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Jennifer's Body, or The Dragon's Demotion

O, how the mighty have fallen! Woe is the day when we see two great Dragon Queens put on such mighty displays of epic failure-tude.

 

Since moving to Seattle, my life has been what one might call charmed. But this week has been my unveiling. It all began when a certain Dead Acorn called me by another Dragon’s Name. (You might know her by her affection for BABIES and DRAGONS in OVEN MITTS or on ROLLER SKATES.) Since then, I slept beyond my alarm which resulted in me sprinting, shoelaces untied, teeth unbrushed, to the bus stop to catch a bus half an hour after the one I was meant to catch. What was I late for, you might ask… well, I’ll tell you. A really fabulous volunteer opportunity: running a writing workshop for high school kids based on writing from art using the Picasso exhibit. Oh how my nostrils were flared and smoking on the way to the museum, panicked that I was going to be kicked to the curb after such an episode, without any contact numbers for the program directors. Just me, and the even smellier guy on the bus. Fortunately, I knew, the kids wouldn’t mind my unwashed mane.

 

And, as it turns out, the program directors were perfectly generous, merciful, and are going to allow me back.

 

But wait! There’s more. A parent complaint at work for my “mishandling” of their “not picking up their kid from school and so the kid was crying at my desk but couldn’t tell me the last name or phone number of the person who was supposed to pick them up” situation at work the other day.

 

Oh well, I say! I will not fail alone!

 

I’ve been meaning to write about this “film” for a while. I watched it this summer, with my mom, because it was for free on OnDemand. (O! How I miss my parent’s free HBO and very, very big TV!). This film, you might have gotten from the title, was the MEGHAN FOX vehicle, Jennifer’s Body. I had sort of seen this in the periphery and knew it only by the sort of slutty and also sort of gross picture of Meghan Fox (pictured below). Between the advertising the movie title, I assumed this was a movie centered entirely around a hot chic’s body. Which, considering today’s movies and Meghan Fox’s particular move choices, wouldn’t be too surprising (see Transformer and Transformer 2, plus her one time stint on Two and a Half Men (don’t ask me why I know this…)). (Woo! Parentheses party!)

 

So anyway, we are watching this movie and I am stunned… STUNNED… by the dialogue. It is sooo bad. And also… soo gooood. And also… not working, for some reason. Is it Meghan Fox? Perhaps she can’t act?! (gasp!) Or Amanda Segfried? Star of such gems as Dear John and Veronica Mars and that Abba movie? Or maybe it’s that guy from The OC? Is my sarcasm not simply DRIPPING…

 

But it wasn’t just the performances. In fact, I nearly enjoyed Meghan Fox , was almost charmed when she talked about “poo.”

 

And yet, and yet… this film fell short. And the whole time, as each line of dialogue cascaded into the open living room, I kept thinking that this movie should be so much better.

 

Witness the following:

 

Jennifer Check: I think the singer wants me.
Needy Lesnicky: Only because he thinks you're a virgin. I heard them talking.
Jennifer Check: Yeah, right. I'm not even a backdoor-virgin anymore, thanks to Roman. By the way, that hurts. I couldn't even go to flags the next day. I had to stay home and sit on a bag of frozen peas.

 

and then…

 

Needy Lesnicky: Jennifer's evil.
Chip Dove: I know.
Needy Lesnicky: No. I mean, she's actually evil. Not high school evil.

 

 

I still don’t know why it flopped.

 

But at the end I learned why the dialogue kept leaking the faintest stench of brilliance, the overwhelming sense of unfulfilled potential: “Written by Diablo Cody”

 

Some of you may remember her as the writer of the oh-so-clever dialogue of Juno.

 

And so I repeat, O! how these dragons have fallen from the sky like fiery meteors.

Or at least disappointing people a little bit.

How Mandy Got her Groove Back

Over the past couple of months, I've totally lost my swagger. It would probably be best to acknowledge that I never really had any real swagger, but whatever pizazz/oomph/zing/shazam I had has been sucked out of me for an assortment of reasons that I'm just going to call--for simplicity's sake--Composition. Now. I have a pretty sweet life. (And by that I mostly mean my fantasy football team is KILLING it.) I should be jolly. But just as Gollum cannot be without his Precious, I cannot be happy without my swagger. I woke to my alarm (Boston's "Amanda." Duh.) at 4:15am one Monday morning and discovered that my bathtub hadn't drained from my last shower. I seriously thought something along the lines of, "Screw you, shower. I'm getting my swagger back." Then I did some Mark Wahlberg moves courtesy of Boogie Nights. And by moves I mean Karate moves, sickos.

The best way to get one's swagger back? Make out with a vaguely attractive filmmaker over a vent while drinking slurpees. This should be done in 3d. If that doesn't work for you, you can always watch the cinematic masterpiece that is Step Up 3d. It will give you an admittedly false optimism about how life works (just like how the Mighty Ducks made me believe that the flying V was really the best idea ever during hockey games), but I eat that stuff up like Harry's green-flecked French Fries.

While it's true that watching dance movies can restore swagger, not all dance movies are created equal. I recently watched Stomp the Yard : Homecoming, and I was so disappointed. A dance movie can have a transparent narrative arc, bad dialogue, and lots of bad voiceover about the Power of Dance, but it needs to have super awesome dancing, preferably involving water or fire at some point. In the opening sequence of StYH, the hero gets involved in a dance battle in hopes of paying his way through college. (Like all strippers.) Here's the thing. The guy he's dancing off against is obviously a better dancer. At least to me, and I'd say a solid 100% of dance movie afficionados. But everyone in the movie world is cheering on our hero like his moves are the best thing since Michael Jackson. Our hero ends up "winning" the battle but gets swindled out of the money. The movie wasn't a complete failure, however.
Observe the movie cover.


EVERY TIME I see the cover, I HAVE to put my hands up in that pose. Have to. I'm doing it now at the smoothie shop. If that pose doesn't say SWAGGER, then I don't know what does.

Like, woah...

2010 Open Reading Winners & Finalists

We’re thrilled to announce that we have chosen Amber Nelson and Harold Abramowitz for publication in the upcoming year. Nelson’s Diary of When Being With Friends Feels Like Watching TV and Aramowitz’s A House on a Hill  will appear in late 2010 or early 2011 much to our delight.

We’d also like to congratulate our finalists whose work we read with great excitement and debate: 

• The Hawk You See May Be Your Own by Temple Cone
• A Practical Guide to Contemporary Economics by Joshua Ware
• Late Sermons of the Ego by Ricardo Alberto Maldonado
• Grimm Realities by Ellen LaFleche
• Midnight’s Marsupium by Michael Leong
• Folding In by Renee Emerson
• (aviary) by Genevieve Kaplan
• A Portable Model of How Memory Works by Joseph Mains
• Seven Pictures by Ben Berman
• Heaven as Nothing but Distance by Joshua Robbins
• Sham City by Evan Harrison
• :Odyssey & Oracle:by Jenn McCreary

Thanks to everyone who submitted a manuscript for consideration. Without the range of wonderful work to choose from, there would be no press and no one to wow our socks off. The following titles are the finalist manuscripts. Unfortunately, we had to pass on many good manuscripts.   But please, as always, consider sending a new or revised manuscript during our next reading period in 2011.

Best,

Slash Pine Editors

 

Guerilla Dancing

There’s this thing—I’m riding public transit for 4 hours a day. I think it’s going to my head. Like, making me a little nutso (er). I love riding public transit. I love listening to the asinine conversations, the wicked drunks and crazies, the occasional too-sassy-for-their-own-good bus driver. But more often than not, I ride with my ear buds in, the tunes blasting at a low level so I can read, or just blasting blasting blasting to keep me from passing out and missing my stop. (Did I mention the 4 hours a day bit… thems be long days).

I blame what I’m about to confess on my not having watched a single episode of So You Think You Can Dance this season, and the requisite withdrawl that such a feat would impress upon me.

I wanna dance! Every once in a while a song comes on my shuffled ipod that has me sort of… resisting the impulse to get up and dance through the bus aisles, rifling through the aisles of people on the commuter rail in their business suits, with their newspapers or trashy romance novels. I want to dance like something out a movie… choreographed, random, people watching with mouths gaping wide.

The problem with this, of course, is that I can’t dance. At least not like that. And I’m sure that train security would be called and I would be forcibly removed from the public transportation system, potentially going before a supreme court judge with several shrinks on the stand vying for my sanity (or lack there of… I told you I’m going nutso (er)).

So yes, withdrawls.

But I saw, recently, two movie trailers that bring me some semblance of hope. Stomp the Yard 2 (featuring Twitch, from So You Think You Can Dance fame), and Step Up 3D (featuring both Twitch and Joshua!). Witness:

Jam Bands, My new favorite bad TV, and Living life on the commuter rail

So this Friday, I had just had a pie & a pint at Pies & Pints with a friend, decided to get in touch with another friend and see what her plans were for the weekend. She just happened to be headed my direction to go see her boyfriend's friend's band and invited me to join. I had no idea what I was getting myself into but figured I'd get a chance to see a friend and have yet another pint.

Man-oh-man. I mean... wow. So we drive way up north, past Seattle, to a tiny little bar called Darrel's, next to a Fred Meyers and a Jack in the Box. From inside I hear it... the beginning cords of my new jam band experience. I walk in and, on the left hand side of the stage is a Jamiroquai looking guy... white, facial hair, big stupid hat filled with dread locks. And then the horrible assault on my ears known as jam banding. This first band wasn't my friend's friend's friend's band... that came later. The cause for our foray into Darrel's was far less assaulting, though still the kind of music that leaves me slightly embarrassed to be listening. The guys on the saxophones, however, were skillful with their instruments, and one of them could sing like a champ. During their set, I spent most of my time observing the crowd. Two heavyset, older women (late 40's, early 50's)  seriously "grooving" on the dance floor between breathless sets of tonsel hockey with the two construction workers at the pool table. Then there was the lady who came with the band... tie dye shirt with long, long, long flowing bell sleeves "grooving" even groovier, all by herself, near the stage. I played Big Buck Hunter. Like 3 times. I spent most of the evening in awe.

Much the way I feel about my new favorite bad tv obsession (which apparently won't last long with all of its 2 seasons, 1 of which I've already finished). The name of this little gem? JERICHO. Skeet Ulrich, with all of his magical cheekbones, stars in this post apocalyptic series (meaning nuclear bombing of 15 major cities in the US, which resulted in turning America into some sort of Mad Maxian world-- everywhere except the small town of Jericho, which ends up like something out of a Wendell Berry essay). They plant crops and share food and everybody loves each other. A little mini utopia. Living in the stone age did nothing to prevent their little mini dramas about cheating on wives and still loving old flames who were engaged to new people, yadda, yadda, yadda. The performances are... well... laughable often. And yet I can't wait to start in on season 2. Why? I'm not sure. But after 8 hours of work, and 4 hours of commuting each day, I pretty much get home wanting nothing but a glass of wine and an episode of this show.

Soon, though, I'll have a little garden of my own. Since I've returned, during the 4 hours a day I get to commute, I've been reading a lot of about food, cooking, farming. I have intense farming fantasies... having a garden that leads to canning and cooking everything from scratch. Anybody reading this have a lot of money that wants to support me? I'll cook for you! Seriously. These days it's seems like an ideal life. Cooking, cleaning, reading. I could be happy.

Not that I'm not happy now. I totally am. Really good job with really good people. Occasional trips to Portland to see friends. Occasional happy hours in Seattle at places like Pies & Pints (which I missed dearly-- damned good pies and sweet potato fries). Time to watch shows like Jericho and go to the farmer's market on Saturday ... oh yeah... Life is good.

Notes from the Other Coast: My Relationship with the Founding Fathers

So. Things are older on the East Coast. It took me living NOT in New England to fully realize this. I suppose our whole country has a relatively short history (I know, I know...there were people here before Europe scampered in with their diseases and guns and written words). But we've got all these years of history on the West Coast--like giving the Redcoats a hawaiian punch in the face, for example, which might, in part, explain New England snobbery, while Idaho was sort of...land West of the Mississippi. I now notice the inevitable old school white church in every town, the random stars people affix to their houses, the porches, and obviously, the Dunkin Donuts (cultural artifacts, each and every one!). Even my hometown, a town you could find in any state--all chain restaurants and vinyl siding--has 18th century backstory. "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," the sermon by Johnny Edwards, often found in American Lit anthologies, was preached in my hometown. Edwards went on a tear about how the Enfield parishioners were pretty much the suck, and were going to be smited (smote?) down pretty soon. OH YEAH. Apparently Edwards was PMSing, because he was usually more of a gentle hippie-like figure. I remember a professor in college telling me that SITHOAAG being what Edwards is remembered for is like when a band you really like all of a sudden gets famous for a song that's atypical for them..and one you don't really like.

ANYWAY, all of this history has got me thinking about American Independence. After all, it was just the Fourth of July. (Fun Fact: Jefferson AND Adams died on the same day. July Fourth.)I wish to share my very own mini-history with the Founding Fathers.

I'm not sure whether it's the way the books were written, or some strange personal bias, but I was always on Team Federalist when reading textbooks in grade school and beyond. I was not cool with Thomas Jefferson. My favorite founding father was Alexander Hamilton. I mean, kind of a no brainer. He was young when he was killed in a duel (badassly tragic), he was a genius, and he laid the framework for a national bank. I even went to Hamilton College. Of course AHam was my favorite. I have drunkenly groped a statue of him.

THEN, I started reading more. And watching more miniseries. And my world was shattered. I think Hamilton may or may not have been like Brain in Pinky and the Brain. Who knows if he really would have taken over the world, but it seems like it might have been an option. John Adams emerged as really honest and earnest, almost to the point where I didn't like him. Like Desdemona. (Though Abigail was a total BAMF.) I was even sympathetic to Jefferson, in spite of him being kind of a dandy, because he wrote good sentences. And I even found BFrank, so infuriating to Adams at times, to be so charming in his ability to mack it with the French ladies when he was way old. So I was torn. Who really deserves to be my favorite founding father? I was tempted to just say someone like John Jay, a dark horse candidate...

And then I saw this commercial.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ezk0e1VL80o


And then I thought about this youtube video.


And then I went to Mount Washington in New Hampshire. The evidence was overwhelming.

It's sort of an obvious choice--first president, army hero. But George Washington is the ultimate badass. Even if he drives a dodge.