According to Steve, sort of.

I was going to make this a post on "Steve-isms"; or, things that the character Steve from Coupling says.  I started making a list when I realized two things:
1) someone else out there on the internet made a much better, comprehensive list
2) Steveisms are funny because they're sexist, and his character is such a stereotypical heterosexual man.  He's the most sensitive of the three male leads but that doesn't mean he says or does infuriating things.

Examples:
from Season 1, Episode 4: The 4 Pillars of the Male Heterosexual Psyche:
1. Naked women
2. Stockings
3. Lesbians
4. Sean Connery best as James Bond

"When man invented fire, he didn't say, "Hey, let's cook"; he said "Great! Now we can see naked bottoms in the dark!"

from Season 2, Episode 9: 3 things all men should know
1. You're never going to be famous
2. You're fatter than you think
3. They (women) don't keep wearing stockings

I still like the show and feel that it's a solid sitcom, but it disturbs me that it took me so long to notice just how sexist the characters can be.  Each of the six leads represent different stereotypes based on gender but they're all still pretty homophobic, classist, sexist, and they're all white.  I don't feel like I'll have to turn my brain off to watch this show but I've come to realize why I find some things funny and accepted that some jokes are funny because they're sexist, etc.

Unfinished business

If I start to read a book I try to make a point to finish it.  There are only three books that I can think of and definitively say that I started and gave up on trying to finish; someday I hope to go back and read them cover to cover.

Pride and Prejudice

I just couldn't get past Jane Austen's writing style.  I think I made it to the second or third chapter of this book before I gave up because I wasn't entirely sure what was going on and I didn't care what happened to the characters.  I remember telling my then-teacher when I first started the book and she put a hand to her chest, sighed happily, and told me, "You'll love it, it's one of my favorite books." I did like the books that I was assigned to read for her class but this book just did not agree with me.  Since then I've read some other Brit lit and gotten through it relatively painlessly.  I saw the film version of this movie, the most recent adaptation starring Keira Knightley, and while I enjoyed it I wasn't enraptured, didn't find the romance particularly engaging.  Maybe the next time I pick it up I'll be able to follow it better now that I know roughly how the action transpires.  This tome has been on my "to read" list for a while and I keep passing over it; I've resolved to pick it up again if I happen upon the book (I won't actively look for the title while at bookstores or libraries).  I'll let Fate decide when I should read it.


Crime and Punishment

This book became increasingly depressing the more progress I made with it.  A good friend highly recommended this famous Dostoevsky work to me and I went into it with zeal.  But again the writing style was a bit...turgid, I guess?  A bit thick-- not thick as in stupid, thick like a very dense chocolate cake that is hard to swallow and demands a tall glass of cold milk to wash it all down thoroughly.  It wasn't the book's fault, it was my fault that I had a hard time getting into it.  Then someone (a woman much older than me) told me, "Dostoevsky is best read in your thirties," and so I felt justified in setting the book aside for the time and moving onto something else.  And I have my own copy of the book, ready to be read when I come of age.  On a slightly related note, I have read something else by the author, The Death of Ivan Ilyich and read it with relative ease.  It's a short, thoughtful story.


Sing Me to Heaven

Unlike the other two, this book is really easy to read and was written in the late 20th century.  It's the heartbreaking story and the simple and agonizing way in which the story is told that has deterred me from getting through it.  It's a elegy of sorts, a true story of a romance and marriage in the 80s, a tale of a short-lived interracial/bicultural relationship, but most of all it's the story of a woman who married a man despite/because of his HIV positive status, and that man happens to have been a relative of mine.  I remember attending a funeral when I was a child, maybe six years old, and in retrospect I think it was his funeral that I attended.  He wasn't a very close relative, blood-wise, so maybe that's why his death wasn't really mentioned, or maybe there's some other reason; in any case, it wasn't until I picked up this book and started to read it that I put the pieces together.  I think that within the first few chapters the narrator, his then-wife, reveals his medical condition and that she was widowed within two years of marrying him, but this doesn't take away from the tension in the story.  If anything it makes her story more poignant, knowing that they went through so much and knowing that everything deteriorated eventually.  Even just thinking about the book and writing about it here is enough to stir up strong emotions.  Maybe someday I'll build up the emotional fortitude to make it through the book, but for now I don't really forsee even attempting to pick the book up again unless I feel the need to sob my eyes out.

Reactions to first Hunger Games trailer/footage

Get More: 2011 VMA, Music

Solid trailer.  Doesn't show too much, just enough to tantalize us fans and keep us optimistic about the film adaptation.  I know that this will come off as a backhanded compliment, but it was the end that really got me excited:
1) got to see Katniss use her signature weapon
2) loved how the arrow she shot got integrated into the gold mockingjay symbol
3) love that it caught on fire
4) got to hear the simple but important 4-note melody (Danny Elfman is scoring this film!)

March is a long way away and they're still shooting the film, but it's nice that the people that be cut together this teaser of what to expect to see.  Man, with every little bit of info that gets put out on this film, whether an interview or photo or promo image, I get more pumped/less worried that this'll fall under the category of "just okay but you gotta read the book".

Today, as represented by...

a song:


an odor:
musty

a book:


http://knowledgelost.org/literature/reading-lists/1001-books-you-must-read-before-you-die/wuthering-heights





















a tactile feeling:
damp

a taste:

https://www.eastcoastcatalogue.com/store/default.php?cPath=63

There should be more words for "rain"

Types of rain (as encountered in New England):

1. Movie rain; or, rain that comes suddenly and unexpectedly, usually while there's been sun out for some time.  Goes away quickly, dries quickly.

2. Summer rain; creates intolerably humid whether, is precipitated by thick ominous grey clouds, comes with thick drops that stick to your clothes and skin.  Falls in sheets.  Leaves an earthy, pungent odor after it passes.

3. Wimpy rain; rain that falls to the ground the way urine might piddle out of a frightened puppy.

4. Thunderstorm rain; a subset of summer rain but falls more heavily and is accompanied by thunder and lightening.  This is my favorite kind of rain

5.  Spring rain; very cold, drizzly.  Falls carelessly. 

6.  Freezing rain; or, winter rain, which occurs when it's not quite cold and dry enough to make snow. Colder than spring rain, chills you to the bone.

Thoughts on...Ugly Betty

This show came out in fall 2006 and ended(/was cancelled?) after 4 seasons.  I heard many positive reviews on this show, and the actress who portrayed the eponymous Ugly Betty even won an Emmy for the role.  But during its run I was only tepidly interested and only watched maybe a few accidental clips while flipping through to other channels.  A week or so ago I went to watch TV to bore myself to sleep and an episode from the beginning of the first season was on and I thought, what the hey, I'll watch it.  And I liked it.

Fast forward to now: I just finished watching the entire first season on Hulu.  I'm kind of surprised that this show even made it to air; it deals with lots of Important Sociological Issues but in a very soapy, ABC hour-long comedy kind of way, with its slight fantasy-silly tone and caricatures of characters who you love to love and love to hate.  Some of the issues that the show comments on (in more than one episode):
- first-generation Latino immigrant family
- issues with immigration laws/citizenship
- difficulty of being a single parent
- sexual harrassment
- difficulty of being a gay child
- gay/straight men passing as the other sexual identity to be accepted by certain people
- the ridiculous beauty standards set for women, and the efforts women make to become beautiful (incl. hair, makeup, fashion)
- alcoholism
- gender modification through surgery/transgender issues/gender identity
- sibling rivalry
- workplace relations/the work family

Okay, so a lot of these topics are ones that are often found it soap operas.  Actually, this show was adapted from the Mexican soap opera Betty La Fea (Betty the Ugly), and a good deal of the episodes in the first half of this series featured a fake Spanish-language soap opera, complete with ridiculous plot twists and spontaneous make-out sessions between reformed pastors and the like.  Ugly Betty works because it embraces the silliness and makes every character quirk comically enormous-- but adjusts the goofiness according to the seriousness of the situation. I'm not deeply invested in any of the characters beside Betty and I still find the show a bit more twee than the comedies I tend to enjoy, but I really like Betty and have to hand it to actors Becki Newton and Michael Urie for having great chemistry and comedic timing.  I have the second season in my bag and can't wait to dig into it this weekend.

thoughts on Pan's Labyrinth

Stream of consciousness writing, vomit draft, raw & largely unedited thoughts on the aforementioned film.

“Pan’s Labyrinth” is another one of those movies I had meant to watch for ages but kept finding one reason or another to put it off until later.  I have this feeling against casually watching movies that demand more attention.  This seemed like a fairly prestigious film, one that had been nominated for an Academy Award and therefore made me sort of sigh reluctantly at the thought of having to block out time to watch it.  Plus, it’s a foreign film and necessitates the reading of subtitles for the duration of the film.  I hate to fall under the figure of stupid ugly American who won’t watch a good movie because she has to read subtitles.  Basically it was an accumulation of little excuses that deterred me from discovering this gem, and I’m glad to have finally watched it.

 This film is deserving of its R rating.  I’ve definitely seen more grisly, bloody violence in other movies but there’s something very primal and psychologically disturbing about the violence in this movie, which I admire of it.  Having seen the film more than once I know when to close my eyes and ears—not just the sights but also the sounds that accompany them are equally terrifying.  It is very much an adult fairy tale.  This sounds misleading, as if there is some “adult content” that children should not know of until they reach a certain age, but it is not the case with this movie.  It is just that children would probably have nightmares about it, and there are heavy topics that would have more of an impact with adults who can process the psychological and historical occurrences.

I’m not sure if I would go as far to say that director Del Toro is a feminist but he certain puts a lot of womb-like elements into the set direction.  There is something very pro-woman in this film, which goes against and in contrast to the very male, fascist antagonist figures.  I know that he went against typecast with his actresses; for the deferring mother he cast a woman known for playing strong independent females, and for the strong surrogate mother maid he cast an actress who typically plays more of a femme fatale, lusty eye candy for men.

A real grown-up fairy tale, very well told by director Guillermo del Toro.  A wonderfully brave and not too precocious nine year old actress plays the protagonist.  Wi would tell anyone who dismiss fantasy as kids stuff to watch this and have them change their minds.  Some truly gripping, terrifying scenes that don’t show violence but hint at it, which makes it all the more gasp-inducing.  I’ve read somewhere that its really a horror film disguised as a fantasy, which it may well be.  And really, if I hahad known it was so violent I probably never would have seen it.  However, that wasn’t the only impediment/deterrent that prevented me from getting around to watching this.  Sometimes I like to watch something that I can put on in the background and sometimes I want something “meaty”, something I can chew over, some food for thought.  I heard much acclaim about this movie and worried about finding the time for such a prestigious work.

OMG SHOES

http://www.nataliedee.com/

Why are women's and men's shoe sizes numbered differently?  Women are supposed to have daintier feet, yeah, I know, and we are vain and lie about our what size we wear to make ourselves feel better.  But then why is a men's shoe size 3 the same as a woman's size 5?  I mean, on the flip size, guys want to be able to say they wear a bigger shoe size because you know what they say about men with big feet, a-ha ha ha... But seriously, why are they different in the first place? I sorta get why it's different when it comes to clothes because women have curves in varying places, widths, girths, etc; additionally we have more styles of clothing than men do-- I'm aware I'm grossly generalizing based on U.S. fashion and trends. Okay, focus: why the difference in shoe sizes? Feet are feet.  Women and men walk in different shoes but that doesn't mean that the feet inside are built differently to accomodate the footwear.

Opening Night

The opening night show is almost never the best show-- not to say it's the worst of a shows run, but it's not usually the one held in apotheosis.  Ah, but opening night is still (dare I say it) magical in its own right. Why? Well, every show is one that no one else has seen before, but the first one is the first time that anyone has seen that particular show-- ever.  And even a bad (unresponsive) audience brings something new to how everyone involved in the production goes about the show.  From having read and heard the script over and over you know where audiences are supposed to laugh and it's soo rewarding when they actually do laugh (and slightly devastating/disheartening when they don't).  But sometimes, if you're lucky, you'll get a surprise and get 'em to react to something that you didn't know was supposed to be funny or sad or surprising or unsettling.  And sometimes unexpected occurances come in the form of technical difficulties and not-yet-ironed-out problems with sound systems, lights, actor cues, etc.  But it's okay, because everyone is running on Opening Night nervous optimism, it'll be okay, it's just the first show, things'll get better!

My summer sandwich

I bled for this sandwich.  While I was shredding the carrots with a mandolin, the base of my thumb got snagged on the teeth.  Three days later I still have five little parallel marks to commemorate one darn tasty lunch.

Ingredients:

Two slices of bread, toasted if you plan to eat it later, untoasted if you plan to eat it immediately after sandwich is constructed

One medium-sized carrot, shredded

3 tablespoons hommus (my favorite kind is garlic hommus)

One large leaf of Romaine lettuce, cut in half

3 tablespoons of your favorite shredded cheese (I think I used a pizza blend with mozzerella and asiago and two other ones I can’t remember)

Optional: one teaspoon of your favorite mustard

1. Spread a thin layer of hommus on each slice of bread (1.5 tablespoons on each side)
2. Pat the shredded carrot onto one slice
3. Put the lettuce on the freshly-carroted slice
4. Pat the shredded cheese onto the other slice
5. Drizzle mustard over that
6. Sprinkle the green onion over that
7. Unite the two slices of bread

Eat sandwich when ready.

Boy or girl?

Gender is a social construct.  When boys and girls act like their stereotyped roles it's because society has conditioned them to act one way or the other based on their gender.  But ultimately a kid is a kid, and it's hard to tell if one's a boy or girl if you have them dressed and coiffed the same way.  Why must girls be treated as delicate beings while boys are often encouraged to be more physical and strong? Like I said, a kid is a kid.

Try to guess the gender of this real child based on these facts:
- favorite color is pink
- favorite book is written by Stephen Hawking
- dressed up as Darth Vader once for Halloween
- concerned about getting fat/eats healthy
- enjoys playing soccer
- small for age
- likes to sing (likes to show off in general)
- a self-proclaimed artist
- likes gardening
- has scraped knee several times
- aspires to grow up to be some kind of scientist

Have I made it ambiguous enough, or is it too easy?

Answer: Highlight area below

Child identifies self as a boy.

Deserted island picks

My picks for what six ______ I'd bring with me on a deserted island:

Movies
- Little Women (1994)
- Shaun of the Dead (2004)
- La Belle et la Bête (1946)
- Adam's Rib (1949)
- Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
- Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008)

Books
- The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
- War and Peace by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
- The Bible (my Korean-English version)
- Shadow of the Hegemon by Orson Scott Card
- Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Albums
- Inglourious Basterds soundtrack
- Dvorâk's "New World Symphony" (any orchestra)
- The Best of Ella Fitzgerald or Ella Fitzgerald sings Gershwin Songbook
- Yo-yo Ma's Obrigado Brazil
- La Boheme soundtrack
- One of those meditation CDs with sounds like gongs or digeridoos, stuff like that

Other/Misc./"Necessities"
- soap
- toilet paper
- pens
- notebooks
- something to make/collect potable water
- bug repellant

What's in a surname?

If Juliet and Romeo ultimately got together at the end of the play, she would've taken her husband's name and become a Montague.  Juliet Montague, that is, which I think sounds better than Juliet Capulet.  Mmh, it's fun that her first and last names have the same number of syllables, same kind of stress (JOO-lee-et CAP-you-let), and both end in "-et".  But I think it sounds kind of boring, and if I were her I'd want to change my last name.  What does "Capulet" even mean? Don't answer that, I don't want to get off topic just yet.

If I ever get married I hope to get a hyphenated last name.  It's not uncommon in this day and age for women to keep their last names and I say good for them.  I don't have anything against them, or against a woman who chooses to adopt her husband's name.  But for me I'd like to have a hyphenated last name to adopt my spouse's name; if I get married I probably will have a kid/kids and would like them to have the same surname as me and my husband.  It has yet to be determined in what order our names would be; if his surname starts with the same letter or sound as the last letter of mine I'd want my name to be first, and vice versa.

I happen to like my last name, but I know people who don't.  I had one professor who was a feminist but took on her husband's name because she didn't like her own.  Her last name meant "salesman" or "peddler" or something like that in her native language, despite the fact that no one in her father's family line had ever had that profession, and she was never really fond of that fact.

Woot? More words that are now Official Words

Along with several other words, "jeggings" and "woot" have been added to the latest version of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary.  I strongly dislike the word "jeggings" in both the way it sounds and what it refers to.  I guess I have to accept that it's now an official word and not a Frankensteinization of the words "jeans" and "legging", which, separately, I like both as words and in reference to clothing.  I don't like the way that word sounds, how it's so bouncy in the mouth.  I own a pair of these but like to refer to them as my stretchy jeans.

I suppose I feel okay about the word "woot", but I only ever use it when writing to a friend through an instant messaging system.  Ach, I'm pretty sure the word "okay" was once not a word, or was once only accepted in its abbreviated form "O.K" to signify "ol korrectus" or whatever it is in Latin.  "Okay" is floppy language, not concise, but I feel okay (ha!) about using it in this very casual setting, in this post that (hopefully?) not many people will read.

Phases of an American Child

While riding the train today I saw a two- or three-year-old girl push the emergency intercom button.  Her grandmother had the task of apologizing on her behalf and explaining that there was nothing wrong going on, no emergency.  The grandmother went on to scold her quarry, because this was the second time that this had happened, and it was only okay to push buttons when on an elevator and NOT on the train.

It's fun, pushing buttons (in the literal sense).  It's like magic, and in America we use the phrase "at the press of a button" to refer to something that happens quickly and easily, whether or not there's an actual, physical button that is pushed.  It makes me think of the movie Wall-E, where future humans never do anything but sit in moving chairs and access everything by pressing various buttons.

Ah, but I digress.  Pushing buttons is just one of the many phases that a kid growing up in America may experience.  Here are some others:
- dinosaur phase
- train/car phase
- security blanket/object phase (incl. thumbsucking)
- dolphin/horse/unicorn phase
- marine biologist/veterinarian phase
- police/firefighter/doctor phase
- princess phase
- cowboy/astronaut/ninja phase
- food jags
- in general, acting out as characters from favorite TV shows or movies

Forgot to include this in yesterday's post

I think that a big part of my fascination with "Beauty and the Beast" stories has to do with a segment I saw on Reading Rainbow when I was a child.

Butterfly in the sky... c'mon, you know you want to sing along:

For all the various clips of this show that are out there I can't seem to find one of the segment that I remember.  I've even looked at the episode list for all the seasons and can't find one that matches what I saw.  But I'm pretty sure that I saw it on Reading Rainbow because when I was that child age I almost exclusively watched PBS.  Anyway, the clip that I remember was from the end of a ballet version of "Beauty and the Beast".  It was incredibly affecting and has haunted me for all these years.  The dance was beautifully choreographed, I remember thinking to myself but not in those exact words, but what was the most striking was the Beast costume and how the heroine literally transformed him.  The danseur's costume was made of a stiff chiffon-like material, like very fine netting, and it covered his head and a bit of his chest; also he wore gloves made of the same material, and these gave him claws through which his hands could still be seen.  He lay mostly supine while she slowly removed these pieces to reveal his true visage, the man underneath the beast exterior.  And then they both got up and danced.

There are a lot of random things that I remember from childhood-- really random things, events that I don't deem to be of much or any importance.  But I remember this scene from this ballet which I am positive actually existed; though I was an imaginative little kid I wouldn't have been able to make this up at that age.  This might be the first version of "Beauty and the Beast" I ever saw, and certainly one of the first ballets I ever saw, albeit one that was filmed for a television audience of early readers.  Ah, someday I'll find that episode in which this clip was shown! Someday!

On "Beauty and the Beast"

Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" was my favorite Disney princess movie while I was growing up.  Now, Pocahontas, Mulan, and "The Princess and the Frog" heroine Maddie are up there as well.  It's kind of depressing to think about, though, considering how dark that movie is and the implications of the turn of events at the end:
1.  Belle says to the Beast (whose name, Adam, is never revealed in the film) that she loves him
2.  The rose is deflowered with the last petal floating magically down to the table
3.  The Beast (animal, base) becomes a Man (noble, gentle but strong)

Not to mention that this version justifies domestic violence in framing the female protagonist as the one who sees beyond the masculine one's abuse and endures it, ultimately transforming him through her love and patience and other feminine virtues.

There are many iterations of this story, both in text and film.  I have seen and read many of them:
- Cocteau's La Belle et la Bête (1946)
- Panna a nevtor (1981) from Czechoslovakia
- Cannon Movie Tales' musical version (1987) starring John Savage and Rebecca De Mornay
- Faerie Tale Theatre's Beauty and the Beast episode (1984) starring Klaus Kinski and Susan Sarandon
- the first season of the CBS drama Beauty and the Beast (1987) with Ron Perlman and Linda Hamilton
- of course, the Disney version from 1991 (but not any of the sequels or spin-off straight-to-VHS movies)
- haven't seen it but I have the soundtrack of the Broadway musical version of the Disney version
- the Hellboy movies, with Ron Perlman, include a bit of "Beauty and the Beast" undertones
- ...as do werewolf stories (and probably vampire ones too, but I don't want to get into that)
- any sitcom with a hot wife and schlubby/not conventionally attractive husband counts as an addition to this list

I've felt conflicted about my passion for this story, but I've come to accept it for what it is-- patriarchal teachings to pubescent females-- and can't help but appreciate the storytelling and, well, the romance of it all. Oh, I'll have to watch some of those movies again and write a post in response to each one; there's just so much for me to analyze.

Musings on language, redux

Last week I read Robert B. Moore's Racism in the English Language, which can be found here.  One section of it goes over many uses of the words "black" and "white" to refer to negative and positive things, respectively.  It's no coincidence, the use of those words in relation to race, at least in my opinion.  It got me thinking about a few things about the Korean language and how certain words have two means:

- 말 can mean "horse" or "words/language/what is spoken".  But there are other words for "word" and "language" and "what is spoken", depending on the situation.  I wonder why these two share the same sound, the way "right" can mean "opposite of left" or "correct"

- the word for a pepper (hot pepper) is the same as the (slang?) word for a man's genitalia; presumably because...they look similar? I've looked the word up in my Korean-English dictionary and it gives a different word, but I've only ever heard it referred to the word that is a homophone for "pepper", so that's why I'm just assuming it's slang and not the official proper name

-  배 can mean belly/stomach, boat/ship, or pear.  Again, I wonder why three words share the same word-sound, and I can't find it as a triple homophone in my dictionary, so I'll assume that the first two words have other technical/authentic words that are used in typical language and depending on the situation

English, for all its words and rules and loopholes, is a very lax language and not very specific compared to other languages.

A violinist's deformities

The violin is one of the most technically challenging instruments to play.  For example, the movement of the right arm holding the bow and stroking it across the strings is not one that comes naturally.  There's a certain way that you have to position your arm and move it within the three parts that it breaks down into: the shoulder joint, elbow joint, and wrist joint.  I could go on.

Because of the physical demands of playing the violin, a violinist's body becomes altered-- maybe not noticeably so, but still the change is there.  It may appear on the neck, as a violinist's (or violist's) hickey.  It might appear on the left hand fingertips, which have become slightly flattened and calloused, with the fingerprint lines blurred.  Maybe their right arm is more developed than the left arm, although I can think of a few other activities that might cause and exacerbate this issue.  Or maybe the person may favor to physically lean to the left as a result of having the violin on the left shoulder.  I'd say the last three of these four apply to me, and that I've only recently noted the last one.  Whenever I braid my hair on one side I like to leave it hanging on my left side.  I've always felt more comfortable with it there, and after thinking about it one day realized that it's probably because I've spent 10+ years with a violin on that same shoulder and having extra weight on the other one just seems...wrong.  Also, I've noticed when staring off into space during class lectures I tend to glance to the right, and it's just more comfortable and natural for my head to pivot to the left.

A woman's full face maintenance and makeup

Forehead
- foundation
- loose/pressed powder
- bronzer

Eyebrows
- hairs waxed or shaved or trimmed or tweezed
- filled in with eyebrow pencil

Eyelid
- eyeshadow
- eyeliner

Eyelashes
- curled
- coated with mascara

Under eye area
- concealer
- loose/translucent powder

Cheeks
- foundation
- blush
- bronzer
- highlighter
- loose/pressed powder

Nose
- foundation
- loose/pressed powder
- bronzer

Under nose area
- hairs tweezed or waxed or bleached
- foundation
- loose/pressed powder

Lips
- lipstick
- lip balm/lip gloss

Chin
- hairs tweezed or waxed or bleached
- foundation
- bronzer
- loose/pressed powder

Total time: 15 minutes?
Total money spent: A lot.


I don't mean to pass judgement on women who go through this entire routine.  I don't care enough about my appearance to go through all these processes but I do employ many of them regularly.

B-dee b-dee b-dee that's all folks

Today I saw a baby sneeze.  It made my day.  That is all.

Comercial número cuatro

I do like this series of commercials but I have to say that the first one is the best and my favorite.  And I'm still glad to see John Krasinski and Alec Baldwin in these quick little vignettes.  Vámonos!


-  Even though Baldwin only appears in this commercial for two seconds and his voice is played for about the same amount of time he's just perfect in his reaction

-  Love the reaction face on Krasinski from 0:05-0:07.  There are about three or four stages of reacting going on there:
1) Huh, what's that?
2) Is that..?
3) Me?
4) WHAT?!

- Forgot to note because I didn't notice it in the latest commercial, but props to the script supervisor and/or PA and/or makeup artist for maintaining continuity in the series.  Krasinski sports a dark mark on his left cheekbone as proof that he's healing from the Alec Baldwin's plumber hand punch from the second commercial.

-  On one hand it's funny to see Krasinski reclining in a cheerleader uniform or bikini, and in a Yankees one at that.  On the other hand I feel slightly slighted at the use of the image to sort of emasculate Mr. Krasinski by showing this silly image.  But it's still funny because it's a picture of a Red Sox fan photoshopped to become a "Yankee Pride" image.

-  That ringtone again! It's going to drive me crazy, it willl, trying to figure out what it is...

Movie Review Haiku: Justin Bieber: Never Say Never

image source

This talented kid!

Put hair, hype aside-- watch and

be a Belieber

Everything is everything

Ever notice how anyone who really digs their job makes it sound like it is the Ultimate Metaphor for Life or something else along those lines?  As if, yeah, whatever you do is important and essential but what I do is really what life is all about. Yes, I could be more articulate if I give some examples:

ART is everything/life because...
- it's a concrete object that has abstract meaning and value
- it reflects our human desire for form and function, that it sometimes isn't enough for something to have a purpose but that it also needs to look nice or appeal to our other four senses in some stirring way
- it tells stories about life, both everyday life and special events, i.e. birthdays, deaths, weddings, etc.

MATH is everything/life because...
- everything boils down to numbers and quantities of things, whether or not your language has specific terms for more than four objects in a group
- everything is addition/subtraction or multiplication/division to some degree (adding inches to waistline, grey hairs on head seem to multiply, household getting divided due to divorce), which is arithmetic, which is the one of the most simple forms of mathematics

PHYSICS
- the most simple form of science, the most mathematical one, and explains how things move
- astrophysicists study the universe and how it began, and what's more basic than the origin story?

CHEMISTRY
- life is all about action and reactions
- people have different bonds, just like atoms have ionic bonds or covalent bonds and molecules might have both at the same time
- ionic bonds, like people, are formed by opposite attractions
- our body functions because all the chemical reactions that occur without our even thinking about it

HISTORY
- repeats itself
- makes up who we are
- the past doesn't dictate the present or future but has a great impact on it
- we love stories, and you can't spell "history" without "story" (...or without the male possessive pronoung "his"...)

ECONOMICS
- life is all about producing, distributing and exchanging different goods, whether they are material/concrete or abstract
- any interaction is, on some level, an economic one, whether in favor of private or personal interests
- economics separates us humans from other creatures in how we put abstract worth into concrete objects, i.e. a child's security blanket isn't just a large piece of cloth that provides warmth but an item of personal value that gives psychological stability

I could go on, and I could make more of an effort to build on the points I've made, but I'll just stop here.

Improv

I am highly impressed with anyone who can improv, whether it's in terms of acting or music.  Okay, so in a sense, everyday life is improv because our daily interactions are unscripted and unpredictable no matter how much planning and scheduling may be involved.  But improv really is something else, in being able to come up with something entertaining and pleasing right on the spot, in front of other people. 

Whenever I've had to give a presentation in class I tend to just wing it.  I don't like working with note cards, I usually writes some notes on a sheet of paper and refer to it from time to time.  I usually have a good sense of what I want to talk about and the order in which I want to give my points.  I'm not much of a talker in real life, but somehow I feel pretty good about giving presentations and speaking about my topic for the required amount of time.  I don't really count this as improvisation though, because in this scenario I'm 'performing' by myself and know in advance the topic on which I'll perform.

Jazz improv particularly impresses me.  I've played a musical instrument for most of my life but I've had no training in improv and don't feel like I have the fascility with my instrument to the point of being able to come up with pleasant melodies off the top of my head or just go with the flow.  I wish I had that kind of ability to just close my eyes and feel the music in my fingertips.

meal plan

http://www.nataliedee.com/

My ideal meal plan for a day (as of now):

Breakfast
- challah bread French toast with syrup
- raspberries and a kiwi
- two eggs over easy with Cholula hot sauce
- tater tots (with ketchup, of course)
- glass of soy milk

Second breakfast
- tortilla chips
- salsa or guacamole

Lunch
- pita bread
- garlic hommus
- tabbouleh
- lentil salad

Afternoon snakc
- dry-roasted, salted almonds
- pretzels with Nutella

Dinner
- eggplant parmesan
- garlic bread
- salad (Romaine lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, canned beets, tofu cubes) with dressing (red wine vinegar, mustard and olive oil)

Dessert
- one cannoli


Hm, just noticed that I didn't include any Korean food up there.  I like Korean food (kimchi!) and I do feel weird if I go more than one or two nights without having rice for dinner.  This just happens to be what I would like to eat for today, if I had the means to have all this food for one day. 

thoughts on movie violence...

It's hard to say which I think is less bad: stylized violence or realistic violence.  I'm going to refer to the Kill Bill  films as examples of stylized violence and The Departed as one that has violence that is over the top but still too realistic for me to call it stylized.  (Spoiler alert for the movies).  Stylized violence exists for the audience to enjoy, where the Bad Guys and Good Guys are clearly delineated.  I shied away from watching any Tarantino film for a while because I heard about how violent they were, yet when I finally got around to watching one I found out that I liked them.  The story-telling and dialogue are whip-smart, but also the violence is stylized and unrealistic so I could sort of distance myself and remind myself that it was just a movie I was watching.  On the other hand you have “The Departed”, which is very much set in the real world, where people get beaten up and shown to be in pain, real pain.  The violence is over the top because the situations are over the top, and the violence serves to emphasize just how badass and cold-blooded the characters can get.  What’s better: hand to hand violence or gun violence?  I could argue that the former is better because it is more real, but then the latter evens the field a little more; you don’t have to be physically fit to shoot someone.  But “The Departed” has a lot of non-gun violence in it as well.  At the bottom of it, these are action movies—but with great dialogue!  In horror movies the whole point is to shock or gross out the audience with stylized violence. 

I can’t tolerate horror movies.  I know that the kind of violence portrayed in these movies is also very stylized and unrealistic, but I don’t get anything out of watching people get tortured and scream in pain.  That kind of violence isn’t warranted, to me; oftentimes it’s senseless killing and there’s nothing that smart or thought-provoking about it...

Unintentional eye contact

I'm a dreamer, and sometimes I'll zone out while staring at a fixed point in space; it might be a spot on the ceiling or someone's face, just as long as it's in my line of vision.  Unfortunately this can lead to An Awkward Situation: accidental/unintentional eye contact with a near-stranger.  Usually it's someone I don't know very well.  This is easy to do during orchestra rehearsals, when I daydream and just happen to be staring at whoever is across from me within another instrument section.  I don't study that person's face but merely rest my eye on that person's visage, and inevitably they'll accidentally look my way since I'm probably in their line of vision and...there's that brief moment when we'll look at each other, and then we blink and look away.

Some of my favorite things

The original:

My version (just pretend that it works with the music and meter):

Warm clean clothing straight from the dryer
Snow days and hot cocoa for when I feel tired
The bright crunchy leaves that fall always brings
These are a few of my favorite things

The velvety smell of the earth after rain
Closing my eyes while listening to Coltrane
Getting a new set of violin strings
These are a few of my favorite things

When mosquitos bite
When someone's words sting
When I'm feeling bad
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I can feel less sad

Character sketch: Karl

Karl was one of those people who was always polite, upbeat, and happy for no reason.  He was in one class with me-- one with a cantakerous and sometimes actively racist teacher-- and he took all of her complaints and accusations in stride.  I want to say that he was Nigerian but I can't say for sure.  He had amazing eyelashes: they were lush, bountiful, and perfectly and naturally curled.  Those are the two things I envied him for: his great attitude and lovely lashes.

I didn't pay too much attention to him in class and I don't feel up to writing up a more detailed, pretend-sketch of him.  All the same, I think if you met him you'd be struck by him in a similar way.  Also I have to admit I didn't like him at first because I'm naturally suspicious of people who are nice for no reason.  I believe in practicing random acts of kindness, but also I am a person who is prone to envy and spontaneous surliness.  I don't wish to be him or have all of his characteristics but I'm happy that such a person exists; what a terrible world it would be if everyone acted like me.

Smitten?

Alright, so back in the day kidsWB had a show called "Batman and Superman", which was my first foray into watching Bruce Wayne and his alter ego.  Twas fun to watch during those Saturday mornings.  But then "Batman Beyond" came along and the character of Batman instantly became one of my favorite characters of all time.

I've already gone over the fantastic title sequence.  But another aspect that got me coming back for more every week was the main character Terry McGinnis.  Aside from being Awesome from having Bruce Wayne take him under his wing (pun intended) and train McGinnis as his protege Batman, I was...kinda smitten with him.

image source

He has that same moody, dark, sometimes surly attitude but his heart is in the right place.  He's athletic and nimble.  He has his own moral code and powerful drives-- the same qualities that make Bruce Wayne/the original Batman so attractive and swoon-worthy, except that Terry is a teenager and therefore more impulsive and prone to making bad decisions.  But that just made him even more attractive, I guess, in that he's a good guy but also kind of a bad boy.  This was a character that my dorky little tween heart became smitten with, and I'm only half as embarassed about this as I think I should be.  I still look back and thoroughly enjoy the character and other characters and the storytelling, but suffice it to say that I no longer have a crush on this cartoon protagonist.  Also it's a little jarring to realize that Terry's voice actor was the same person who played Corey Matthews' brother Eric from "Boy Meets World". 

Still, I think he gives a great performance and it's a testament to his versatility (or something like that) as an actor that he's so goofy in one show and so brooding in another.