Don't Let the Panic Decide

Yesterday, I read this blog post on Eden Kennedy's blog Fussy. (excerpt below) I get it. I appreciate her words. These words zipped through the blogosphere straight into my heart.

Don't give it what it wants
Occasionally my yoga teacher, Steve, does this thing in class where he asks us to stand slightly bent over, with our hands on our knees, and breathe. Breathe all the way in until we feel like we're going to burst, then all the way out until our lungs feel flat. We do this in-and-out thing a couple of times and then we breathe in our fullest breath and hold it. He tells us it's not a contest, to let out our breath when we need to, but when we feel that instinctive, almost panicky feeling that we can't hold it another second, hold it one more second. Then breathe. But don't let the panic decide.... Please read the rest of the article here. Epiphany to follow. Good stuff.

Um... This is great?

Typography from Ronnie Bruce on Vimeo.

Zombie Love.

Land of the Lost

Land of the Lost

This month seems to be full of me trying to recapture the media messages of my youth. I remember watching the original Land of the Lost on Saturday Morning TV as a child.

Of course, I don't really remember much other than the sort of silly effects and the creatures known as the Sleestaks. The 2009 film version is more a parody for adults of the original more adventure genre program for kids. I appreciated some of the humor and I always love the acting of Anna Friel (Pushing Daisies, Much Ado About Nothing), but mostly I thought this film was dumb.

Here's a bit of the original -- it's dumb too, and I think I even knew that as a kid, but it was still fun to watch:


LOTL - Chaka

Sid and Marty | MySpace Video

Wordless Wednesday -- Vintage Angel

A Watched Egg Never Cooks?

Thanks to Swiss Miss, I just discovered this hilarious site. I love it. It offers up directions and a very entertaining egg timer.

Bookish Goals for 2010

I still feel like I'm running a month behind the world right now. So, it would make sense on the verge of February that I might be thinking about New Year's Resolutions. If you are like me and haven't 'even gotten around to thinking about such things, consider one of these:

1. Read a book you think you'll hate in 2010.

2. Read a book a week and participate in a 52 books project.
Here's one glimpse at someone's success.

More Mrs. Piggle Wiggle

Remember Mrs. Piggle Wiggle, her upside down house, cures for naughty children, and her super long hair? I loved this series of books by Betty MacDonald. Laurel Snyder has written a new Mrs. Piggle Wiggle short story that made me smile! Ah, yes, times have changed.

A Trio of Atwood Poems

A few days ago my friend Pattie requested poetry recommendations. Margaret Atwood came to mind but I couldn't think of one particular poem to point out. I couldn't decide which was the best to showcase the wonder of this author. She's a wee bit creepy in all these poems. A bit intense. One of my favorites ("Variation on the word sleep") is a little stalker-ish. "Siren Song" is terrific, but enjoyed most when one understands the allusion to The Odyssey. I reprinted all three here just for some poetry fun today!

Spelling
by Margaret Atwood

My daughter plays on the floor
with plastic letters,
red, blue & hard yellow,
learning how to spell,
spelling,
how to make spells.

I wonder how many women
denied themselves daughters,
closed themselves in rooms,
drew the curtains
so they could mainline words.

A child is not a poem,
a poem is not a child.
there is no either/or.
However.

I return to the story
of the woman caught in the war
& in labour, her thighs tied
together by the enemy
so she could not give birth.

Ancestress: the burning witch,
her mouth covered by leather
to strangle words.

A word after a word
after a word is power.

At the point where language falls away
from the hot bones, at the point
where the rock breaks open and darkness
flows out of it like blood, at
the melting point of granite
when the bones know
they are hollow & the word
splits & doubles & speaks
the truth & the body
itself becomes a mouth.

This is a metaphor.

How do you learn to spell?
Blood, sky & the sun,
your own name first,
your first naming, your first name,
your first word.

---------------------------------------
Variation On The Word Sleep
by Margaret Atwood


I would like to watch you sleeping,
which may not happen.
I would like to watch you,
sleeping. I would like to sleep
with you, to enter
your sleep as its smooth dark wave
slides over my head

and walk with you through that lucent
wavering forest of bluegreen leaves
with its watery sun & three moons
towards the cave where you must descend,
towards your worst fear

I would like to give you the silver
branch, the small white flower, the one
word that will protect you
from the grief at the center
of your dream, from the grief
at the center I would like to follow
you up the long stairway
again & become
the boat that would row you back
carefully, a flame
in two cupped hands
to where your body lies
beside me, and as you enter
it as easily as breathing in

I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
& that necessary.

---------------------------------
Siren Song
by Margaret Atwood

This is the one song everyone
would like to learn: the song
that is irresistible:

the song that forces men
to leap overboard in squadrons
even though they see beached skulls

the song nobody knows
because anyone who had heard it
is dead, and the others can’t remember.
Shall I tell you the secret
and if I do, will you get me
out of this bird suit?
I don’t enjoy it here
squatting on this island
looking picturesque and mythical
with these two feathery maniacs,
I don’t enjoy singing
this trio, fatal and valuable.

I will tell the secret to you,
to you, only to you.
Come closer. This song

is a cry for help: Help me!
Only you, only you can,
you are unique

at last. Alas
it is a boring song
but it works every time.

All the World.

All the World by Liz Garton Scanlon,
Illustrated by Marla Frazee

"Rock, stone, pebble, sand
Body, shoulder, arm, hand
A moat to dig,
a shell to keep
All the world is wide and deep."

I picked up a copy of Scanlon/Frazee's book at the library after seeing a mention online and I wasn't disappointed. This children's book offers a beautiful message of celebration for all that is good in the world and lovely illustrations. I have loved and own several books illustrated by Marla Frazee (The Seven Silly Eaters, Santa Claus: The World's Number One Toy Expert) and it is always the artwork in a picture book that sucks me in. This one is no exception. It's no wonder that All the World is one of the Caldecott Honor books for 2009.


Check out a GREAT post on Marla Frazee over at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast.

Glee Makes Me Giddy

Don't Rain On My Parade -- Lea Michelle & Glee Cast
You Can't Always Get You Want (my favorite Rolling Stones song!) -- Glee Cast

I absolutely love this performance of Don't Rain On My Parade. There are tons of great vids on you tube from Glee. I had the hardest time not posting them ALL...
Glee is a great TV show (winner of the Golden Globe for best comedy). For once, Fox did something right.

Fame (2009) and (1980)

Fame (2009)

I have fond memories of the TV series, Fame, from my childhood years in the early 1980s. I could recall Julie (Lori Singer aka Wren from Footloose) and some girl named Doris and a grumpy teacher named Mr. Shorofsky. The show dances (no pun intended) on the edges of my memory. I loved the theme song? Hmmmm.....



Well, I love dance movies. Surely that would be enough to make me love this new incarnation of Fame and yet it wasn't. I found this film disappointing and perhaps that is because I was mentally comparing it to the 1982 TV series of the same name and not to the 1980 film that is actually remaking. Somehow I doubt that is the only reason.

It felt like we never got to know the characters well enough to care about them and I kept watching for a Doris or a Leroy or a Julie or Coco and they never showed up. Watching the you tube clips of the 1980s stuff it all seems very white, classical music/ballet/violin etc. or maybe that's just the main characters. The current film has a much more rap-inner city-gritty feel. That's neither a criticism nor a praise, it's just an observation. The 2009 film did feature wonderful acting talent in the form of Fraiser and Lilith Crane... er, I mean Kelsey Grammer & Bebe Neuwirth. Oh, and Megan Mullally.



I think I would have enjoyed watching the 1980 film and reliving the memories rather than watching this new incarnation, but maybe that's just me.

************************

UPDATE: Searching for a video for the original theme song on You Tube led me to the 1980 film in 10 minute chunks which I got sucked in one at a time until I'd watched the entire film. Oops. Yes, this is definitely the superior film. And on a side note I didn't realize Sharon Cooper (Maureen Teefy) from Grease 2 played Doris in this film version.

Duplicity

Duplicity

One of my favorite genres of film is that of the "heist." The tag line for Duplicity reads "Outwit. Outspy. Outsmart. Outplay. Then get out." and that pretty much sums it up. Two spies, Ray (Clive Owen) and Claire (Julia Roberts) keep us, and each other, guessing through the entire film. It was clever, though a bit confusing. Overall, I enjoyed it 3.5 stars worth. Woo hoo!

Weather Girl

Weather Girl

On a scale of "It sucked" to "It was Amazing," I'd give this 2 stars -- "It was okay." Weather Girl featured favorite TV actors (I love Tricia O'Kelley, as Marly, on The New Adventures of Old Christine) and I had hopes, maybe not high hopes but hopes nonetheless that this film would prove to be a bit of lighthearted romantic comedy fun. It was fine but not anything I'd want to see again.

That said, the film is about Sylvia, a local weather girl on a Seattle morning show who freaks out on one of the anchors when she discovers him cheating on her with his co-anchor. While this makes for some great TV and instant celebrity in the Seattle area she discovers it also makes her a pariah in the broadcasting industry because no one wants someone with this level of emotional instability. To me, that makes sense. Left with nowhere to live, little money, shockingly few possessions, and no new prospects, Sylvia moves in with her younger brother and spends her days bemoaning her life in the manner of a spoiled, entitled brat. Of course, there are epiphanies and romance and all that and several other stars I love Jane Lynch and Jon Cryer, but in the end the film is just something worth maybe the time I spent watching it (a free library rental, at best) or not.

Inglourious Basterds

Inglourious Basterds

What I liked:
I like the music. I like the camera angles and the way Tarantino sets his scenes --the opening cabin shots inside and out -- there's great tension in these moments... I like the way he frames his story in chapters... The acting. I thought that the Nazi Hunter as played by ?? was well done. He was marvelous in his role. Brad Pitt was, well, he was "something else." It hurt a bit to watch but he did do a good job. I loved the women in this film the best. Chapter three -- She's spunky. In chapter five I love the way Tarantino points out the various Nazi figures with arrows! (not the bow and arrows... the directional sort) That's a bingo! also struck me as a GREAT bit of dialogue. Many such moments in the film entertained and their clever construction made me smile.

What I didn't like:
The violence and the shameless glorification of violence. Chapter two was HORRIBLY bloody... more than I can handle though it wasn't that way through the entire film, there was enough gore to turn my stomach when it did occur. I know, I know, I was warned. It is Tarantino. (Hello, Kill Bill???) Chapter four got a bit bloody again. Sloppy, sloppy.

I didn't ponder all this quite so deeply as I watched the film but in a discussion after, this idea rose to the surface. It seems that the sort of behavior we are meant to be cheering for is the ruthless antics of the Basterds. In reality, Brad Pitt's LT. Aldo Raine should have been tried for war crimes. This revisionist history might be fun for some, since we know the fullness of evil and the crimes perpetrated by Hitler and his men, but since when is terrorism (which is more of less the Basterd approach with the theatre plans) that takes out innocent men and women an okay thing? While I hesitate to say this, it would seem that the only true hero of the film was the young Nazi Pvt. Fredrich Voller in that he did a good and brave thing for his army and as much as he and everyone seemed to glory in that he did seem to squirm plenty when he watched it reenacted on screen. I could sympathize with Soshanna Dreyfus in her desire for vengeance but watching her final creepy film message just made it all seem a bit over the top. Overall, I wonder at Tarantino and what message he THOUGHT he was sending.

Book Stats for 2009

image via Sarah Jane Studios

number of books read in 2007: 37
number of books read in 2008: 76

number of books read in 2009: 70 (1 still in progress)
average read per week: 1.3 books
average read per month: 6 books
number read in best month: 12 in November
number read in worst month: 1 in March

percentage female authors: 37% female
percentage male authors: 63% male

percentage rereads: 10% (mostly for school)
percentage young adult: 44%
percentage graphic novels: 6%

fiction as percentage of total: 76%
nonfiction as percentage of total: 17%

percentage of total liked: 94% (rated 3-5 stars)
percentage of total ambivalent: 5% (rated 2-3 stars)
percentage of total disliked: 1% (rated 1-2 stars)

Additional stats for 2009: I read...
2 volumes of poetry
5 professional (education related) texts
3 plays (all rereads)

G-Force

G-Force

This was our New Year's Day family film fest choice. Nevermind, the youngest kid in the family is 19! And that for her and my brother this was a SECOND viewing of the film. I have to admit it was pretty darn cute. My mom asked partway through, "how do they get the guinea pigs to do all this" they seemed so real to her. God bless CG. :) The attitudes, expressions, and daring feats of this rodent team were impressive and pretty cute. I did like Bucky, the hamster, who looks just like Peanut. For a spy movie junkie, I appreciated this version complete with scuba gear and gadgets. I'd recommend G-Force with one condition--brace yourself, you might want to adopt a guinea pig or a hamster after watching it!

Here's to 2010.

May this year be the best one yet.