went straight home to get some sleep.
today went pretty well. i stayed at work a few hours later to try to make up for the time i lost on thursday. i got a lot done and am happy with where most of my projects stand. on friday kareem and i had talked about comics and he said he wanted to read ‘y the last man’, which pat got me into a month or so ago. after work, i lent all of my issues to kareem and then travis, kareem and i went to alliance for tea and macchiatos.
and that brings us up to the present. i came home, ate some leftovers and caught up on email. then i put on some tivo’ed ds9 and started writing this. it’s 11 now, which is about 3 hours later than i had fantasized about going to bed tonight…oh – plus my ds9 episode just finished. must be a sign.
coming up: mom and one of her friends are in town for two days to see the king tut exhibit at the field museum. we’ll have dinner wednesday night at the craziest place (within reason) i can think of, so if anyone has suggestions, let me know. this weekend i’m going home for a bunch of family birthdays on one side and trivia in bluegrass, iowa with the other side of the family. next tuesday night is the sufjan stevens concert at the riviera and next saturday is stefapalooza/labrequefest/engagement extravaganza in morris.
last night matt and i saw ‘raiders of the lost ark’ at the music box. ‘raiders’ is one of my favorite movies and was a big part of my childhood. it was one of the few movies my dad and i would watch when i was small(er). he loved it because it reminded him of the serials he saw as a kid at the 5¢ movies (or however much they cost) and i loved it, initially, because my dad seemed to really like it and it was something we could enjoy together.
watching it for the first time on the big screen was very exciting. ‘raiders of the lost ark’ was released just before i was born so i’d only seen it on television or in a smaller screening room at northwestern. i’ve noticed that when i watch movies i loved as a child, i can suddenly see where all sorts of seeds of my personality were planted. ‘wargames’ made me forever fall in love with nerds and be attracted to guys that are good at video games and good with computers. ‘clue’ shaped what i think of as funny and influenced my admiration of early to mid-century fashion. when my cousins forced me to watch some episodes of ‘star trek’ because they wanted to watch them and were stuck babysitting me, they hardly could’ve guessed that they launched my life-long obsession with all things roddenberry.
however, while watching ‘raiders of the lost ark’ i saw some other parallels – things that i’d never really noticed but would probably be obvious to anyone familiar with the movie and with me. my fascination with archaeology and ancient egypt is directly related to this movie and i even remember my friend holly, an archaeology major, also talking about how much she loved these movies when she was young.
last night i recalled thinking many years before that marion was the kind of girl i wanted to be. pretty with moxie and able to fit in with the boys. i remember seeing her out-drink that huge guy, handle a machine gun and keep pace with indy as they ran from the exploding airplane and thinking, “she is so cool”. i remember seeing the effect she had on indiana and thinking, “she is AWESOME”.
watching ‘raiders’ so often at such a young age also impressed upon me the idea that indiana jones is What a Man Should Be: intelligent, handsome, physically fit and bold. he always has a dry rejoiner and like macgyver (another childhood crush) he knows how to do stuff – how to survive ancient booby traps, how to find lost treasure, how to fight nazis and escape secret egyptian rooms. he’s also wise/knowledgable – he knows to avert his eyes from the opened ark when the others do not. and…HE’S AN ARCHAEOLOGIST. not a particularly ethical one, but still. brains AND brawn. the only thing missing is music – if indiana played a musical instrument i’d be beside myself. i’m also very aware that this feeling of indy-as-man-to-adore was strengthened by seeing how my father enjoyed the movie and liked the character. if my dad liked this guy – was impressed by him – he must be pretty cool.
i guess i don’t really have an elegant way to wrap up this post. last night i was just really struck by how often i thought, “so THAT’S where that comes from!” did movies influence anyone else this strongly or just me?
pirates of the caribbean 2: longest movie ever.
…fun though.
this weekend i was pretty much only home to sleep – i’ll have to catch up tonight :)
friday charlie and i saw the fast and the furious 3: tokyo drift (which apparently was given three stars by roger ebert) which was incredibly entertaining. the first reveal of these two cars drifting side by side was AWESOME. afterwards we blew half a tank of gas – premium gas; we drove down lake shore drive and shot lower wacker drive three or four times. i really need to get a car.
saturday was the first day of the intonation music festival. i met cecile at her place and we went over together. jim boggs (in town for a visit before he moves to london next month) showed up a few hours later and we spent the whole day lying in the sun listening to good music. saw brian cagle, who had AD-ed on galileo’s grave, zach and a whole slew of cecile’s friends. lady sovereign and the streets played that night and while the performances weren’t outstanding, it was still a lot of fun. after the show we walked to tuman’s and met up with andrew, christine and jim’s old flatmate, angelo. we drank, danced, i ran into patrese, got hit on by a dj and hit the pillow sometime after 3am.
sunday morning i had organized a galileo’s grave reunion lunch – some of us met at three happiness in chinatown for dim sum. it was fantastic and a good assortment of people were able to make it. as we were finishing though, i realized i had forgotton my ticket to intonation at home. i spent the next two and a half hours on trains and buses criss-crossing the city. not. fun. when i got to my apartment i was incredibly bored with public transportation so i wanted to grab my ipod too…d’oh! left that at work. i dug out my cd player instead, hoped it still worked (it did, but has no shock protection) and was on my way.
i ended up getting to intonation in the middle of annie’s set. i found cecile, jim and angelo and we hung out the rest of the day eating various fried foods and drinking 312s. the guy giving out the over-21 bracelets was bizarrely entertained by the size of my wrist. saw more zach and more of cecile’s friends – this girl knows everyone. sunday night bloc party was the headliner, and i have never seen so many enraptured hipster boys. they put on a really good show (bloc party put on the good show. well, i guess the panting hipster boys put on a good show too, but replace the word ‘good’ with ‘amusing, though mildly pathetic’). it rained a little during bloc party, but it was ok because it made everyone feel more hard-core. go ahead, laugh. but you know EXACTLY what i mean.
afterwards cecile and i were both tired and had to get up for work the next day so we headed home. waiting for the western bus this guy (also named angelo) started up a conversation with us – he had obviously underestimated our ages because he kept asking where we went to school. he kept talking all the way up past belmont where he exited – topics of conversation included: how he could get me a job in catering ($12/hour!), confusion about cecile’s origins (“you’re canadian? but…you look asian”), anime and underground hip hop, which he apparently is really into. he’s putting an album together as a producer and is looking for some people who can “lay down rhymes”.
ok seriously – i spent the whole bus ride trying not to laugh and the whole conversation seemed like it was really making the day of every other bus patron – but this guy was really nice and i seriously hope his album is super awesome and he makes it big. it was a pretty good cap to the weekend though. after angelo left the bus i put in the streets and listened to that all the way home – which took about another 40 minutes due to bus schedules at that time of night.
this weekend is the 4th of july weekend…and i don’t know what to do. seems like there will be things going on here (maybe?) but my brother is in town back home and my family really wants me to come home for the whole time so everyone can be together, etc. maybe i’ll just go for two days or something? i don’t know if we get monday off work or not and i have a haircut friday evening, so who knows.
saw x-men 3 tonight with nako and jyl – it was great! i suspect that brett ratner is responsible for the added schmaltz, but the action was fantastic and overall the story was pretty good. lots of fighting and different mutant powers. you get to hear the juggernaut utter his famous line and see some scantily clad famke janssen and hugh jackman (together but not “together”. or whatever.). nako liked it so much she wants to see it again! stay after the credits for the extra scene!
as for reality violence as opposed to the comic-book fantasy kind…did i mention that aaron and i heard and saw the aftermath of a guy getting shot in a drive-by today at work? yeah. good times. the idiot gang bangers drove by two more times though, which gave me all the opportunity i needed to get their plates. i’m pretty sure they were apprehended (police cars speeding away fairly soon after aaron called in the plates) and the victim looked ok after the police/ambulance/fire dept. showed up. before that he was wisely playing dead/knocked unconscious and lying face-down in the gutter. i think he only got shot in the arm. after this aaron kindly drove me to the el.
on friday silent hill opens and i’ve been breathlessly counting the days since i first saw the trailer. in preparation, antonio has set out to beat the video game ‘silent hill 3′, which is not the game the movie is based upon, but is still pretty creepy. last night i went to his apartment and charlie and i took turns reading the walkthrough* while antonio and charlie took turns at the controls. we got about 3/5 of the way through last night and are going to play tonight (and tomorrow night before the movie if need be) in order to finish the game before we see the movie.
other ‘silent hill’ and ‘silent hill’ related delights:
* – is this cheating? sort of. but we only have until friday night to finish this game off, so in the interest of time – walkthrough all the way.
