Too Long

I've been neglecting this blog in favor of my Tumblr. But for the sake of greater accessibility, I'm putting something out here:

I'm not a film student anymore.

No, I know: I still occasionally work on adaptations & visual compositions, and I know a lot about movies, and I have seen a lot of movies, but I'm not working on critical interpretation of films primarily. I've had people introduce me to other academics as a film studies person, which doesn't bother me; it just means they haven't been keeping up with me. I'm not a famous scholar (yet...) so that's forgivable.

What I don't like, however, is people being surprised, nearly personally offended, when I haven't seen their New Favorite Best New Favorite Movie Ever.

I even understand this to an extent, I guess: I live in Los Angeles and I am interested in movies. Therefore, I should have seen it.

But here's the other problem: I live in Los Angeles. Ticket prices: high. Drive to the theater: takes time. Sitting through the movie: takes more time. Finding parking: annoying time taker. For the cost of the ticket plus the cost of time I'm spending, it's not worth it to me to go see movies in theaters when I could be doing other things.

Here is a short list of movies I haven't seen recently that EVERYONE is apparently losing their crap over:
~Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
~The Expendables
~The Last Exorcism
~Toy Story 3
~The Kids Are All Right
~Mesrine: Killer Instinct
~Inception
~Avatar

And then they refuse to talk to me about them because either "they don't want to ruin it" (I don't care if you spoil it, I didn't bother to see it in theaters) or else "they don't want to spend the time catching me up" (then don't be rude: change the subject).

To give you an idea, the last movie I saw in theaters was Iron Man 2, on a date (i.e. with someone I wanted to be spending time with, so the experience didn't feel self-indulgent; much the more delight when he got all traditional on me and paid).

It Only *Sounds* Like Gum

I've been seeing this commercial a lot during prime time.



Okay, sex sells. I dig. But every time I see this commercial, I'm waiting for a disclaimer that Dentyne Ice does not protect against pregnancy or STDs. But there is no such warning.

Now I'd like to imagine that nobody is so stupid as to think this. Certainly not you and I, gentle reader; we are of the intelligent kind, let alone the kind with basic common sense.

And yet, ads for birth control pills remind users that "[Brand of OCP] does not protect against sexually transmitted infections and diseases." Let me reiterate: common sense. If you're mingling essences, so to speak, you're at risk. If you're mature enough to decide to use oral contraception, you should be smart enough not to need a warning. But there it is.

There are similar warnings, arguably more disconcerting because not attached to as taboo a subject as sex, on food packaging. You know, "remove plastic and cardboard backing from pizza before placing it in the oven." Really? I mean, there's a difference between not knowing about safe sex because you're too embarrassed to ask and being an utterly oblivious moron who has to be reminded not to melt the plastic on the pizza.

When I consider that something as common sense and *not* controversial as food preparation has to be explicitly stated, I can't imagine how soon we're going to be hearing the news story about some kid suing Dentyne Ice because he thought it would keep his girlfriend from getting pregnant.

Rollin' with the Homies

I just saw this advertisement during early-evening programing for this product.

Yes, L'Oréal Paris has developed the most ingenious device to make absolutely certain your makeup doesn't smudge, smear, or streak!



But wait, doesn't this device sound a little familiar? Oh yes, here it is.



That's right, ladies. Just as you apply an even coat of paint to match your new living room, so can you now apply makeup to your face. Why stop there? Why not spackle over your pores? Sand down the acne? Don't forget the layer of primer before you finish it all with two coats of a durable acrylic latex matte. You'll never have to buy makeup remover again!

I Cannot Live Without My Literature!

It's been too long, blogosphere. The intervening month has brought grading, sickness, and paper writing. And, most importantly, reading the Twilight Saga.

I could easily write one post per day on the antifeminist, antihumanist, or antipathy towards emotional stability themes of the novels... No wait. I could write a post per day on *any one of* those topics, from only *one* of the novels, and I would have a blog for a year. That might be an idea if I didn't think I would just get pissed at all the tween flames it would encourage.

But here's the thing:




Now don't get me wrong: if this marketing ploy works in getting a generation of rabid twihards to read Shakespeare, Austen, and Brontë, I'm all for it. You might remember a similar rant I made about Oprah's Book Club and the inclusion of Steinbeck, Márquez, Tolstoy, Faulkner.... Look, lady, you can't just make up for semi-trashy "women's lit" by bolstering your cred with "the classics."

But they used the same red and white flowers on black background jacket design, the same ridiculous taglines (If Pride and Prejudice is "the love that started it all," does that mean Romeo and Juliet wasn't chronologically first? And if, as Wuthering Heights suggests, "love never dies," how many people are going to expect vampires?), and the same FONT as Stephenie Meyer's books and website.

What really gets me, though, is the quotes they're using to sell these. "Mr. Darcy had never been so bewitched by any woman as he was by her." "I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!" "These violent delights have violent ends / And in their triumph die, like fire and powder, / Which, as they kiss, consume." And if none of that was blatant enough for you, Wuthering Heights has a seal on the cover boasting "Bella and Edward's favorite book!"

I don't know whether to be angry at how poorly they're representing these works or to be angry that someone came up with this design campaign before I did.

For The Person Who Has Everything...

This holiday season, why don't you treat your favorite friend to a Snuggie... for DOGS?



Yes, that's right, for the four-legged friend-of-a-friend who needs to keep his chest warm and his paws free, the Snuggie for Dogs is the perfect invention.

Except for the following problems:
~Dogs can sit, stand, or lie down, just as humans can, but humans do not go about dorsal-upward in two of these situations; the Snuggie for Dogs would *fall forward off the dog's back* if it were lying down or walking around!
~More importantly, dogs, unlike humans, have no reason to "keep their paws free," because they have no opposable thumbs: they do not need to hold a book, telephone, remote control, or any number of other activities that humans are pictured as enjoying from the confines of their backwards-sweater-blanket.

I've never particularly thought the Snuggie was a useful invention. This leaves aside the problems that arise when you consider that the Slanket came first, or that you might resemble alternately a lazy monk or a hoodless Klansman in your ridiculous blanket-gear of choice.

But this? I'm sorry. There's no excuse. This is a new low in cultural failure.

Jewel of Denial

The website OutofYourLife.com was on the news tonight. The opening lines of the script went something like this:

"You're so in love. You're so happy. For now. But after it goes bad, every time you tell yourself 'It's time to move on!' there's a beautiful piece of bling staring up at you."

Two things: First, *every* time you tell yourself to move on there's jewelry involved? And second, who still says "bling"?

I can't say that I understand the financial or political implications of a broken engagement, having never been engaged. I would hope that I could eventually remember that I would be able to move on and make a rational decision about what to do with the ring. The whole process of residual jewelry, though, makes me cringe.

This should probably be prefaced with the following: heteronormative, yes. Also, I've never dated a guy who has given me jewelry. Of any kind. Let alone of the expensive variety. Unless you count the kid in elementary school who gave me a ring from his CrackerJack box, which I'm sure was the height of expenditure at the time. Honestly, I'm glad about this: I think jewelry and flowers are generally easy choices early in a relationship from a well-meaning guy who can't think of something that speaks to you because he doesn't know you well enough yet. But nobody wants to spend *that* much money so early a relationship. And also, who said He has to buy Her things?

Anyway, I've heard there are "rules" for the jewels. For example, She gets to keep the ring if He proposes on Her birthday, or on Christmas. I've never heard of exemptions for couples who do not celebrate Christmas, suggesting that perhaps only Christian Americans have these bizarre "rules," or alternately that Muslims, Jews, Hindus &c. do not marry (the latter is obviously false). I've heard that if He breaks it off, She gets to keep it no matter what. If She breaks it off, She keeps it only on the birthday/Christmas clause. And of course, the "who breaks it off" language is little more than the blame game (e.g. "I ended it because She cheated, so she'd better give me back my ring!").

But back to Out Of Your Life. Check out their web slogans: "Ex-boyfriend, Ex-jewelry." "Request a free Break-Up Box," in which you mail your symbolic emotions for money. And my favorite, "For Richer or Richer."

Yes, because every time I break up with a guy, it would have ended in years of bliss otherwise. Grow up, people. Every romantic relationship will end one of two ways: happily ever after, or not. This accounts for casual dating, hookups, engagements, marriages, second-marriages, and Liz Taylor. And "happily ever" isn't always happy: there are messes and disagreements and it's work and you learn things and you deal with it. I dare say I feel the same about money: it doesn't just plop into your lap because you mailed in your cast-off diamonds. There's honest work that should be behind it or else there's no value in it. So maybe there's a parallel between expecting quick cash and expecting fast and flawless love.

Or maybe marriage hasn't changed so much from the days in which the practice was all part of an exchange economy. My parents have ten nubile female goats and two milk cows to my name. Prove me wrong.

Something is seriously weird here. Financial compensation isn't going to stop the problem. Or maybe it will. I guess I wouldn't know because I've never received that sweet cash reward.

An Open Letter to the Swiffer People

Dear Swiffer® People,

Why you gotta go and make me feel like a slob?

Let me explain.

I'm moving from an apartment with tile and hardwood floors. I undertook a necessary move-out cleaning ritual: dust, spray, wipe-down, vacuum, sweep, mop. You will notice that I am quite thorough. Indeed, between the stages "sweep" and "mop," I usually add the Swiffer® Stage, in which I attempt to pick up any dust bits small enough to have evaded the watchful gaze of the broom, the long arm of the vacuum extension. This is the point at which you and I come to terms.

I am not a slipshod cleaner, Swiffer® People. I have OCD just mild enough to make it difficult for me to work in dirty or cluttered environs. I fixate on spots, scratches, and other discolorations on the floor that other people would not notice. Sometimes I use my hands to sweep up the last bits; sometimes I vacuum the bottoms of my feet to avoid tracking around any clinging crumbs. My property manager commented that I had a meticulous eye for flaws during the move-in inspection, so to detail any damages for which I would not want to be held responsible.

So then. Why, after having dusted, vacuumed, and swept, does the bottom of every Swiffer® Sweeper™ Dry Sweeping or Wet Mopping cloth always turn a disgusting grey color?

I know the claim: your products pick up what brooms leave behind. But brooms *and* vacuums, *AND* dusters? Swiffer® dusters, mind you, so you may not lay the blame on a bright blue plastic dusting bandit. Nonetheless, these are the facts: I am not a slob, but something tells me that repeated, full-on OCD cleaners would still find persistent dirt.

In short, whence comes this guilt of pre-Swiffer® Squalor?

Sincerely,
ColorMeDorothyParker

Angelinos' Ten Commandments

...And Charlton Heston descended from the Hollywood Hills with the following commandments sent directly to his iPhone Twitter app:



•I am the Jerry your Bruckheimer, who brought you out of the land of reading, into the house of reality television and explosions; you shall have no other producers before me.

•You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them; unless it’s an Oscar, a Golden Globe, or, to a lesser extent, an Emmy.

•You shall not take the name of the Arnold your Governator in vain.

•Remember the premier night, to keep it wholly a media circus; you shall not be seen at any event, be it a premier or grocery shopping, without full makeup and designer fashion.

•Honor your freeway system with your middle-finger.

•You shall not kill, unless you know Kato; or in an act of gang violence, in which case everyone will dehumanize you anyway, so it won’t matter.

•You shall not be stupid enough to get caught if you commit adultery.

•You shall not steal from anyone living in Bel Air, Beverly Hills, Pacific Palisades, or Malibu; nor from any stores on Rodeo Drive; nor if your name is Winona Ryder. Everything else is fair game.

•You shall not bear right or left while driving without first refusing to signal the turn to your neighbor.

•You shall not covet your neighbor's industry connection, nor his trophy wife, nor his Ferrari.

Löst Highway

I often wonder how many people driving through this city at any given time are perpetually sedated or regularly hallucinating. No need to use your turn signal: The Man can hear your every thought. Also, please enjoy driving in my blind spot for several miles: I am so hypersensitive I can feel anything within twenty yards of me, regardless of my large, metal mode of conveyance.

To counteract any potentially regrettable acts of road rage, a friend of mine once told me that he likes to shake his fist and growl "Lousy Sunday drivers!" but I have found that the shaking fist is often too visible. In view of California's hands-free cell phone law passed last summer, to see someone's mouth moving without another living person in the car with him is no longer uncommon. Thus, lately, I have chosen to speak quietly and calmly to the offending driver from the privacy of my car.

They don't know what I'm saying, or even if I'm saying it to them. Or even if I'm talking and not singing along to some music. So what do you suppose I'm saying?

Nothing so crass. Imagine everyone's favorite modular Swedish furniture chain, IKEA. Haven't we all, at one time or another, found their product names hilariously obscene while knowing full well that they are not? For example, my mom and I enjoyed assembling "those flärke bookcases," and I know many people would have an adolescent-style laugh to know that the Grundtal Line manufactures scales and toilet paper holders.

I refuse to believe, however Germanic and guttural these words sound, that they are obscene. This is, after all, the land that brought us many good things from Ångström to Zetterberg Since this is, then, an infinitely respectable country, I have taken to stringing together syllables that sound as though they could be assigned to IKEA product lines.

So remember: blaerb before you tröng, yupuppup means you need to slandegen, and there is no fleungling allowed at any ingedde.

I Am A Camera

Few things in life give me a better sense of satisfaction than good photographs. Antique images particularly fascinate me, and recently it has a lot to do with my Master's thesis adviser's book and my assistantship in a course on American Visual Culture. This fascination also likely has something to do with the longstanding tradition, since Eastman revolutionized point-and-click technology, that anyone can take a picture. Attend any art fair, and you will see stall after stall of flowers and rocks, and you will think "I could do better."


(my grandma feeding chickens)

And probably you could. With an eye for shot composition and now through the miracle of Photoshop, everyone is going pro — Photoshop's efficacy in this is debatable, since although undoubtedly easing the process, it perhaps cheapens truly excellent photography. Suffice it, something there is that doesn't love a digital camera: maybe for the same reason I would rather frame and hang my own picture of a mossy tree stump, or better yet, something actually interesting, I have come to fetishize film cameras. And since anyone can take a picture, you'd think my walls would be covered with prints. Yes?

No.

You see, I have a camera curse. I'm sure this started during youth, when it seemed that every Christmas or birthday, members of my extended family would give me cameras. Not that they might have thought I would like one, but probably because they won it in a raffle, or got it as an office gift, and just needed to unload it. I don't remember other cousins getting cameras, but I thought it was destiny. But no. My brother, never prodigal with his allowance money, saved and developed (no pun intended) a hobby of collecting antique cameras. He now has his own darkroom and develops his own film. Maybe I should have become a doctor first with a cathartic hobby second, instead of someone who has tried to make a career out of a cathartic hobby with a doctorate.

But this curse. No kidding: my brother let me borrow his fantastic film camera during a trip to Salem for research. I learned the buttons, the shutter speeds, the f-stop, the modes, gears, and everything. What I didn't learn was how to load the film: after several days of photographing landmarks and gravestones, I learned that the film never took up on the reel. I had to go back and do it all again. This time it overshot and ripped the end of the film out of its canister. I cried when I opened the film door and an unwanted ticker-tape parade of undeveloped, now ruined images came cascading out. And that's not all: one of my cameras, which I had prepared and packed, that I let my parents use for our family trip to Arizona, was also improperly loaded. No family Christmas photo by the Grand Canyon or the Camel Back Mountain or the red rocks of Sedona this year: she's done it again. My first digital camera took a tipsy lurch off a bookshelf (why was it stored all the way up there, you ask? Because I'm an idiot.) and the last image it captured was a streak of white light and a blurry grasping Me that well represented its death.


(go to the light, little darling)

Today, the curse is broken! My mom found me a used digicam on Shop Goodwill that arrived in the mail. Completely functioning, with memory card, two batteries, power source, and... wait. USB connector cord? Son of a bitch...

Fizzy Lifting Drinks

As a child, my parents, like good parents, forced me to drink milk with dinner. Although I appreciate this now, I have come to resent the why/wherefore because certain brands of milk have an aftertaste: the milk they served at school lunches tasted not like milk, but like warm cardboard water thickened with paint. If you want to get utterly compulsive (answer: you do), the milk also has to be at the right temperature. My parents would laugh when I commented "Mmm... the milk is good tonight," but there is something very particular about my taste buds in which temperature, age, milk-fat content, and not having those disgusty-crusty bits around the cap are necessary factors to quality milk.

But this is not about milk. This is about those fun times when we went out to dinner and my parents let me cast milk to the side in favor of soda-pop. Oh, sweet, syrup-based indulgence that is a fountain drink! Sprite was always my favorite (because my parents, like good parents, denied me caffeinated beverages). One day, my life changed forever when I was presented with a particularly ebullient glass of Sprite. I took one drink and my mouth recoiled. "What is this product of hellish nonsense!", I thought, but it came out "Ew!"

"Be polite," says my mom. My dad takes a drink. "Ew, she's right! This is gross!" This restaurant had neglected to refill the syrup in the fountain, and the wait-staff brought me a glass full of soda water.

Somehow, the initial shock slowly resolves itself into fascination. Why would anyone make a divisible soda product? Tonic water, and not static, in which to *mix other flavors*? How very droll! Imagine me as a child working through these problems. Imagine me as an adult drinking my first gin and tonic. Imagine me switching my beverage obsession gradually, over fifteen or more years, from soda-pop to flavored, calorie-free sparkling water. Imagine the flavors becoming too artificial, and me switching permanently to the sparkling mineral water, the likes of which purveyors Perrier or San Pellegrino market to those foolish enough to pay money for something more delicious than still water.

Imagine, nay, enjoy the strength of the bubbles, the thrill of the acrid flavor, the refreshing experience of chilled sparkling natural mineral water.