Catherine's girl crush.

I like that I haven't updated this thing in roughly two weeks. That's the real joy of teaching, you know: not just the lack of time but the crippling sick that comes with being around disgusting children all day. Right now, I seem to be passing an uber-cold back and forth with my wife. I stayed home with it this week, and I never take off for sickness. I might BE sick, but I'll go to school. I'll add my little contribution to the Petri dish that is that building.

Anyway, Catherine's girl crush is Cheryl Hann from Picnicface. It's adorable. She's at the end of this gem here:

Women in Comedy

But the real victory is here, if you can appreciate the music until Dragon Mummy appears:

Insomnia

For the past few nights, I have been unable to fall asleep at a decent hour. Initially, I was bogged down in exams. Now, I am recovering from the plague that Marcus brought home from school. So... here I am... nowhere close to sleep, stuck with Zombie Horse-Face in Sex and the City and the crying baby upstairs. Luckily, though, that husband of mine is curled up in bed right next to me. He has been a sicky for the past week or so, but he always comes through for me, whether I am terrified of failing an exam or losing my mind from trying to keep all the holiday planning straight. I could never have imagined that I would find a person as funny, caring, generous, or handsome as this bobbin to spend my life with.

Willy

Just thought I would share a random new artist I learned about today. Mr. William Kentridge is a South African artist of European descent. His father was the legal representative for the family of Steve Biko and Winnie Mandela, Nelson Mandela's wife. So, Kentridge grew up with the constant awareness that his skin tone gave him immense privilege. In the early 90s he decided to start taking photos of his drawings in progress, leading to these films called "drawing projections"-- he refuses to label them animations. You can tell that the images come from a single drawing, edited and rephotographed. The traces of whatever he has erased and changed make the drawings that much more beautiful. In this film, you can tell when he has smoothed some transitions between photos, but all in all, his technique is fantastic to watch.



In October, I went to a show at the Kyle Kauffman Gallery in the city and randomly ran across one of his prints. I remember standing in front of it for at least fifteen minutes straight. And after I left, I couldn't get it out of my mind. Here it is, Studio Portrait, from the gallery's website. It is about three feet tall and two feet wide. Riveting.

I was so wrong.

Julia pointed out one of my flaws. I forgot this young man:



Luca is unstoppable. How are those facial expressions? Fantastic is the answer.

Girls, girls, girls.

This may be becoming excessive, I feel it is necessary to post my (musicians) wives as well.

1. Christy

For goodness sakes, this girl has reinvented herself three times.

A. Pop singer

All embedding was disabled, so here is the link to "Genie in a Bottle": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WG_m6h-XvMo&feature=related

B. Sex pot



C. R&B singer



D. 40s jazz singer.



This woman has the ultimate voice, better than anyone else I can think of in music right now. Plus-- she is having a baby, and looking fantastic while doing it, with a rat man. Whom she loves!


2. Sarah



This woman knows how to sing a tune. She also knows how to dress. And win my heart.

You had a goal, but not that many

You may have thought that after yesterday, we would take a break from the blog. But no. It's snowing outside, which means that it is the type of day when one doesn't get off the couch.

I don't know how many of you know my ultimate (musician) husband list, so I thought that today I would share that list with you (in no particular order).

1. Biggie



The actual husband seems to think that it is adorable that I love Notorious B.I.G. But it is not adorable. It is for real. That voice? Can you stop it? No. You can't. I would have married him, anytime, anyplace. Granted, I'm not much for hos or hustling or skunk, but I will go out on a limb and say, for you Biggie, I would do anything.


2. 2 Pac



One thing that I love about 2 Pac is that he can mean it when he tells men to respect women, and then, in his next video, only show women as sex objects. But he is a cutie. A super cutie. With some feelings.


3. Sir Elton



This song is possibly my favorite song of all time. And those glasses and bright sequin outfits take me back to middle school, when I would come home everyday, put on one of several Elton John records, and sing at the top of my lungs while doing my homework. As a bonus, it is also featured in one of my favorite movies of all time:




4. Louis



I don't know if anyone has had feelings like this gentleman. I would kiss his mouth.


5. Victor



You, sir, can rock my face twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

I will never disagree with anyone's excitement upon hearing Heart. However, this gentleman wins a heart like none other.



Paul Potts appeared on (and won) "Britain's Got Talent." His awkwardness, awful teeth, and crestfallen face when the judges don't immediately speak make my heart melt. I have never really listened to much opera, but what I do know can be powerful. Paul, however, is completely sincere, and I believe that is what makes people cry.

The piano.

The piano explodes.

It explodes!



Oh, and Nancy Wilson? Cleavage much? Excellent work.

Somewhere in my life there is a dissertation on the transition in the marketing and music of Heart from the 1970s to the 1980s. I am so so serious about this.

Catherine's thoughts on the video: "This is overtly sexual. It's making me uncomfortable with all the cleavage and writhing on the floor and close-ups on their faces. They were so cute in the 70s! I can't see them like this!"

My thoughts exactly, except for I'm so comfortable, and I only want to see them this way.

One more Heart explosion.

Right. When I was courting the wife, I had a few tricks up my sleeve. One of them was delivering her a letter that was, in its entirety, the lyrics to "Alone" by Heart. I arranged them grammatically so that they made sense, and I formatted it like a real letter. But Cat didn't know Heart at the time. She just thought she was getting a letter with these sentiments:

I hear the ticking of the clock
I'm lying here the room's pitch dark
I wonder where you are tonight
No answer on the telephone
And the night goes by so very slow
Oh I hope that it won't end though
Alone
Till now I always got by on my own
I never really cared until I met you
And now it chills me to the bone
How do I get you alone
How do I get you alone
you don't know how long i have wanted
to touch your lips and hold you tight
You don't know how long I have waited
and I was going to tell you tonight
But the secret is still my own
and my love for you is still unknown
Alone
Till now I always got by on my own
I never really cared until I met you
And now it chills me to the bone
How do I get you alone

Needless to say, revealing that this was a song was less awesome than Cat continuing to believe that I was a stalker. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how the race was won.

PS: I did the same thing a few weeks later with the lyrics to "Glory of Love" by Peter Cetera. But she knew that one.

Every single second of the night.

I know I said I'd leave it at two things with the video for "These Dreams," but we've just watched it again... and I need to make a few things clear.

The drummer in that video, who makes his triumphant entrance after the plaster horse head, knew he was taking you on a ride. Do you see those moves? That spin move? The pointing at you? I love him. What is he wearing? I love him.

But the real twist in this viewing was Cat noticing that the disembodied hands are coming out of grates in the floor. Why are they down there? What's going on here? I know that they love Heart -- I love Heart, and I would definitely reach up through a grate to touch Ann Wilson, even now, when she's 57 and post gastric surgery of some kind -- but I still feel like the audience might have been captured and locked up. Which is fantastic.

Heart explosion.

Let's start with Nancy Wilson's mediocre guitar playing:



Here's some more video evidence of how listlessly she performed in the 1970s. Literally nothing is exuding from her soul.

For my money, though, you aren't going to get a bigger explosion of wife-ness than Anne Wilson in this video:



She is stealing my heart with her wiles! I love the drummer, too. And the way Nancy is just jamming over there to the side, totally loving how hard her sister is rocking the vocals.

Also, what is that song about? Feelings? Fish? I vote for "wifes." That is the plural.

Oh, but then.

Then my actual wife and I found this, which I remembered in part, but obviously not in full and total awesomeness. You... you have to brace yourself here. This is where it all peaked for them. Did they upgrade drummers? Yes. Definitely. Did they upgrade hair? Goes without saying. But there's so much more going on here that it almost defies description.



All we're going to point are these two moments:

First, 1:45 in, while she's singing about "words that have no form," Nancy Wilson, dressed like Jareth from Labyrinth, crawls up to a giant plaster horse head. In the middle of the desert.

Second, if you start watching at the 3:00 mark, you're going to see the guitar players fall backward into water while playing their guitars. Out of nowhere. You must see this. Don't worry, either; they magically rise out of the water a few seconds later.

Game, set, match.

Happy times

Continuing with my recent affinity for Miss Janet, here is a good video I doubt that most people have seen:



This video is great and stands on its own. But it is really getting it done because her producer is channeling iconic images from Drum Magazine, Samuel Fosso, Malick Sidibe, and Seydou Keita. I hug all of those works of art, so this video just punches me in the face. If you ever need a jolt in the artistic-creativity bone, just learn about a little bit of South African, Nigerian, or Democratic Republic of the Congo history. And the fact that those artists had some feelings. And no time in which to share them.

*If you click on the Samuel Fosso link, you will go to the Jack Shainman Gallery page. One of my all-time favorite artists, El Anatsui, has a huge show coming up at this gallery in January. I'm a tad excited.

Holiday spirit

If you need some motivation to join the festivities (and a way to waste some time), enjoy this gem:

We Hate Sheep. We Love Holiday Sweaters.

Time to embrace your inner tacky-elementary-school-teacher.

For keeps this time.

That Jigglypuff has seen better days.

Just kidding. He's at the top of our first Christmas tree. His life just gained new meaning.

When I realized that I could rig a paper clip to perch Jigglypuff where an angel or star usual goes, I think my general reaction was that Jigglypuff is both an angel and a star.

Voila!



While I was searching for that video, I found... this. BRACE YOU SELFS.

Seriously this time.

It's not as if the missing H fell off, leaving an empty space between the T and the ANKS. I'm also fairly certain the church had enough letters H to go around; the other side was doing just fine.

So I have deduced that this church sanctions the giving of tanks as presents. Or this church sanctions the attacking with tanks of others. In all things.

Like this guy:



That's my kind of church!

My version of Thanksgiving.

"Hello, children! Buy a Christmas tree from me! Do you see how happy I am? Ha ha ha! I love to welcome the children!"




"SO I CAN EAT THEIR SOULS!"

Tanksgiving

For our break, we decided to drive home to North Carolina to visit out families. We left on Wednesday afternoon and stopped over to spend the night in Baltimore; as always, Thanksgiving traffic was a treasure. We made it to Baltimore over an hour and a half later than we expected, but the hotel was comfortable enough.

In the morning, we headed down to my grandparents' farm north of Durham for Thanksgiving lunch. As we were one of the first to arrive, Marcus helped my mom deep-fry the Thanksgiving turkey (this is the first year this debacle was attempted-- luckily, no one died or was even severely burned in the process). Tim, my stepfather, had his yearly beer-- and two more-- so he was being overly helpful (and making some winning jokes).

After leaving the farm around three, having barely eaten anything, we headed over to Lee and Katie's for Thanksgiving dinner, where we had a delicious meal and some wonderful dinner conversation. Jenny, the oldest niece, read Table Topic questions, and we answered the questions one after another. Quickly, the girls got bored and decided to watch Disney Channel, while the adult conversation turned to family history, the ranking of presidents, and how war generals earn their stars.

We left Lee and Katie's fairly early, drove back to my mom's house, and passed out. The next day, Friday, we had a leisurely breakfast with my family, then took my little sister, Zoe, over to play with Jenny and Reagan. The girls watched movies, ate candy, played outside, and jumped on Jenny's bed. After the girls wore Zoe out, we drove back to the house and had dinner. Mom challenged us to a game of Scrabble, in which she, of course, trounced us both.

When we headed back to our room for a good night's sleep, we discovered Marcus' USB drive broken completely in two. A visiting friend had carelessly sat upon our computer, breaking off the USB drive connected to it. Needless to say, this resulted in serious panic. Marcus lost many of his school plans, but luckily a majority of the data stored on the drive was backed up on our home computer. Unfortunately, he still had to recreate several assignments and rubrics on top of the grading he still had to finish.

Saturday morning, we again had a leisurely breakfast then went with my parents to buy a Christmas tree for them and ourselves. Every year since Mom and Tim married, we have shopped at the same Christmas tree lot to get our trees. That lovely gentleman is the marker for the lot. Our apartment is extremely small, and we barely have enough room for our furniture, but Mom and Tim insisted we have our own live Christmas tree for the holiday season. We bought the smallest one on the lot, even though it was still a few inches taller than me. After rearranging the trunk and stuffing the tree inside, we headed to Winston-Salem to see if anyone could help recover the data from the USB drive. Unfortunately, it was hopeless, but we returned home for lunch and to help set up their Christmas tree. We left in the early afternoon, seeing this little gem along the way, and again stopped halfway, this time in Harrisburg, VA.

Sunday morning, we woke up early and got back on the road for the remainder of our trip. There was little traffic, although New Jersey drivers always make me want to gouge my eyes with a spoon. Of course, when I was completely exhausted from driving on only fifteen minutes from our apartment, traffic stopped completely. We moved at a snail's pace for over 45 minutes, but I found that this little lady is the solution for frustration:




*This was my first time watching the actual video, and how are her versions of Michael's moves? Got'em! Bide your time for 3:17.

So after some Janet and some tears, we made it home. After unloading the car and buying enough food to at least eat tomorrow, we set up the Christmas tree! It's a little beauty, made with old white lights and hand-me-down ornaments from my mom and Marcus' mom. We are both thankful for our loving and generous families. We are incredibly lucky.

And, of course, I wouldn't be married to the man I am if this little guy wasn't strapped to the top of our Christmas tree.

Every wish and dream and happy home.

Once upon a time, I found an empty classroom at Wake Forest University while walking to my own class. This empty classroom had been readied for instruction, so the overhead projector was on and projecting a blank Word document onto a screen at the front of the room. Someone -- the teacher, I imagine -- had left his or her materials on the round table in the center of the room (which was a computer lab).

To help, I typed the lyrics to the theme song to Ducktales into the Word document. I enlarged the font so that it was easier to read. Then I left.

Once upon the future, I will have a band that plays music, and it will consist of my family, and we will cover this song almost exactly as it was written:



I will be so happy on that day.

Not ponytails or cottontails.

We just love these. There are awesome guitars and feelings here. Try to guess which one of us picked each of these!

Websites.

*As promised at the end of this ridiculous post, here's a more accessible link to Cat's website, which was marginalized by Marcus' ranting and raving like a madman.

The other day, the two of us were looking for something on our older computer (a workhorse that's just about ready for the glue factory) when we stumbled across the website Marcus built to help him get a teaching job. And since I'm Marcus, I can tell you that there is almost no explanation for why that website helped me get a teaching job. It only proves that I'm insane.

First of all, I built it on a server I bought a few years ago. Haphazardous.com has, right now, the school newspaper I helped the kids build this fall, some garbage assignments for my classes -- and, of course, a link through that image in the lower-right corner to my first reference to a Nintendo game. This has been here since I emailed my site to about twenty districts looking for work.

(Pressing "A" should actually make the picture advance. Once upon a time, I had some tricks up my sleeve...)

Anyway, this is how I landed my job. There is no way any of you are bored enough to read much of that, even though I can reason through deduction that you are very bored; you are reading this post, after all. But there is too much. Let me sum up:

The site map links to three gems that should have gotten me laughed out of any potential interviews: my Wake Forest site, a Japanese postcard and a portrait by my niece, Jenny. (By "gotten me laughed out of," I mean "gotten me elected superintendent, obviously.)

That portrait is actually such a winner that I will post it here:

That is such a keeper!

Anyway, it's my old Wake Forest site that puzzles me now. I got a Master's Degree in part by building this one. I don't know now whether it is cause for me to love myself or be very depressed...

If you go back to that main page, you can see a picture of me. By clicking on the eyes, there are secret pages to visit. What's not so hidden is all the craziness: the porpoise thing, the picture of the phoenix from Ranma 1/2 as a major link... I think you can just start clicking randomly and quickly find a reason or two not to put me in a classroom with impressionable youngsters.

(In the "cause for me to love myself" column, I put the "clay brick express dancing" page.)

The point might be that the only page I did remove was the one labeled "Personal" in the right menu, meaning that I felt something in there was somehow worse than the rest. But I was wrong. I should have kept that link; those would have been awesome phone interviews.

Here it is. It's still online, just inaccessible from the other site. Here's what I notice:

The music I must have posted at one point is gone, because I realized that my music is garbage and threw it back in the gutter, because the place for garbage is in the gutter, not my mind. There's a very small image in the bottom bar that links to real victory of the NES kind. And there are Marvel Series II cards.

(In this same, strange self-love/self-hate session, I found other cards I made over the last couple of years. Maybe I will get over myself long enough to post some of them -- the hip-hop cards or the Japanese folklore ones, probably.)

The cards I posted make me happy. There are ones for my siblings and some other crazy bits, and they all load in a separate window with a front and a back. I guess I was planning on personalizing the fronts for the last few, but I've never started a project and then abandoned it before.

Here's the card I made for my brother, in case you need a little enticing:



Oh, the suicide joke! I wish I could bring that back. Probably not appropriate for a high school teacher... or is it?

I just like that no one, the wife included, gets the affection with which that joke is delivered -- except for the siblings. Once upon a time, I was in hysterics on the floor of a lobby of a theater where my brother and sister and I were going to see the musical Rent; I was shaking, really, and I was in tears from laughing hard; and the whole thing was due to me repeatedly saying, "Have you guys heard about this crazy new craze that's sweeping the nation? It's called suicide." I miss them.

Before we go, let's post a real website. This is Catherine's portfolio and such -- with artwork, cuteness, dashing and daring -- and it has been updated in the last week or so with newness.

(I'm [Marcus again] going to put another link to her site up at the top of this ridiculous post.)

Still curious about this puma.

I want a ferret.

But the wife has suggested that if I were to buy a ferret, she would throw it into the wild.

When I was a youngster, my brother and I had ferrets. Lots of them. They were adorable -- when they weren't destroying everything around. Actually, that's when they were the most adorable. Some days, I'd find them curled up inside the couch, having dug their way into it, filled it with poop and my keys, and gone to sleep.

I treasure those days. No, really. I'm serious. I want a ferret.

The wife says no, but I have a question:

What if it came with a lion?

Well, it's super early, the boy just left for school, and I am home alone -- again. So! As opposed to doing housework and those things that "school" wants me to do, I believe I shall post some of the winners which I have been emailed in the past few days.

For when you need a card to accurately express how you feel: http://www.someecards.com/

For when you need to do some thinking about things: Yinka Shonibare, ex.



For when you really need some french fries with gravy and cheese curds:



For any time at all:



For when you are worried there is not enough love in the world:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/devon/7094551.stm

For when you have a school project on the environment:




For when you need a song stuck in your head:



*Wait for the shift half way through.

Soon there will be updates on our Thanksgiving excursions.

The best beards ever.

Red Fish: I have a beard. Some would say it's a manly beard, if "some" is me in front of my mirror in the morning. Maybe it's no "World Champion" beard, but who's the judge of that?

Blue Fish: Turns out it's...

The guys from the World Beard and Moustache Championship

RF: I like any group that has a "full beard freestyle" competition. That produced this little gem:



RF: That's special.

BF: It's not that I don't appreciate the effort here. I do. That is a good amount of work right there.

RF: Probably a good amount of wax, too.

BF: The problem is that it's too much. It's too contrived.

RF: Obviously, if there's a World Beard and Moustache Championship, you're gonna get a lack of holding back. You've got heavy hitters like that guy. There's no time wasted there. Or here:



RF: You better believe that picture is hanging in my locker next to a placard that says, "If you can dream it, you can be it" -- in the same way that I might have a picture of Arnold Schwarzenegger up if I was trying to get even with the boys who kick sand in my face at the beach:


Do you think that bicep's ever had a feeling of its own?

RF: And I applaud them. Not just because of the dedication. I applaud those results.

BF: But the vanity it takes to maintain these bad boys is off-putting. Kind of. I mean, I'm definitely not kissing these fellows.

BF: This guy? You betcha:

Ewan McGregor in Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith



RF: He looks like a cat! But a beautiful cat. A beautiful, well-groomed, evenly coated cat.

BF: Ewan McGregor is a first-ballot Husband.

RF: His name is Obi Wan Kenobi. And if you're going to introduce movies, you might want to first think about the fact that Star Wars is real. Not as real as The Lord of the Rings, but still pretty real.


It's more like a rockumentary than a film.

RF: But if you do want to go with a movie, try this:

Matthew McConaughey in Reign of Fire



RF: What a one-two punch that duo packed.

BF: Christian Bale will always have a place in my heart.

RF: I agree. But he does not destroy this movie the way Matthew McConaughey does. Do you see that head? Do you see that beard?


Do you see the beast? See its eyes? Magic hour...

RF: To round out the movie star category, let's have...

Daniel Day-Lewis


There is so much happening here.

BF: What's his wife doing? What are her eyes saying to you?

RF: I am distracted by him. The beard is award-winning, of course, but he is also wearing a loosely-tied pink tie.

BF: It's a woman's scarf, not a tie.

RF: If Daniel Day-Lewis wears it, it becomes a man's tie. That is also, by this logic, a man's beret.

BF: Is that a velvet blazer he's wearing? I can only hope.

RF: It's a man's blazer. And his wife is a man. Everything he touches becomes manly. He's like King Midas, only all of the gold is man-gold.

BF: Let's move on to historically awesome beards.

RF: I'm going to start with a two-parter, a before-and-after, from the halcyon days of our country.

Ulysses S. Grant



RF: That's the "before" picture, when he was a strapping young lad.

BF: I just like the cow-lick at the top of his head.

RF: His chin is made of America. That's the kind of chin that could stop a bullet. I mean that did stop a bullet. The bullet of slavery.

BF: Was the bullet scared to approach that "wide" chest of his? He's mousy-looking.

RF: It holds the heart of America in it, you red-bellied Communist.



RF: That is the "after" picture. It is after he had been drinking for mostly all the years in between the two pictures. He is, in fact, drunk in this picture. (I made up this fact.)

BF: That is a chest I can respect.

RF: It's full of alcohol. And sadness. A lot of it probably related to this sparkling gem of a man:

William F. Sherman



RF: I think we all know what that "F" stands for. He is impossibly hot in most ways.

BF: Those pockmarks make me nervous.

RF: You know who they made nervous? The South. As he burned it. With his gaze. Next up?

Abraham F. Lincoln



RF: Is this too obvious? Everyone knows that he rocked an all-time beard. What most people don't know is that he stood 7'5" tall.

BF: No, he didn't.

RF: I'm sorry that you hate America. Maybe you also hate freedom and those who fought for it. Next up:

Frederick Douglass



BF: I love freedom. Especially people who sing about it.

RF: Touche. In a fight, I think that Douglass would beat Lincoln. It's not the obvious choice, but if you stare deeply into that man's eyes? He is rock solid. With feelings.

BF: Those grim lips are the tell-tale signs.

RF: No, the heart in the floorboards was the tell-tale sign. But if we stick with freedom, we've got two more entries.

Karly Marx



BF: How's the juxtaposition of that mustache and that beard and the back of that head? Can you have a black mustache and a white beard?

RF: "Juxtaposition"? Really? Well, I can make up words, too. How's cabluxtabosition? And you can have dual-colored hair.

BF: But like that? Where it's just black and then just white?

RF: Look, you're missing the point, which is that Karly Marx let small animals -- like birds and cats -- nest in his beard, because he believed in the common man and the workers and rising up.

BF: Like an eagle?

RF: I'm not the Communist here. Now let's get to the heart of the matter:

Malcolm X



BF: Malcolm X, you are an all-time Husband. I would marry you any time, any place.

RF: I concur. Any random video of him is proof.

BF: He's so intelligent and awesome.

RF: The best thing to do is to realize that hotness peaked when he was preaching some feelings. After that, it was downhill.

BF: There was no downhill for Malcolm X.

RF: It was more like he was on an incline, like a roller coaster might provide, only at the top, instead of going down and really quickly, he went up and really quickly. And then exploded.

BF: And then punched everyone in the face.

RF: With an explosion. Focus, though! We have two more folks for this list. These are the top two. The upper tier of beards. Ready?

Santa Claus



RF: KABLAMMO. If you need to see that one close up to appreciate it, here's the link.

BF: There are no words.

RF: She is working a look I can't quite place. I almost have the words to articulate what she's doing, but half of my attention is rooted to Santa. To his random gesticulation.

BF: She's trying to see through the camera and somehow eat your brain.

RF: That's kablammy. Last but not least:

Jesus F. Christ



RF: Got you.

Transcending history and the world, a tale of souls and swords eternally retold.

Only one person who might ever read my garbage contributions to this blog will get that reference.

And it is him:


I never had such an easy victory!

Today at 2:25, with the final bell of the school day still buzzing its insectoid menace in my ears1, I threw my belongings together and sprinted to my car. A few minutes later, I had beaten the buses to the main roads of the town where I teach. Soon enough, I was on the highway, singing along to a random song2.

I had a doctor's appointment at 3:20, you see, and assumed that if I opened the "I could get stuck behind a bus" window even a crack, all of the delinquents in the neighborhood would throw it wide open and clamber in, knapsacks open and ski masks on3. Then the delinquents would ransack my house, or car, leaving me stuck without home owner's insurance, or behind a bus.

So I sailed along. Right up until the state of New York shut down two of the three lanes of traffic on the Interstate. You know the one with all the cars trying to get somewhere on it? That one. And without the extra two lanes, everyone lost their minds.

I watched a man in a BMW repeatedly slam on the gas and then immediately the brakes while menacing4 a school bus. Full of children. He was literally within a few feet of the bumper each time that he hit the brakes, and each time he had to stop so suddenly that his entire body would jerk comically forward. But it's not his fault that he was so angry at this bus for being in his way. How dare it not drive into the car in front? And the next one? Until he could get where he needed to go? He was such a busy guy. So very, very busy. He had zero time to notice that the car he was almost hitting was full of children who would, I think, be upset when he died screaming and immolated in the twisted wreckage of running into the back of a steel machine four times the size of his car.

Anyway, I helped him out by flipping the kids off while yelling out the window5.

1. I have no idea what this means.
2. Or "Before He Cheats" by Whatshername.
3. I am losing this metaphor as we speak.
4. Like an insectoid buzzing!
5. Or singing "Before He Cheats."


Press and turn your signal to the right!

An hour later, I was late to the doctor and feeling blue. The check-up went fine, or it didn't; I forget, but I know that my throat hurts, and I need to have my tonsils removed at age 27. Do you know what that means?

If you want to know what that means, turn to the next post.
If you want to get away from me, click here.
If you want to explore the Cave of Time, turn to page 111.

Things that make me irrationally angry.

I always hit the gray part. Also, Googling "toe" results in fewer pictures of what I expected -- that would be toes -- and more pictures of women in tight pants.

#1 Stubbing a toe
This one's obvious, I know, but that doesn't make it any less angrifying. (That is a word, Spell Check, and so help me God I will make you understand that.)
Basically, while walking daintily between one area of the world and another, I hit my toe. That's all. Or is that all? Look more closely! Time and space seem to bend around the toe-object nexus so that my toe manages to strike the object while the rest of my body avoids it; in addition, the toe manages to slam into the object with the equivalent force of me running at full speed and kicking the chair or table with all of the strength I can muster up. (And I'm not running when this happens. I can't run. My hips would shatter two steps into it.)
Reaction: Stabbing the chair or table to death, possibly with a rock. Cradling toe while sucking breath in between teeth. Lightly swearing.


Google! Are you listening to anything I'm saying? This is the wrong beard, Michael. So help me, you knew that. Also? Not an airbrushed photo. Or a depressing choice by a female athlete. This is neither of those.
NOTE: I am not to blame for this, wife! Google did it! I am innocent!
DOUBLE NOTE: Mostly innocent.

#2 Beard hair stuck in cell phone
Whenever my wife calls me (and only my wife ever calls me), I like to answer the phone. I like my wife. I like talking to her. And my cell phone lets me talk to her in many places, which I enjoy. What I don't enjoy is getting my beard hair stuck in the cell phone.
I position the phone in such a way that I can both talk and listen at the same time; I think that most people do this. When I'm finished with the conversation, I move the phone away from my face and hang up.
And every time I do this, one of the hairs in my beard has stretched itself out, lassoed itself around the hinge of the cell phone, and readied itself to be ripped out. It's not as if I hang the phone up in a furious sweep of my arm. It's also not as if I have a Karl Marx beard. The hair's getting ripped out in a beard-phone conspiracy and I am through with turning a blind eye.
Reaction: Biting the phone to death with my teeth. Or throwing the phone into the wall as many times as it takes. Bursts of expletives.


Nobody could have avoided that. Or the murdering afterward.

#3 Hitting a pothole
Sometimes, while driving, the wheel of my car will dip into a pothole, causing the car to bounce slightly. Sometimes hitting a curb while turning too closely to it will create the same effect; intermittently rough roads can also do this.
Reaction: The murder of the road and all cars on the road. The murder of my car and anyone in the car. Also cursing, if "cursing" means screaming inarticulately.

I feel the night explode.

Taylor Dayne - "Tell It to My Heart"

Walk with me now through lush meadows filled with forever-blooming flowers of melody, poetry, and dance. The name of this particular meadow? Taylor Dayne Meadow.

NOTE: Due to my strong personal convictions, I wish to stress that this film in no way endorses a belief in the occult.

00:01 - "The eyes are the windows of the house of the soul," say the poets. This eye is a window that opens to show us into the living room of the house inside, where the most incredible feelings are hosting the most incredible party, with streamers and music and punch, and all of it is on fire.

00:03 - Only the most confident videos can afford to release the backflipping backup dancer visual (usually the coup de grace) a mere three seconds in. Only the most confident videos can afford to say, "We see the horizon, and we are sailing right over it."

00:15 - At fifteen seconds, you may notice the first subtle theme of the video: red. Go back with that word in mind, and you'll start to pick up the clues. Red lipstick, red nail polish, red paint, red underwear peeking through slashed jeans, red socks. Finally, a set of red footprints following a pair of mysterious feet. Why is there only one set of footprints? Because that's when I was carrying you.

00:22 - First line: "I feel the night explode when we're together." The imagery is potent; at first, we are afraid that so much is literally exploding that the entire night is in danger (and we of course hear the echo of Milton's anthropomorphic Night speaking to Satan in Paradise Lost here), but then the verb "feel" catches up to us. The unshuttered eye, the concatenation of red: these are all the vestiges of feelings. Exploding feelings.

00:24 - The first synthesizer fill aurally titillates us with its brief melody while the man in the slashed jeans dances. If you can call that dancing. It's more like a kinesthetic explosion. (Notice the second motif that is already developing: exploding.)

00:30 - The best stage actors know to enunciate powerfully, and so does Taylor Dayne. Watch her mouth form those elongated "o" sounds in the few seconds before the half-minute mark. Sensuality like that could only be matched by suggestive shoulder rolls; fortunately, we have those here, too.

00:33 - Held in reserve until this moment, the second backup dancer cartwheels into frame. Now we have two of the three primary colors struggling to burst forth from slashed jeans.

00:34-00:44 - These ten seconds split our attention between the enunciated, emotional power in the front and the gesticulations of the men in the back. Focus on the men. Each motion clarifies the lyrics like a resonant bell rung high in a church tower, perhaps by a quasi-formed but tender-hearted man.

00:47 - With one heart-wrenching, "Tonight, I really need to know," we prepare to hit the chorus; also, her jacket vanishes to allow Dayne's delicately tousled locks to spill over her shoulders.

00:47 - Please don't forget to watch the men in the back. They are wearing expressions of such focus, such stoic commitment, that they can't help but underscore the pathos of the lyrics.

00:51 - Yes! The chorus! If I can be permitted a bardic aside, I'm nearly giddy with the thrill of it all. When Taylor Dayne and the back-up dancers punch the air in perfect unison, they are punching me in the heart.

Take a second to digest the lyrics of the chorus:

Tell it to my heart
Tell my I'm the only one
Is this really love or just a game
Tell it to my heart
I can feel my body rock
Every time you call my name

Some might argue that these lyrics are cliched, echoing with the same trite longing of any pop song. To a point, that is true. Yet it is that very same cliche, knowingly employed here, that provides the appropriate backdrop to the exploding punch of this line: "I can feel my body rock." The image evokes obviously the idea of movement, but the physical orgasm is matched by a spiritual one: like Peter, she is building her house on a rock. And I am moving in to the spare bedroom.

1:03-1:06 - Watch the dancer on the left. Nureyev is reborn. Unless he isn't dead yet. Then he is merely replaced.

1:15-1:21 - At what are the dancers pointing? Maybe a star. Maybe the future.

1:26 - Here the lyrics help literalize the song's message; "soul to soul," we hold on to Taylor Dayne's waist, gracefully kicking behind us.

1:39 - In the second chorus, she begins to plumb even greater emotional depths, becoming fiercer and fiercer in her lamentations.

1:55 - There is a single frame at this point that is not part of the movement of the rest of this sequence. In that single frame, the "red" dancer is striking a lounging, half-kick pose. Like the single frames cut into the original theatrical release of The Exorcist, this may be a subliminal message designed to augment the rest. Here, the visceral target is not fear but the confluence of passion and sorrow.

1:56 - 2:06 - For ten seconds, Taylor Dayne gives way so that the music can stretch its legs. While the synthesizer is being teased into unheard of melodies, Taylor Dayne walks purposefully toward the camera, eyes seeming to reach out from her anachronistic haunt and into our own...

2:07 - And then she whirls around, leaving us spurned and gasping. Freeze the video at 2:08; that sneer speaks more loudly than any lyric could have.

2:13 - 2:32 - During the bridge, notice two things. First, Taylor Dayne's jacket once again appears and disappears in an almost rhythmic cycle. Second, the back-up dancers are doing the same move for twenty seconds. Are they attempting to suggest the Sisyphean machinery of love? The way we throw ourselves again and again into the fire, hoping for new results?

2:29 - "We keep holding on." The last word is transformed into a wail informed by a grief not felt since Juliet awakened to find Romeo dead at her side.

2:30 - 2:57 - The motifs of this passion play return now, and we again see the over-magnified eyes, the painted footprints, the gesticulating. Not content to revisit old ground, Taylor Dayne spins into frame like single images from a beautiful kaleidoscope, repetitive but mesmerizing.

2:57 - The dancers die.

3:03 - The dancers return to life with a jolly spin and hip wiggle.

3:37 - Up to this point, the ending of the song is a frenzy. Taylor Dayne alternatingly smiles and scowls, torn by the emotions of the song, and the back-up dancers can only dance as hard as possible to console her. Then, just as suddenly as it began, the dancing stops. The trio turns and walks into the white background. The image begins to fade.

And we are left only with our memories of ineffable heartache.

Fin

They call me "Panic" 'cause I never do.

I found this randomly while looking for pictures of Rawhead Rex, but it's actually a good list of Halloween-y things:

Ingredients for a Halloween at Home

I've got no reaction to the music, because I don't recognize it. I only listen to The Best of Bonnie Raitt when I'm at home. But I love the movie list.

(Look at this! There were two sequels to Pumpkinhead? And a poem?)

Left off of the movie list is the epic Ticks, which is reviewed at BadMovies.org. More childhood memories with my brother and sister...

Anyway, the best part of this guy's list is the video games section. Maniac Mansion is awesome enough that I will probably not be writing letters of recommendation this morning to instead play that on an emulator (because these students don't need college); however, the real victory is Resident Evil.

After playing the sequel, Resident Evil 2, I made a series of .wav files doing the voices of the main characters, Leon and Ada. (I would have been 18 at the time, which is a nice little fact for people who are married to me to keep in mind as they consider annulment.) Thing is, I made these .wav files with over-the-top caricatures of the voices telling nonsensical stories, having nonsensical conversations, or telling nonsensical jokes. Only I can't quite remember all of them.

I know that one started something like this:

Leon: Hey, Ada! Where are you going with my car?
Ada: I don't know, Leon! I thought I'd take it for a drive!

And then there was a "punchline" with laughter from both characters.

Where are those .wav files? Justin may or may not have at the same time created gems entitled "lion attack" and "real lion attack," and these must also be recovered. We were such winners back then. Before it went downhill.



Did You Know? I used to play Resident Evil 2 constantly, but I cheated every single time. I had to. Otherwise, it was terrifying. Actually, it was still terrifying, but I can't help that I screamed like a girl whenever I was attacked in the game. (Once again, I'd like to point out that I was 18 years old then. Fodder for the annulment hearings!)

I can feel my body rock.

My sister is the source to turn to when you need awesomeness broken down for you. Also if you need awesomeness put back together for you. And should you want to indulge this Halloween in a marathon of movies like Critters and Rawhead Rex, she's the girl you want riding shotgun.

(Except that she fell asleep ten minutes into Rawhead Rex. Justin and I watched the whole awesome spectacle, and she'd wake up -- excuse me, "wake up" -- for a few moments every so often, pretend that she wasn't asleep, and drift back off. )

This post is actually going to be a kind of preamble. Trust me, I need to talk about "body rock[ing]" soon, but while looking for the links to the IMDB entries for those two cinematic gems up there, I got some interesting image results.

I'd like everybody to look at the second Google result for Critters first:



That's the box art for the sequel to Critters. You might want to look more closely. (Although I suppose that not spending part of one's childhood watching these movies with one's sister sort of dulls the impact...)

Here's the very first result in Google for Critters:



It's not just the juxtaposition of color or species that's getting it done here; it might be the expression on the woman's face. And her pose. She's posing, as the wife describes it, "for a beauty pageant with her arm ostensibly on the railing of a stairway and her leg cocked to show off her nice body," but instead of a beauty pageant railing, "unbeknownst to her, there's a monster where the railing should be."

But I say it is beknownst to her. She's digging on that thing. Digging hard.

Also someone made that suit. Or stole it from the movie studio. Either way? Job well done.

Next post: A Halloween list I found when clicking through to this pinnacle of costume design:



Did You Know? In "Stranded on Death Row," Kurupt drops a line about Rawhead Rex; specifically, he "gets rugged like Rawhead Rex with fat tracks that fit." Also, what he "recite[s] is kinda lethal."

Photo booth inspiration.

Inspired by Charlotte, that little doll, I am too posting pictures of recent Photo Booth escapades.
http://getsgalore.blogspot.com/






And the real winner.

Gah Lak Tus.

So we did, as the last post suggested, watch Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer on Sunday. And it was very bad. I was grading for most of it, but it wasn't even enjoyably distracting. Even the effects were mediocre.

Especially Galactus, who looked like this:



Maybe that works for some people, but does it really capture things like the real Galactus does?




Because that's what an arm does! That's how it bends when you're the devourer of worlds.

I just wanted to use that picture because Uatu is ripped up in it. I like him that way.

Movie-watching criteria.

Actually, let's make that "criterion." We've really just got the one.

Does a little girl die at the end of the movie? Yes? Then no. We don't want that. That's not a movie we wanted to see.

Little scenario for you:

We went to see Pan's Labyrinth in the theater, and we were both mega-excited. There was this whole lie about "adult fairytale" not meaning "girl gets shot in the stomach," but then, there at the end? Girl gets shot in the stomach.

Sorry if that's a spoiler! Here's the girl not shot in the stomach:



See? Adorable.

Then we borrowed The Host from our sister, who failed to mention the girl, you know, dying at the end. Even though we were having a conversation about Pan's Labyrinth at the same time we borrowed it. True story.

Here's that girl, also before the dying:



Also adorable! It wouldn't be so bad if the movie was called Little Girls Dying For Two Hours, because we'd probably know what was up in that one. Probably look weird renting it, though.

From now on, when we borrow a movie, we are going to ask only one question: "Does a little girl die at the end of this movie?" Because it turns out that's important.

Maybe we should switch from the well-reviewed movies with the politics and the special effects and the drama and the good acting and the threat of little girls dying to, I don't know, the movie we watched on Sunday:




At least with Jessica Alba involved, you know what's coming. Greatness. Fantastic acting and drama. And never the feeling that she is a doll with painted eyes. And hair.