On Sunday I watched the movie "13 going on 30" which I liked very much. But more on that later. Among the many scenes that I love in the movie, I loved the Thriller dance scene at the party. It got me thinking about great dance scenes from movies. But more on that later.
Thriller doesn't happen to be a video that I remember all that well because as a child I did not have cable. In fact, as an adult I don't either.
So I went to YouTube to try to find the video for study because it seems like I cannot actually call myself a child of the 80's if I don't know how to do the most influential dance sequence of my generation.
And there I stumbled across a 40 part instructional series on doing the Thriller dance.
Someone is trying to set a new Guinness World record for most people simultaneously doing the thriller dance at once. The current record is 62 people in Toronto, Canada.
And they are trying to beat that this year. The project is called: Thrill the World. For the 25th anniversary of the release of the album people will convene globally to dance for 5 minutes to the radio version of Thriller - all dancing the same agreed on choreography at times that synch up to 6pm Sat Oct 27, 2007 Toronto time.
Of course I hear about this at the last minute and am trying to figure out if I can locate a Guinness registered location near me and if I can learn that choreography in three days.
If you've heard the details of an event in the NYC let me know.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Monday, October 15, 2007
Shaking it off - the old and new
Strangely I have been in New York long enough that I describe certain modes of being as reminiscent of my "Old New York Life." My old New York life had a lot in common with the way I felt on my first Mystechs tour.
I don't know where it went.
The little things have been all that my life is about. The little things are not my strong suit. At the start it was kind of interesting. A challenge. After about a year it feels like death by a thousand papercuts. The little things have been tripping me up and getting me down.
It was one thing when I felt that I was teeming with money, my every free moment was spent in the pursuit of happiness or at least distraction.
And now I feel broke all the time and I pack a lunch to bring to work. I feel tired all the time and all I want to do is sleep late, sit at home, watch TV, and fall asleep on the couch.
Oddly, while I have been feeling broke I have taken to going to the Farmer's Market on the weekends. It's mind bogglingly expensive. And the bags I walk back with are mindbogglingly heavy. But walking around and touching produce and then buying it is fun. Very different from the grocery store. Although, you know how I love that too.
And I tell myself that I am doing something good. Reducing the miles on my food. Supporting local growers. Getting out into my community. And all that good hippy stuff.
Mindbogglingly expensive produce offers it's own powerful incentives to cook or some other form of food preparation. I bought a loaf of bread for $5 on Saturday - mindboggling.
And I made the most amazing grilled cheese sandwich with that bread. It may very well have been the best grilled cheese sandwich of my life. My soul felt nourished with its consumption. This experience may be irreproduceable. Especially considering that dire and desperate hunger probably played some role in my perception of the deliciousness. But seriously I think this might be my greatest accomplishment since moving to NY.
Inevitably the purchase of produce on Saturday leads to a mad late night effort to cook a little something on Sunday. Tonight it was blackeyed peas with stewed tomaters and brown rice. Also a can of creamed corn + frozen corn.
Later this week hopefully some ratatouille 'cause I bought eggplants and perhaps tilapia tacos 'cause I saw someone make them in TV and they looked gooooood.
Among the issues in my life I have been searching for a dentist. It's a dire need. Not knowing how to go about it, I have been trying to comb through doctoroogle.com in search of a dentist.
I started knitting my second sweater (the first one was a total fiasco and is still unfinished.) only to find after finishing the front part that None of the rest of the yarn I own matches what I have used. So I am now seeking a yarn shop to buy a bunch of skeins of some complementary or close to matching and compatible stuff. Apparently, my second sweater will also be a total fiasco, though I hope to finish it.
Went to the Mustard Plug show on Saturday. I had it in my head to be up front next to the stage. Lots of shoving and bruising and pushing and leaning. Lots of idiots crowd surfing. It was great. Somehow spiritually purifying. Plus, there's no time to think about the little things when you are trying not to get knocked down and trampled. At last - distraction.
I don't know where it went.
The little things have been all that my life is about. The little things are not my strong suit. At the start it was kind of interesting. A challenge. After about a year it feels like death by a thousand papercuts. The little things have been tripping me up and getting me down.
It was one thing when I felt that I was teeming with money, my every free moment was spent in the pursuit of happiness or at least distraction.
And now I feel broke all the time and I pack a lunch to bring to work. I feel tired all the time and all I want to do is sleep late, sit at home, watch TV, and fall asleep on the couch.
Oddly, while I have been feeling broke I have taken to going to the Farmer's Market on the weekends. It's mind bogglingly expensive. And the bags I walk back with are mindbogglingly heavy. But walking around and touching produce and then buying it is fun. Very different from the grocery store. Although, you know how I love that too.
And I tell myself that I am doing something good. Reducing the miles on my food. Supporting local growers. Getting out into my community. And all that good hippy stuff.
Mindbogglingly expensive produce offers it's own powerful incentives to cook or some other form of food preparation. I bought a loaf of bread for $5 on Saturday - mindboggling.
And I made the most amazing grilled cheese sandwich with that bread. It may very well have been the best grilled cheese sandwich of my life. My soul felt nourished with its consumption. This experience may be irreproduceable. Especially considering that dire and desperate hunger probably played some role in my perception of the deliciousness. But seriously I think this might be my greatest accomplishment since moving to NY.
Inevitably the purchase of produce on Saturday leads to a mad late night effort to cook a little something on Sunday. Tonight it was blackeyed peas with stewed tomaters and brown rice. Also a can of creamed corn + frozen corn.
Later this week hopefully some ratatouille 'cause I bought eggplants and perhaps tilapia tacos 'cause I saw someone make them in TV and they looked gooooood.
Among the issues in my life I have been searching for a dentist. It's a dire need. Not knowing how to go about it, I have been trying to comb through doctoroogle.com in search of a dentist.
I started knitting my second sweater (the first one was a total fiasco and is still unfinished.) only to find after finishing the front part that None of the rest of the yarn I own matches what I have used. So I am now seeking a yarn shop to buy a bunch of skeins of some complementary or close to matching and compatible stuff. Apparently, my second sweater will also be a total fiasco, though I hope to finish it.
Went to the Mustard Plug show on Saturday. I had it in my head to be up front next to the stage. Lots of shoving and bruising and pushing and leaning. Lots of idiots crowd surfing. It was great. Somehow spiritually purifying. Plus, there's no time to think about the little things when you are trying not to get knocked down and trampled. At last - distraction.
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
another talented bastard
Andrew Mall has a new issue of livingproof. Issue #5: Rapprochement
"These words used to be songs, songs that we screamed along with on the way home from a show, dark highway behind and the future, bright and clear and mysterious, ahead. I knew all the words once, and while that is no longer true, I still instinctively retain the triumphant choruses and the painful confessions, no matter how much time has passed in the interim.
The bands that sang these songs are no more, and in many ways neither are those of us who sang along. We are different people now than we were then, but we also have the luxury of memory and nostalgia to remind us what it once felt like to care so muhc for a single thing that the pain was palpable. This zine is dedicated to the people we used to be, and the bands we used to love." - Andrew Mall
"Sure there are sections that may not appeal to those of you who are unfamiliar with Rainer Maria, but I think most everyone can appreciate the kind of love for a band that results in the type of self-flagellation on display in these pages. So please, do your best to read beyond the words: think about your favorite band, the lessons you learned from them, the ways in which you've built your life around these lessons, the memories they inspired, and how it felt when they broke up." - Andrew Mall
And I am a puddle to the words on his pages and not even halfway through the thing. Talented bastard.
His site is here.
"These words used to be songs, songs that we screamed along with on the way home from a show, dark highway behind and the future, bright and clear and mysterious, ahead. I knew all the words once, and while that is no longer true, I still instinctively retain the triumphant choruses and the painful confessions, no matter how much time has passed in the interim.
The bands that sang these songs are no more, and in many ways neither are those of us who sang along. We are different people now than we were then, but we also have the luxury of memory and nostalgia to remind us what it once felt like to care so muhc for a single thing that the pain was palpable. This zine is dedicated to the people we used to be, and the bands we used to love." - Andrew Mall
"Sure there are sections that may not appeal to those of you who are unfamiliar with Rainer Maria, but I think most everyone can appreciate the kind of love for a band that results in the type of self-flagellation on display in these pages. So please, do your best to read beyond the words: think about your favorite band, the lessons you learned from them, the ways in which you've built your life around these lessons, the memories they inspired, and how it felt when they broke up." - Andrew Mall
And I am a puddle to the words on his pages and not even halfway through the thing. Talented bastard.
His site is here.
serious questions
If I choose to spend time with the one I love rather than the one that loves me, does that make me a masochist?
The other way to summarize my resume
In conversation with SE, I admit to the fact I am 37 and the job I have now is really the first proper job that I have had. I have only been working in the real world for a bit over a year.
And his reply was that he thought this was something to be proud of having accomplished in my life. A comment which certainly gave me pause.
And his reply was that he thought this was something to be proud of having accomplished in my life. A comment which certainly gave me pause.
I can bring home the bacon
As a child I watched the Enjoli perfume ads.
"I can bring home the bacon
Fry it up in a pan
and never let you forget you're a man
'cause I'm a woman, Enjoli."
Somehow despite my best efforts it's one of those things that lodged into my brain as a model for womanhood.
And now I am at the point where one is unlikely to call me a young woman or girl and would likely consider me to be in the category of woman. I find that I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan and make an effort to try to make a man feel like a man. The problem is, I haven't figured out how one manages to do all three simultaneously. I can bring home the bacon but that means I don't have time to fry it. And with the addition of interacting with the other gender - well - how does anyone manage to get any damn sleep around here?
There must be a trick to it. SD recently showed me a trick to dealing with those plastic grocery bags for produce. They are so difficult to get open sometimes. "Lick, pinch, and twist." Seriously it's that easy. One might think that this series of verbs would help in other endeavors but I think that varies widely in the population.
So there must be a trick to it. Maybe one of you out there knows it. Maybe it's as simple as three verbs in a row. Maybe it comes in a bottle, like it did in the 70's.
My other model for womanhood was the Charlie ads.
"Kinda young kinda now, Charlie
Kinda free kinda wow, Charlie"
Y'know wearing pants suits and being sassy and flirty.
It was all kind of muddled and confusing yet so heady and glamorous to try to imagine emulating.
What do young girls today see in the media and envision to be their models of womanhood? The Pussycat Dolls? Skimpy outfits, pelvic thrusts, and booty shaking. It's a whole new world. A bit beyond me, really. Let us offically stop calling me girl or young woman, then.
"I can bring home the bacon
Fry it up in a pan
and never let you forget you're a man
'cause I'm a woman, Enjoli."
Somehow despite my best efforts it's one of those things that lodged into my brain as a model for womanhood.
And now I am at the point where one is unlikely to call me a young woman or girl and would likely consider me to be in the category of woman. I find that I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan and make an effort to try to make a man feel like a man. The problem is, I haven't figured out how one manages to do all three simultaneously. I can bring home the bacon but that means I don't have time to fry it. And with the addition of interacting with the other gender - well - how does anyone manage to get any damn sleep around here?
There must be a trick to it. SD recently showed me a trick to dealing with those plastic grocery bags for produce. They are so difficult to get open sometimes. "Lick, pinch, and twist." Seriously it's that easy. One might think that this series of verbs would help in other endeavors but I think that varies widely in the population.
So there must be a trick to it. Maybe one of you out there knows it. Maybe it's as simple as three verbs in a row. Maybe it comes in a bottle, like it did in the 70's.
My other model for womanhood was the Charlie ads.
"Kinda young kinda now, Charlie
Kinda free kinda wow, Charlie"
Y'know wearing pants suits and being sassy and flirty.
It was all kind of muddled and confusing yet so heady and glamorous to try to imagine emulating.
What do young girls today see in the media and envision to be their models of womanhood? The Pussycat Dolls? Skimpy outfits, pelvic thrusts, and booty shaking. It's a whole new world. A bit beyond me, really. Let us offically stop calling me girl or young woman, then.
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