OMGWTFLDSBBQ TWILIGHT!

Okay since the only people who read this beautiful blog are my parents and sisters, here is a post for them. Blogs are a family trend now…

Allright, TWILIGHT. Teenage phenomenon. Why would this be? Perhaps the undying instant romance that all teenage girls crave deep down inside? Perhaps the skin-deep plot, the cheese-tastic dialogue and description, or the hottie Edward Cullen (pause for pre-teen scream). 

I say, all of the above. 

I saw this phenomenon come to a head when the last book of this four part series came out this summer. I needed to see what all the hullaballoo was about. So I read the novel. It was entertaining, but after a full literary analysis, I discovered the rest of the series was not worth my time.  I knew the movie was coming out though, and was very, very excited to see it. 

Alas, the day came when Twilight THE MOVIE came out. Thousands of girls lined up outside movie theatres, screaming their hearts out for hunky vampires. I had to see it. I waited until my sister came home, and we went directly after thanksgiving dinner. I laughed out loud through the whole movie. The acting was taken way too seriously, the actors were drenched in teenage angst (which is appropriate), and the cinematography really didn’t make all that much sense. Too many close-ups! Too many very awkward close-ups. The intensity of this romance was completely hilarious. I recommend Twilight only to those who enjoy cheesetasticness, or to those who love to laugh at things that are supposed to be taken seriously. 

A great scene (and SPOILER ALERT y’all):

During the climax of the movie, there is a fight between the good vampires and the bad vampires. Bella, the main character (who is in love with Edward, a good vampire), is lured into an evil trap by one of the bad vampires. He bites her, and then Edward comes and saves the day, only to have to suck the venom out of her arm. He makes the most ridiculous face whilst doing so. It’s like he’s tastings something sour. Along with smelling something very very disgusting. Add to that, the crazy eye twitch. It was a sight to behold. 

Okay, kids. Go see it.

Olympic All-Nighter

Since I’m on a completely messed-up sleep schedule and it’s the summer, I decided to see if I could watch the olympics all night. It’s proving to work pretty well seeing as I’m on west coast time on the east coast. While it is 2:05 AM Eastern, it’s only 11:05 PM Pacific, so I’m just gettin warmed up here, folks! I’m also armed with the guiltiest of all guilty pleasures, the first Twilight book. I was too embarrassed to read it in public, so I have to read it in secret. Well, not so secret anymore. 

 

Approx. 11:00 PM Eastern: Women’s Volleyball gold medal match. These girls are the real deal, Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh. They end up kicking China’s butt. Took them two out of three. It was awesome. I had so much pride, I nearly cry, just like every single Olympic event the US wins. By the way, did I mention that the little tiny fraction of patriotism I have emerges during the olympics?

12:00 AM Eastern: Have to change networks. We’re getting into the secondary networks now, not the big time. Switch to CNBC to find that, hey, the greatest thing ever is on…WOMEN’S SPEED WALKING. 20 km. Final. Now speed walking may look funny, but it’s an extraordinarily complicated sport. They enforce rules like nobody’s business in speed walking. You have to have one foot on the ground at all times, and your leg has to be completely straight when you put it down in stride, and if the judges catch you out of form, WHOOPS, there goes a little yellow paddle with a tilde on it. Three of those and you’re out, bud. Three women, in fact, were disqualified! These ladies are hardcore. Speed walking through torrential rains outside…it was so crazy. Olga, a Russian, broke away at the very start and amazingly kept her lead through the whole hour and twenty nine minutes. The woman in second place fell back in an incredibly dramatic turn, trying to make herself vomit after drinking too many fluids. Amazing! 

2:00 AM Eastern: CNBC coverage ends. Onward to USA. I’m hoping I don’t have to move to Telemundo, even though I wouldn’t mind it. It seems there’s a formidable lineup here… We’ve started off with mens’ open water swimming. It’s marathon swimming and we joined them in progress. They’ve been going for an hour and sixteen minutes now, with their numbers seemingly tattooed on their backs. It may be over soon, but I have no idea! Each swimmer has his own accompanying boat that has bottled water and food on poles. The frontrunner just plucked an energy bar thing out of his boat, and still swimming, ate it and maintained his lead. Very impressive. They’re on the final lap now, and everyone’s grabbing water from their respective poles. Ah, so this is what it’s like to be watching television at two thirty in the morning: commercials for (upscale) strip clubs accompany your marathon swimming.  They have sushi! Anyways, back to the swimmers. The aerial shots of the pack are amazing. From far enough away, all you can see are these great arms jabbing the water and creating a huge white effect. 

2:55 AM ET: We cut from the ending of the marathon swimming to women’s table tennis. Korea vs. US. It’s already in progress, and they’re tied at one game a piece. For their strength and intensity, this table looks a little small. They kind of look like two giants trying to play tennis on a childs’ version of the Wimbledon court. Perhaps that is an exaggeration, but these women play with enough fierceness to rival professional tennis players. They hop around, dive, and hop around some more. It’s pretty exciting. Eventually they tie at two games a piece, and now the Korean won her third game, which puts her in prime position to win. I learn from the commentators that no American has made it this far in Olympic Table Tennis, so we’re all pulling for her. Even if this match goes on forever! No worries, I’ve made it to page 203 of Twilight and i’ve only questioned my sanity, integrity, and intelligence once!! This is going to work out very well. So it comes down to a seventh set. The American is at her match point, and with each nearing point before it, she squawked like a chicken. AND she did it!! She won! USA USA USAAA!!!

3:54 AM ET: We’re about to watch the Bronze Medal round for Women’s Beach Volleyball. US v. Brazil. I’m not sure how much I can hold out, plus Twilight is getting exceptionally good, so I have to leave it here folks. At least now I know way more about the olympics than I ever really wanted to.

Soundtrack to My Life

For some reason, today I was thinking about what would be on my all-time, definitive life soundtrack playlist. Here, I will attempt to throw some songs together, but they are completely out of order. I will have to think about the order for another full day. 

1. “Dancing Queen”–ABBA. This is just an epic song. When you’re sixteen (or seventeen as the song states), this song captures your sentiments about dancing, life, and taking the night by storm.  It is just the ultimate. 

2. “Debaser”–Pixies. My life dream is in this beautiful song. I wanna grow up to be, be a debaser. I think there’s a little bit of that in everyone, especially when you’re a teenager. It also references “Un Chien Andalou”, a fabulous silent film by Salvador Dali, in which eyeballs are sliced open, among other great surrealist images. 

3. “Oxford Comma”–Vampire Weekend. The frivolity of this song matches a lot of the frivolity of so much in my life that I love it. It’s about an argument over an oxford comma in the line “from the window, to the wall” from the song “Get Low” by the ever erudite LIl Jon. It’s funny, it’s catchy, it’s perfect.

4. “End of the Movie”–Cake. The simplistic lyrics to this song are quite true. It’s about the bumps in the road along the way of life and it says, hang in there, without the silly poster of the cat hanging on to the tree branch.

5. “I Was Born a Unicorn”–The Unicorns. Doesn’t everyone believe they’re a unicorn at some point? I also am a unicorn. Only fellow unicorns know what that means. Where are the unicorns? Certainly not reading this blog.

6. “Declare Independence”–Bjork. I have a soft spot for Bjork, I really do. And this song is probably the most amazing and inspirational songs of hers. It’s an anthem. Go listen to it.

7. “I’ll Be Your Mirror”– The Velvet Underground. I find myself repeating these sentiments to a lot of people for some reason. It’s a sweet song, and a good one to live by.

8. “M.I.A.”–M.I.A. Not only am I in love with M.I.A., but she delivers the goods on this song. It’s brilliant, and I hope everybody really listens to what it has to say. She doesn’t sugar coat her politics in this one.

That’s it for now. I know there’s more, but that’s all I can really drudge out of the vaults of my mind for today.

Mamma Mia! Enough Said.

On Monday, we decided to have a girl’s night. This only meant one thing: seeing the glitter soaked, cheese filled, ABBA epic, Mamma Mia. About ten minutes in, I was ready to leave. But then I remembered, how often is it that one gets to listen to the beauty of ABBA on a movie theatre quality sound system? The basic plot: Meryl Streep plays an aging American minx running a hotel on a small island in Greece. Her daughter, adorably played by Amanda Seyfried, is getting married and, naturally as any child would, wants to know who her absent father is. After invading her mother’s privacy, she discovers that her mother slept with three men all around the same time, making three people her possible father. The daughter invites all three of them to the wedding. Chaos, laughter, and stupidity ensue. The only good thing about seeing this movie, other than the fact that it was hilariously terrible, was that it turned me on to the fact that ABBA is EPIC. I went home and immediately downloaded enough ABBA to last me to the end of time, and blasted it. If you really listen, there is so much disco-y goodness that you have to get up and dance. It’s a command. I think “Dancing Queen” goes on the soundtrack to my life.

I Love Chuck Palahniuk

Today I finished my latest Palahniuk, Rant. After searching for something to fill the gaping void left in my heart by the absence of a new Palahniuk novel, I decided to delve into my extreme love (verging on obsession) for this man.

Chuck Palahniuk is my kind of novelist. He’s gritty, he’s fierce, and he’s not afraid to show you the brutal truth in things, even if it’s slightly disgusting. Anyone who knows me slightly well knows that Palahniuk’s first novel, Fight Club is very close to my bible. It deals with nihilism and civil disobedience in such a creative way that you have to really think to get out all the juiciness. Books that make you think! What a concept. After reading Fight Club, I catapulted myself headfirst into the rest of his work. Diary, Survivor, Lullaby, Invisible Monsters, Haunted and now Rant. Probably the thing I love most about his work, is the immensity of his imagination. Each one of his protagonists has a story that one would never even think of. You have to wonder what goes through his mind. There seems to be a running theme of the supernatural in his novels, from time travel to culling songs, and each of his characters are somewhat messed up in the head. 

I learn every time I read Palahniuk. He includes useful tips such as how to make homemade napalm, and how to make soap from liposuctioned fat. I learned how to give a terrible chemical burn, what the biological reaction to everything is, and what different songs mean when played in an airport. All in all, reading Palahniuk is a complete experience, but also not for the faint of heart. I’ve been so desensitized to the fact that his writing is extremely disturbing. But if you can handle some grotesque humor, you’re perfect for him. 

 

the Palahniuk collection

16 Emmy Nominations, Yet Nobody’s Heard of It!

Current obsession: Mad Men. It’s smarmy, it’s smoky, and it’s smart. A perfect snapshot of the early 1960s’, they’ve got everything down from the rotary-dial phones to the underwear. We follow Donald Draper through his life as a high powered advertising executive in New York City, where all the men can get whatever they want, and whomever they want at the drop of a ubiquitous cigarette butt. The thing that makes Mad Men so interesting, is that Draper’s life is almost entirely lies. He’s built a family with money from essentially lying to the American public, he lies to his wife, and to almost everyone around him. And it starts to bother him. As Draper’s moral conflict begins to cultivate, we peer into the lives of secretaries, housewives and aspiring advertising partners. Every episode of Mad Men is like being a very well dressed fly on the wall of a scandalous 60’s life. Seeing as this is one of my wildest dreams, I love this show. It’s swank and classy, but this short of being an ad for cigarettes. There is an obscene amount of smoking, but if you can deal with that, I highly, highly recommend it. 

Season Two of Mad Men commences Sunday July 27th, 10 pm on AMC. Watch it. You’ll want to hop in a time machine.

Our Pop Culture Legacy

I can’t stop thinking about what our kids will find archaic about today’s society. With VH1 waxing poetic upon the “new millennium”, I feel like it’s a little too early to reminisce. I’m sixteen years old. 2005 still feels like last year. But what will the kids think about our society 50 years later?

Every decade has its iconic pop culture, the 50’s with  its atomic families, and Utopian dreams. The 80s with its cocaine, its power suits, its big hair, its Day-Glo. How will the 2000s look to future generations? Will it be the turn of the century 2.0? Which of our clothes will become the “vintage” du jour of the 2050 hipster? Strangely, I can’t wait for the day when I get to find this out. I want to study it. I can’t wait. How will that work out with my extreme fear of being old?

But for now, I settle for stepping back once in a while. Gaining perspective on the insanity of today’s popular culture. Perhaps being a little too pretentious for my own good.