Vampire Diaries, take XXXXXX

Ok! I admit it! I love bad tv. Maybe this wasn't such a surprise to you, dearest readers.

What may surprise you is that, despite my love of bad tv, I do have standards. I do have limits. I may have loved Moonlight for it's bad, bad, bad, awfully bad dialogue (It's like killing two bats with one stone.), but Vampire Diaries, my friends, is a whole different story.

It's not something I would have picked up on my own. It's true, I have a certain affection for Buffy and Tru Blood-- because they are both really good, and both deal with the real world through this overarching metaphor. And because they are funny and smart. And I've seen Twilight, granted I saw it the first time before I even knew what Twilight mania was, and became more interested in it after I learned of Twilight mania (because that's just effing hilarious-- tweens and middle aged women... gross). But I'm not a "vampire" person. I'm clearly a "dragon" person. And yet, because I love Buffy, now people assume I will enjoy all things with vampires in them?

Or maybe I really am both a "dragon" and "vampire" person.

Either way, Vampire Diaries was recommended to me. I had no idea what I was getting into. I watched 3 episodes and marveled at the stupidity and tenacity of the worst acting, dialogue, sound, cinematography, lore, of any vampire thing I've seen to date (including Twilight). It's the Days of Our Lives for nighttime teen drama. It really makes me wonder... with all of this technology, how cheaply we can make a movie or tv show, how much faster, that production quality can actually have gone DOWN. I mean, wasn't all this fancy shit supposed to make stuff better? Not worse. And, like, sure these kids are attractive. But whatever. Almost everyone in Hollywood is. But GOD, give me someone who can at least act a little bit.


ANYWAY, that's my rant.


So...


And what about this? Plane kills Jogger? WTF?

Acadamy Awards, Thesis Prep, & A Serious Confession

Tomorrow I defend my thesis. I sit in a room with professors and peers and I'm asked what I did, why I did it, and expected to quote philosophers and theoreticians in order to prove that I know what I'm doing.

I've spent many hours over the last year, and even more tonight, pouring through philosophy and lit crit and autobiography theory looking for magical quotations that will define my intentions succinctly and attached to a name more promising than my own (See: Derrida. See: Barthes. See: Everyone but me.)

The result of all of this extra reading? Braindeadedness. I have little mental energy left at the end of each day and so end up watching bad shows, like LOST, or, as now, watching the Acadamy Awards while reading through my thesis and making notes about appropriation and talking to Dead People. (What? You didn't know I do that?)

I've seen some of the movies nominated, and not others.

Which brings me to my confession. The first time I heard Sandra Bullock was going to be in a football movie I just said "WTF?" And then never paid it any mind. Never saw the trailer. Didn't know anything about it except Sandra Bullock + Football.

Recently, however, I have seen the trailer. Several times over the course of the Acadamy Awards.

I confess, I want to see this movie. Every time I see the trailer my whole chest wells up and I get a little teary.

This could be more a result of thesis stress rather than the trailer, but I think the trailer also has something to do with it.

I also want to see Precious. That's not a confession. That seems reasonable.

I'm still not sold on Avatar.

And I'm disappointed in Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin. Even though they wore a couple's snuggie! That was pretty great.

Tomorrow at 4pm I'm going to put on my oven mitts and talk about my poems from the perspective of a dragon. I'm a mythical creature. My poems are mythical creatures. Thesis Defense=Dragon Wars.

Food for thought: Dragons eating PB&J. Does the peanut buttered wonderbread stick to the roof of their mouth? If it's chunky, can they roast the peanuts by breathing fire?

Things just went icky. Sorry.

Dragons!

Spenser and New Moon: The Thesis that I Should Have Written

AmberN was nice enough to journey with me to see NEW MOON, even though she had already seen the many fruits the tree of NM bore. That sentence doesn't make sense, but onward I will go. Throughout the course of the day, I told people that I was seeing the movie--nay, film--for "research" purposes, but I don't think they believed me.
Little did anyone know that meanwhile the Fairy Queen (I mean, they spell it all old school english-y, but no worries) is running alongside my mind the whole time.

Here's what you need to know about New Moon, most of which you can learn from the first two minutes.
1.) It's insanely literal. It's called New Moon. The first thing you see? Hint: not an old sun. Everything is explained. Everything is explicit. Except for why all of these foxy (wolfy? ...and 17. so so wrong) men are into the reticent Bella. Want some subtle foreshadowing that lovestruck Jacob is about to turn into a hot werewolf with shorn hair? See the wolf picture tacked to the wall. See the dialogue referring to them as "puppies." See the brooding looks everyone is throwing at everyone else at ALL times! Do you want to show Bella being emo and the passage of time? Have her sit in the chair in front of a window. Have the camera pan around her in circles. Then, have someone rake leaves outside. And water grass. And shovel snow. I don't even know if these are what happens, but I'm assuming so since it's the most obvious image I can milk from each season.
2.) It's all...so....heavy. So.much.passion. They.can't.be.together. There is this hilarious voiceover at the beginning that I'm assuming is an excerpt from the text which I'm assuming is excerpted from Romeo and Juliet (cause if it was Stephanie Meyer there'd be more adverbs...PWN'd). I just found it. "These violent delights have violent ends and in their triumph die, like fire and powder, which, as they kiss,consume." I mean, cool, if you have a codpiece. But if your voice is monotone and you're saying words like delights, it's at once the worst and best thing EVER! OH YEAH! I talk in absolutes!

Now. Let me talk FQ. The Fairy Queen is an insanely long poem written by Spenser (E-Spens, his Jersey shore nickname) during the Elizabethian era. There are six books (though E-spens wanted to do twelve), each centering around a particular knight that represents some some sort of desirable quality or virtue. So, for example, book two is Temperance. Now, you might think that temperance wouldn't be thrilling, but there is some crazy motherfucking shit that happens in these books, which is pretty much verbatim from assorted critics. But here's the thing: the knights aren't strictly allegorical--sorta a departure for this point in time. So instead of having the character Temperance, you have a temperate man. That means he has wiggle room to screw up. Lovez it. My point, however, which I assure you I have, is that Spenser constantly pulls the rug out from under you. He's like an electron according to the uncertainty principle. You never know what he means, only what he might mean. I'm supposed to be working on my thesis, but all I can think about is how Spenser is absolutely bananas. And he pretty much invented his own rhyme scheme. WHO DOES THAT?

Here is what I'm thinking. WHAT IF you did a mash up of the two? What if some of E-Spens's ambiguity was to be passed along to Twilight? And we'll throw the rhyme scheme in as well. I want the vampire to talk in rhyme. And what if you infused the FQ with a tad less ambiguity a la Twilight along with of course, a werewolf, cliff jumping, and sparkles?!

You are welcome for saving the future of literature.

What It Is...

I've been thinking, lately, about the past. The past, past. The past that was of the long time ago. Probably because I decided to watch THE LAST DRAGON on netflix Watch Instantly-- & promptly drifted away on dragon wings to a time before... when I wore pink stretch pants with stirrups on the bottom & saddle shoes & thought I would grow up to be a dentist/singer (or as my parents liked to call it: a singing dentist!) & my hair was still down the middle of my back & I wanted nothing more from fashion that spiky heels & red lipstick (neither of which do I really wear... at least, almost never).

Anyway, what all of this has resulted in is the strong desire for me to use the phrase "What it is..." I never did know what it meant-- some kind of greeting? Like "what's up"? Or, is it just something you say... like filler?

Either way, it doesn't bring me any closer to red lipstick & spike heels. But maybe someday I'll be a real dragon.

Like Rhiana, who is apparently slated to be in The Last Dragon remake. Wtf?

The Last Dragon

I promise you won't regret it.







Part 3 & beyond is also available on youtube.

Something for a Rainy Day

I also wish to share this alongside my blogpost, along with some words of wisdom: So maybe you watch the beginning and then skip to the grand finale (and it IS grand). But I would treat this like a mixtape instead of a cd. You don't want to skip...it's all about the narrative.

ONE MORE SONG

I was at Starbucks this morning--hey, it’s right by my office and I have a gift card--and the barista asked me whether I wanted Pike’s Place blend or Kimodo Dragon blend. (I think it was Kimodo? I so want it to be).

“DRAGON! OF COURSE DRAGON!” I yelled. “DRAGON!”

I was by myself. These baristas have no idea how I feel about dragons, though one could assume that they appreciate the general majesty of them. My point: I do this sort of thing all the time. For example, AmberN and I have, somehow, become preoccupied with the concept of the “date vest.” The concept of the date vest deserves its own post, to be sure, but I find myself asking people if they’ve been wearing their date vests as if they have the context for it.

My point: Isn’t this all the textbook definition of a bag lady? They make sense in their minds, but not to the general public, and then they get really upset and hit you with their pocket book/throw a cat at you if you don’t understand them. Hello, future.

My pity point: I’m at the point in the semester where I prop myself up on coffee/energy drinks.

My main point: Dragon starbucks coffee reminded me of dragons, which reminded me of this here blog.

Regarding the latter….Over the past month, I’ve said, “I’ve got a blog post brewing inside me” approximately 412 times. This has resulted in approximately zero blog posts, which leads me to believe that the phrase “brewing inside me” is probably linked to my annoyingly rampant biological clock (because, you know, babies brew inside you?) that I have dubbed “Big Ben(nett).”

It was my dragon birthday last Thursday, and the festivities spilled into the weekend. Because I’m secretly on a quest for a baby in my bjorn and a minivan, I have sort of stopped going out as I once did. I'm also writing a thesis, but perhaps more importantly, I am going through a phase where I really want restaurant hot chocolate--the kind from the packet, with some reddi whip--instead of PBR. I've never not wanted PBR before.

However. One of my New Year’s Resolutions was to make my life more like the Jersey Shore. Mission Accomplished. I don’t really remember accomplishing this mission, but witnesses claim I stormed a dancing platform, claimed it for the MFA program, and may or may not have knocked an orange girl with a corset, hair bump, and a penchant for air humping off of said platform. There was also a pole involved, but I think what happens in places-that-I-vowed-I-would-never-go-for-fear-of-date-rape-but-went-to-anyway should stay in those very places. There is nothing like stumbling home while receiving text messages that contain way too many acronyms (Fyi, lol) from someone you have saved in your phone as "dude from bar," and knowing that you have to wake up at 4:30am to put stickers on things at Target.
Hot chocolate is better than fist pumps and hair bumps: my new maxim.