it is possible I'd seen stand-up before watching Richard Pryor Live on the Sunset Strip, but if so, Richard made me forget about it. RPLotSS was one of the first shows that incorporated performance into stand-up
Richard covered a lot of ground in 80 minutes. a meditation on love, loss and the difference between men and women:
about his near-death from an explosion while freebasing cocaine. merciless
NOTE: I feel silly even mentioning this, but just in case. This is RICHARD FUCKING PRYOR peoples. offensive language is a given. do not listen at work or at grandma's house.
Well that wedding business was a heck of a lot of fun. I think if you had asked either CarrieNation or me for wedding advice in the week leading up to the event, the word "elopement" would have been liberally interspersed throughout our respective comments. All the planning and worrying and last-minute-crisis averting is quite stressful, but in the end it is all totally worth it. It's like going to the best party ever, with all the people you care about, your favorite music and delicious food, accompanied by the person you love the most in the world.
The weekend passed by in a lovely blur, and before we knew it, CarrieNation and I were off to our honeymoon in beautiful Mex....oh wait, that's not what happened. What happened is that we both went back to our jobs to do our Very Important Work for a couple days. And if it was mildly surreal going back into the office after such a momentous weekend, I guess we handled it okay.
Tomorrow morning, earlier than I'd care to think about, we'll strike off to the so-called Mayan Riviera for some much needed rest and relaxation.
I'll have some more thoughts (and pictures!) when I get back, but in the meantime here's some things I though I'd mention:
- Hotrod's toast: In a word: Awesome. Some wedding guests called it the best ever. I can't wait to get my grubby paws on the video so I can check out again.
- Wearing a wedding ring: Awesome, but weird. I'm constantly aware of it.
- The 104p52w challenge: I'll admit it, it's going to be touch and go. I'm all set for this week, but where I'm going is awfully disconnected. Wish me luck.
Walt Kelly and his friends Pogo and Porkypine still say it best:
"Y'know, it seems to be me this is all backwards....
We, Ever'body, ought to keep our big mouths shut all the
whole year long so's we'd have time to think of two minutes worth of
somethin' to say on the eleventh day of November."
to all veterans and their families, thank you.
before he became a caricature in Meet the parents and Meet the parents II, Robert DeNiro was actually very funny in the 'comedic thriller' Midnight Run. (NOTE: how do you know you are old? old old? when a movie you watched when first release is touted as a classic. teh ouch. if Midnight Run were a college students it'd be finally drinking legally)
whatever a 'comedic thriller' is supposed to be, this movie was it. cant' think of any other movie that qualifies.
and to think it almost became a-for-sure-train-wreck. check it
"one of the studio (Paramount) proposals for the role of Jonathan Mardukas was Robin Williams*, who agreed to audition <shudders> meanwhile, the director, Martin Brest, had auditioned and cast Charles Grodin in the role, which lead Paramount to drop out of the production and sell the rights to Universal."
* Robin Williams! ack, ack, ack.
besides being a 'comedic thriller' Midnight Run is also a 'buddy movie', a 'road movie', and others. it is also hilarious.
trailer
did you catch the bit about "fistophobia"? here's the entire exchange:
Jack Walsh: I can't keep you cuffed on a
commercial flight, and I gotta check my gun with my luggage, but you fuck with
me once and I'm gonna break your neck.
Jonathan Mardukas: I can't fly.
Jack Walsh: What?
Jonathan Mardukas: You heard me, I can't fly.
Jack Walsh: No, no, no. You're going to have
to do better than that, pal.
Jonathan Mardukas: No, I don't have to do better than
that, because it's the truth, I can't fly: I suffer from aviaphobia.
Jack Walsh: What does that mean?
Jonathan Mardukas: It means I can't fly. I also
suffer from acrophobia and claustrophobia.
Jack Walsh: I'll tell you what: if you don't
cooperate, you're gonna suffer from "fistophobia".
Mardukas must be faking, right? good thing Walsh saw right through that.
Wow, its been a few days, huh?
I suppose that's just fine and dandy as I never promised I would write daily, at least I didn't promise it to you guys. I only promised myself that I would try to write more often if for nothing else than to try to keep my sanity. So here I am. Hi! *waving*
At times, these things are likely boring to you, but I need to keep track of them and I like to look back at my blog down the road to see what was going on back in the day. :-)
With their fifth consecutive win, the Pittsburgh Steelers take the Denver Broncos....and stuff them mile high. Great game. Thank you, gentlemen.
The countdown continues. It's a mere 16 days until my first 5K. I already did my registration and everything. I just have to pick up my packet in a couple of weeks. I am hoping against all hope that Ida will be long gone tomorrow morning. She caused a little havoc yesterday morning as I TRIED to run. But, when the wind is blowing at about 15mph with gusts up to 30, it's a little tough.
Next on the agenda is vacation! I can't believe there are only 45 more days! We have most of the big stuff handled like flights, house, and equipment so now we only have lessons, food choices and the ever-important spa day for scheduling. I picked up some sweet Under Armour that I really hope does a good job. I hate being all bulky on the mountain!
Holy smokes, shortly after vacation finishes, 36 days to be exact, is graduation! It took me a while, but I'm proud to say I'm finally getting that paper. The question becomes what will I do with this elusive piece of paper and will it mean anything to anyone of importance? These answers and many more on the next episode of Soap.
Do you think that's enough to
worry about? You're right, it probably is, but I'm not being me if I'm
not overloading my plate with things to do. As such, the short list of
the rest of it is below. The first bullet deserves its own paragraph or
entire post, but that's for a later date.
- Hi, wedding. I
guess you're not gonna plan yourself although I have thankfully little
to do to plan you. But every time I think about it, I remember
something else. Aargh.
- Group fitness instructor training - Yes, I ordered all your stuff today. I hope to be certified by the end of January. That's certified, not certifiable, which I already am.
- Social networking - It's more than just talking to you guys! :-D And I told my chiro that I'd see what I could do for him. Is it weird that I would only be able to do the whole social networking thing for someone I know/something I believe in?
- Business plan - So I've got this idea. I just need to gather materials, put in some labor, create a website, register a domain name. OMG I have a lot of crap to do! As I'm getting closer with this idea, I'll share. I promise.
Greetings Voxosphere! So I got hitched this weekend and it went great. There's a whole lot to discuss, including, but not limited to, Hotrod's awesome toast, our tremendous friends and the delicious food that was as much of a surprise to us as it was to our guests.
But all of that will have to wait. I'm still in recovery mode from a wild weekend, and for now all I really have energy to do is post the playlist(s), per M-----l's request.
This is going to be longish, so I apologize in advance if you're trying to scroll down into my deep archives.
Ceremony
Light and Day/ Reach for Sun 3:23 The Polyphonic Spree (CarrieNation's entrance)
We Just Won't Be Defeated 2:47 The Go Team (our triumphant exit)
Reception
You Are Invited 4:52 The Dismemberment Plan
Pressure Drop 2:59 Toots & the Maytals
Fight Test 4:14 The Flaming Lips
Beautiful Child 4:17 Rufus Wainright
Here Comes Your Man 3:22 Pixies
Don't Let's Start 2:36 They Might Be Giants Might Be Giants
You Spin Me 'Round (Like a Record) 3:19 Dead or Alive
Word Up 4:17 Cameo
Rock With You 3:41 Michael Jackson
Let's Stay Together 3:18 Al Green
That Teenage Feeling 2:45 Neko Case
Bizarre Love Triangle 6:42 New Order
Our Lips Are Sealed 2:50 The Go-Gos
Hand in Glove 3:14 The Smiths
Lean on Me 4:21 Bill Withers
Paper Planes 3:27 M.I.A.
Little Red Corvette 4:57 Prince 1999
I Want You Back 2:58 The Jackson 5
The Way You Look Tonight 3:22 Frank Sinatra
Tenderness 3:38 General Public
Our House 3:22 Madness
Golden Lady 5:00 Stevie Wonder
Let's Get It On (Single Version) 4:01 Marvin Gaye
Atomic 4:42 Blondie
Oh L'Amour 3:07 Erasure
Let's Dance 4:12 David Bowie
Sir Duke 3:54 Stevie Wonder
Punk Rock Girl 2:38 The Dead Milkmen
Ladyflash 4:18 The Go Team
Poker Face 3:57 Lady GaGa
The Rubberband Man 3:37 The Spinners
O-o-h Child 3:15 The Five Stairsteps
Pass the Dutchie 3:20 Musical Youth
White Lines 4:29 Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five
Beyond the Sea 2:54 Bobby Darin
It's A Shame 3:11 The Spinners
Ballad Of A Comeback Kid 3:51 The New Pornographers
Hoover Dam 5:28 Sugar
Blue Monday 7:26 New Order
Lay All Your Love On Me 4:36 Abba
September 3:35 Earth, Wind & Fire
Can't Get Enough of Your Love Babe 3:50 Barry White
Think 2:19 Aretha Franklin
Come on Eileen 4:13 Dexy's Midnight Runners
Girlfriend 3:40 Matthew Sweet
Take Your Mama 4:32 Scissor Sisters
Oh Girl 3:36 The Chi-Lites
If You Don't Know Me By Now 3:26 Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes
Bang a Gong (Get It On) 4:28 T. Rex Electric Warrior
Surrender 4:12 Cheap Trick
Under Pressure 3:58 David Bowie & Queen
My Girls 5:45 Animal Collective
Peek-a-Boo 3:11 Siouxsie and the Banshees
(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais 4:01 The Clash (Big Finish)
These were on the list, but didn't make it on in time.
Soldier Girl [UK Single Version] 2:23 The Polyphonic Spree
Blister in the Sun 2:26 Violent Femmes Vilolent Femmes
Letter From An Occupant 3:46 The New Pornographers
She Bangs The Drum 3:45 The Stone Roses
Sheila Take a Bow 2:42 The Smiths Louder Than Bombs Rock/Pop
Genius of Love 5:34 Tom Tom Club
Grandma's Hands 2:02 Bill Withers
Tired of Being Alone 2:43 Al Green
Hold It Now, Hit It 3:26 The Beastie Boys
Me Myself and I 3:44 De La Soul Three Feet High and Rising She Moves In Her Own Way 2:50 The Kooks
Lovefool 3:16 The Cardigans
a lot can go down between thursday and saturday..
the first time I saw Friday, one of the reasons it made me laugh is because Ice Cube's character, Craig, looked and had expressions exactly like my brother. by now neither mr. Cube nor more brother look much like each other or their younger selves.
set in one of the same neighborhoods that three years earlier had been the site of riots made this light coming-of-age comedy feel hopeful.
the characters of Friday :Craig, Smokey, Deebo, Debbie, are the best thing about it. as memorable, as, say,those of Fast Times at...
the time frame of the movie is the "Friday" of the title. Craig, who still lives at home (much to the dismay of his parents), has just lost his job. as he figures what comes next he becomes involved with his friend Smokey's schemes and troubles. most of the action takes place in and about the front porch of Craig's home
trailer
"you are fuckin' the rotation!" Smokey schools Craig on the etiquette of joint-sharing
Friday's soundtrack feature the biggest hip-hop starts of the mid-1990s. the 'theme' song by Ice Cube
the outstanding track, Dr Dre's Keep their heads ringin
'
there are two movies follow up to Friday: Next Friday, with most of the same actors and crew, and Friday After Next, without. I haven't seen either, but I've heard that Friday After Next is worth watching.
Last night I had a dream, the second of a new theme. In this dream my grandma (who died of cancer in 1983) has come back to life or reappeared from wherever she'd been hiding. I conjectured perhaps she had been in an induced coma all this time, until they finally cured her. And when she comes back home, my grandpa gets his mind back. This is the new recurring theme. Grandpa Frank has alzheimer's and every time I see him there's a bit less of him there. But in my dream world he goes back to his old grumpy yet good-humored and almost entirely sane self. When grandma comes home.
Their house is the childhood home base that my dreams seem to seek out by default. I never feel safe or happy there in my dreams. There are often problems with the plumbing and the lock on the bathroom door. The main plot point in this particular dream is the appearance of Adolf, one of grandma's long-dead cats. I look out the kitchen window and see him sitting in the middle of the dirt yard where grandpa now keeps his backhoe. I recognize his crooked Hitler mustache. He is bigger and rounder than any non-dream housecat. I announce to grandma that Adolf came home and open the door for him. He rushes inside out of the bitter cold and I sit on the kitchen floor where he uncharacteristically snuggles up on my lap (he was a weird, unfriendly cat). I realize with low-level concern that he is way older than cats are supposed to live. I ask grandma, "When was Adolf born?" She tells me, "45 weeks after your cousin." Even in dream math I realize this is simply not possible. My cousin was born in 1973.... which would make this dream cat over 30 years old. This reasoning launches me toward consciousness, where grandma is still dead and grandpa will never be sane again.
Another theme often found in my dreams: Moving in with my mom in some unfamiliar place that always has complex architecture and more rooms than one would think. The last dream like this was last week, and she and I had moved into an apartment complex much like the one I live in now. In this dream the multitude of rooms we share are spread over two units on opposite sides of the hall (and yet it is still somehow one apartment). It dawns on me that if we divide the space it could be almost like having my own apartment, and I go down the hall to suggest this plan. I find mom has gone insane and is making a variety of loud cat noises. This is not altogether improbable in real life. I try to talk to her quietly and rationally, but she continues to make cat noises. There are a bunch of young women neighbors who come over to help her (wearing fuzzy slippers and pink bathrobes). I decide I can be of no help and lock myself in the other apartment.
I've manage to catch some sort of plague-like infection and it's totally put a damper on my weekend. What I had intended to be a weekend filled with working on short story has turned into nothing but whining and coughing and sleeping and sobbing.
In general, I'm kind of a crybaby. Even on my very best days. When I get sick, I'm leveled. I sobbed through a "Roseanne" marathon this morning, and because that wasn't quite enough I decided to watch the original "V" I TIVO'd last weekend, and cried through a lot of that too. "The Amazing Race" too.
I didn't cry during "The Maltese Falcon" though, perhaps that's progress.
Read a fucking book, you're probably thinking. I thought that too, but the pressure and burning in my eyes made reading nearly impossible. In fact, I tried and gave up because it just wasn't working for me. Some people are really good at working through the sickness. I'm not one of those people. My brain doesn't function well when I have a cold. It just feels slower and filled with mud. I try to think, but fail miserable. I don't get jokes and barely understand what people are saying to me. It's not good. Really, all I'm capable of is laying around being generally unhappy and whining about how much being sick sucks.
It does suck. I'm going to bed.
English title: Grand Illusion
part two of a doubleheader. part one was yesterday, and today is Jean Renoir's La Grande Illusion: a war movie with no battle scenes, where friendships go across enemy sides, where the futility of war (any war) is noted, and the coming social changes in all of Europe are presaged.
is going to sound awfully familiar if you've been following this series-of-movies-I-like, but whatevs. 'tis all true
“
For many years, the original nitrate film negative was thought to have been lost in an Allied air raid in 1942 that destroyed a leading laboratory outside Paris. Prints of the film were rediscovered in 1958 and restored and re-released during the early 1960s. Then, it was revealed that the original negative had been shipped back to Berlin by Dr. Frank Hensel to be stored in the Reichsfilmarchiv vaults. In the Allied occupation of Berlin in 1945, the Reichsfilmarchiv by chance was in the Russian zone and consequently shipped along with many other films back to be the basis of the Soviet Gosfilmofond film archive in Moscow. The negative was returned to France in the 1960s, but sat unidentified in storage in Toulouse Cinémathèque for over 30 years, as no one suspected it had survived. It was rediscovered in the early 1990s as the Cinémathèque's nitrate collection was slowly being transferred to the French Film Archives at Bois d'Arcy. It was restored and released as the inaugural DVD of the Criterion Collection.
“
from the always helpful wiki , full of details, linkage, synopsa, and I hope you already knew, *spoilers*. so be careful
I can talk about the movie, but rather do so after y'all watch it. I am unable to discuss a plot without giving the movie away; the secret of being a good writer-about-films. but I will mention some movies you may have watched that are very influenced by La Grande Illusion:
- The Great Escape
- Casablanca
- Stalag Seven
clipparinos:
this first one is Renoir himself introducing the Criterion Collection DVD.
Renoir is adorable, self-effacing, and I want to hug him. he also reminds me of someone...
in this scene, POWs of several nationalities come together during a talent show in a German camp
