« December 2007 | Main | February 2008 »
January 31, 2008
Britney Spears = Swan Lake?
While I would hesitate to ever have called Britney Spears an artist, and while her career as a musician has taken a back seat to her career as a "pop wreck," she appears to be continuing to contribute to the artistic community by inspiring...a modern dance tribute?
Apparently the has created a show that runs the gammut of Britney's crazy meltdown, from the head-shaving incident right on to her recent committment by family members.
"Choreographer Hubert Essakow said that like many people, he became interested with the singer’s problems about a year ago and thought it would provide good material for a show. “I thought this was a really modern day tragedy, this reversal of fortune. I saw somebody who had such great hope and was adored by millions of people then goes down the wrong route,” he told BBC television Thursday. “I thought it would make an interesting story and try to translate this into dance.”
Heard about it from Gossip Boulevard.
Ok, so I'm ashamed to admit I'm slightly disappointed that this is happening on Friday (tomorrow, I think) at London's South Bank. I love the South Bank and it would have been funny to run into this while I'll be back over the summer.
Posted by Spike at 01:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 30, 2008
The Bush Speech We Wish He Would Make
If you ever fantasize about George Bush actually speaking the truth and fessing up, here's your wet dream! Someone seamlessly threaded together soundbites to create a new State of the Union Address. Check out how they keep panning in on McCain.
Credit for finding this gem goes to Dear Boyfriend.
Posted by Spike at 06:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Wordless Chateau
Posted by Spike at 12:15 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
January 28, 2008
Mmm Good
Oh man, I just cooked such a good dinner I had to share.
Yellow squash, zucchini, red bell pepper + cajun seasoning, lime juice, garlic, red pepper flakes, black pepper flakes + jasmine rice in a warm pita= perfection.
Plus I'm still working on the lentil and yogurt soup that made me so hungry I needed the pita...
If people ask me how I eat, I explain that I am a meat-eating vegetarian. I don't have any problem with eating meat, and I actually think it's sort of silly when vegetarians complain about meat's environmental impact when most American soy products are made with Roundup-Ready genetically modified soy beans caked in chemicals. But I do feel healthier when I cut down on my meat consumption because it means I'm making room for fruits and veggies I ignore if I can just have a piece of chicken instead. Also tricks me into eating less fat. I just try to eat with vegetarian sensibilities, I suppose.
Posted by Spike at 09:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
John Edwards Speech
I got a few good photos at the John Edwards landing in Chattanooga today. I had a hard time deciding whether or not to post however-- I caught a couple great candid shots of fellow supporters. One I keep looking at because the expression on the woman's face is so moving-- I caught her getting a little worked up by Edwards' words. The sheer amount of emotion I accidently got on my memory card is breathtaking. The other is on the opposite end of the spectrum-- a jolly fellow was there with who I presumed to be his grandkids and wife, and the photo I snapped of him just summed up how excited and happy everyone was to be there and have a chance to meet a great man we've all heard so much about. However, I have no idea who these people are or how they'd feel about my sticking their faces on my blog sans permission, so I'm afraid I'll just have to tease with the text descriptions.
And of course, there were the photos of Edwards himself, but we've all seen his face a billion times on the news. I don't know how my mediocre shots would really add a whole lot.
But I did get this one of Dear Boyfriend and I lost in the crowd, thanks to the campaign worker who kept the crowd happy and pumped while we waited (an unfortunately long time) for Edwards to appear. He started taking people's cameras for them so they could have pictures of themselves at the event. I like having a record of all the people I hung out with for an hour waiting for Edwards to arrive. I had fun chatting with the guy in the teal shirt in the foreground about Divinity schools around the country.
I will say the speech was excellent and I have no more lingering doubts about who I will vote for in the primaries. Edwards seems to me to be the most genuine in his promises for change. He knows what he wants, he has an idea about how to go about doing it. He's the only Democratic candidate who I feel like if his campaign promises don't come to fruition, it wouldn't be because they were just empty steppingstones to the oval office.
Don't forget to vote however you're swinging on February 5th!
Posted by Spike at 07:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 22, 2008
Wordless Snowday
Posted by Spike at 10:59 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
Heath Ledger
I know everyone has already heard about this, but here is my two cents. Of all the people in Hollywood, Heath Ledger is one of the last people I would have expected to die of an overdose. What with certain magazines setting up what amounts toa death watch on certain icons of excess, the comparatively quiet Heath Ledger ending up like this is quite a shock. Such a shame too, I thought he was quite talented, and he played such a diversity of roles.
Posted by Spike at 05:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 18, 2008
Colbert Portrait Hung In Smithsonian
It seems that Colbert is the Smithsonian institute's bid for top presidential candidate, albeit in an unusual way. Although Colbert's presidential campaign for president in South Carolina didn't work out so well, the Smithsonian has temporarily honored him, hanging his portrait between the restrooms and over a water fountain in the vicinity of the collection of portraits of actual American presidents. It's great they are playing along with this joke, after stogy old South Carolina wouldn't let him run.
Apparently this painting isn't the only case of Colbert inspiring artists. The Huffington Post had this article about a painting by David Bianculli, featuring an almost frighteningly ripped version of the faux-news anchor.
Now I feel even more wistful about the primaries, knowing how awesome things would be if our actual president inspired Rambo-like portraiture. At least there's always that Radar Magazine cover...even if it is more Penthouse than jungle warrior.
Posted by Spike at 12:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Friday Bulldog
Here's an intrepid bulldog I met in Munich, Germany over the summer. He must have been sure-footed, because I took a close look at those metal mushroom things in the fountain myself, to see if I could balance on them too, and not only were they probably not strong enough to hold a human, they looked pretty slick. So instead the whole group I was with sat around the tiered steps of the fountain and workshopped our poems at dusk, all the while watching this funny little dog doodle around the sculpture. I think he only got one paw wet the whole time, by losing his balance momentarily.
Here's hoping the other Friday creatures don't lose their balance and fall off the ark.
(I know, I know, I'm really reaching with these transitions.)
Posted by Spike at 09:21 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 17, 2008
Snow Luck
For my one year anniversary with Dear Boyfriend, I had a friend in craft school make two matching silver rings for us. It's the only piece of jewelry I wear consistently. However, they have never fit either Dear Boyfriend or I quite right. Mine is too loose when my hand is cold, and a little too tight when my hand is warm. As a result, especially now that it's winter and I'm transitioning between too cold and too warm as I go outside and back in, I've had a couple close calls with the ring. The first one was a few weeks ago, when I spent the night at a friend's house. The ring slipped off my finger in the night. Thankfully, it came back to me a few days later, after my friend found it in the sheets and blankets I'd used that night.
But then I had an even worse mishap occur last night. One of my roommates and I were enjoying the snow, and in our wintery glee I didn't notice that my ring slipped off as I was scooping up snowballs. We looked all around where we'd been frolicking, but with all the snow kicked up we couldn't find it. When I woke up this morning and saw all the snow had melted, I tried looking again. I had just given up when I turned and saw the ring balanced, as if carefully hung, on the tip of a thick grass blade. Needless to say, I'm not having anymore close calls after a string this close together, and seeming to escalate in the miracle factor of finding the damn thing again. My roommate gave me a silver chain to wear the ring on so it can't run off as easily, which I hope will keep it safe for years to come, maybe even until I get to upgrade.
Posted by Spike at 11:33 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
January 16, 2008
Wordless Wednesday
Posted by Spike at 04:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 14, 2008
On Oxford
The UTC newspaper e-mailed me earlier today asking if I wanted to provide a quote about my experience in Oxford last summer. I'm sure they'll only use a sentence or two, but I sent them the paragraph below. I hadn't really tried before this to explain my experience since I got back, and thus gained a little perspective on everything. I thought I'd share the whole bit here. I guess we'll see what they publish.
The Oxford trip, to me, was perfect, because it combined so many experiences and opportunities. On one hand, there was the great opportunity to take two really interesting classes that played off of one another marvelously. Then you add in the field trips Doctors White and Hampton planned and led that took advantage of the fact we were in England, like going to the church that Milton went to in London and The Banqueting house, as well as must-see sites that tied in to our studies more loosely, like the Tower of London. I've said it before and I'll say it again-- those field trips really took advantage of the location and brought Tudor-era history and Milton's writing to life in a significant way, because we weren't limited like we are studying those kinds of topics here at UTC, in the States, to words on a page. You saw that everything really happened, and made a real impact, one that's lasted into today and is still considered important enough that there are sites to visit. Last, you consider the free weekends we had to travel, which was a great opportunity for many students on the trip who had never been abroad before. The long weekends meant we could further take advantage of the location by choosing what we most wanted to see on our down time. I've been lucky enough to travel more than most, but I was thrilled to finally have the chance to travel on my own. My second weekend on the trip I took off to see Dover, Broadstairs, and London all by myself-- a self-guided tour of Charles Dickens' old haunts. There were so many adventures I got myself into, from hopping on a bus that seemed to be going in the right geographic direction and ending up on an impromptu tour of English villages to having to run into some charity shops to buy sweaters since I hadn't packed enough warm clothes. On another weekend I went some other students to Wales, and we split up for a couple of hours so they could see a castle and I could go to a World War II museum in a nearby village. We didn't know the town I was headed to was on the same train route we'd been using the whole time, and we agreed that if I wasn't back in time to catch the train to Oxford they should go on without me. It was a great moment when I was literally running back to the train station, fearing I'd miss coordinated trains when I realized the one I was getting on was simply the route home, one stop up from my friends. They were looking for me on the platform and had the gloomiest faces, thinking they were going to have to abandon me in the wilds of Wales, and I got to surprise them by already being on the train. It was a great crash course in organic traveling, sans tour bus or guides, with a LOT of improvisation. All in all, I learned more that summer in Oxford than in any other five week period of my life, both academically, thanks to Doctors White and Hampton's fabulous teaching and leadership, and personally. You don't know the meaning of self-reliance until you're wandering the rural roads of Wales as it grows dark, is threatening to rain, and you've just been told that your hostel is eight miles away. It was a great summer for getting to know myself, as well as the other students and the professors.
Posted by Spike at 05:30 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
January 13, 2008
Moving
I've had an eventful and exhausting past couple of days, what with moving to a new apartment. My roommate and I decided to help out some friends by moving in with them and giving our old apartment to the new roomates' old roomates. I have some shockingly harsh muscle pain after the heroic effort of carrying great quantities of my stuff by hand in giant ikea bags all over god's green earth, but I'm nicely settled in now and feeling very hopeful and content over the new situation. I just wish I weren't stiffer than a cadaver. My friend Marko gave me a lovely back massage which helped somewhat, but the fact of the matter is I'm just going to be an Advil junkie for a few days until my body mellows out.
I'm going to go partake in my new roomates' tradition; each girl in the apartment has a pair of beverage glasses she can decorate with special glass paint. We end up with a nice set of glasses for various drinks-- wine, martinis, margaritas, champagne-- all done up in the same colors, but with different designs. It's not too matchy-matchy, but they all look nice together displayed up on the top of the entertainment center, and we each have our own glasses for evenings together. I thinking I'm going to do my favorite designs on mine-- skulls and roses. I guess you can tell I grew up in a Grateful Dead household.
Posted by Spike at 10:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 09, 2008
Adventures at the Bus Stop
Since the semester started up again, I've been having a little drama about my housing situation at school. So I'm waiting it out by boycotting my semi-adult apartment and hanging out at my parents' a little longer. This is all fine and dandy-- they have better food and an interesting puppy, both of which can't be found at other accommodations. However, the problem that has presented itself is that a car is no longer a part of my life style, so I'm relying on my wits for transportation. Fortunately, I have easy access to our city's noble bus service, and have begun experimenting with CARTA. I will say that sometimes I could probably walk home in less time than I spend waiting on the damn bus, but then I would miss out on all kinds of interesting things.
Thus far in my three bus-related experiences with getting home, I have been hit on twice by men twice my age. One practically threw himself out of the window of his SUV and cried out "HEY WOMAN! WHY DON'T YOU ROLL WITH ME?!" Today a man saw me walk by and was so intrigued I found him strolling after me inquiring "Can I walk with you?" He then explained to me he lives nearby and wondered if we couldn't go see a movie sometime. Fortunately the next item in his line of questioning was whether or not I have a boyfriend, and fortunately he was suitably discouraged when I said the privilege of accompanying me to movies is already taken.
In addition to these various amorous advances, I witnessed a scene of domestic strife, as a woman began shouting loudly enough into her cellphone outside her duplex that I could hear her half a block away and over the traffic separating our sides of the street. I figured I'd call the cops if the issue came to blows, as her boyfriend/husband/manfriend also exited the premises, presumably to reason with her. I suppose someone else was riled enough about just the noise, since that's all that came of the argument, to call the cops, as two squad cars rolled up while I was still waiting on the bus.
I have to say I'm enjoying this foray into Chattanooga's public transit. The people watching is good, and I feel more involved in the goings on, even if I'm not doing much besides observing from my bench or bus seat. It offers a nice break in the day to meditate, and I get good stories to tell. It's been a while since I had many good stories about me. I usually end up telling my version of other people's stories, since everyone I know has heard all my really great ones by now. It's a good sign then I ended up enjoying my bus ride so much yesterday I forgot to get off at my stop and had to back track on foot. Hopefully I'll update my party repertoire.
Posted by Spike at 04:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Wordless Wednesday
Posted by Spike at 04:06 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
January 06, 2008
Motherjones Cosplay Photo Essay
As someone who aspired to cosplay in her teenage years more than she every really achieved that goal, and as someone who suffered the continued (and more successful) cosplaying of her friends after she lost interest in the hobby herself, I thought this little photo essay on the Mother Jones website was pretty interesting.
Cosplay is a pretty bizarre phenomenon if considered in the context of mainstream attitudes about fandom, role playing, and fashion. But I think it's a fabulous hobby that keeps languishing fabric outlets afloat and gets a lot of people into deteriorating arts like sewing and costuming. Plus it speaks highly of the anime and manga that inspire cosplay. I do wonder if literature conferences like AWP would be enlivened by such public, personal demonstrations of love for an author's characters and the world they've created. Some serious lit fans might think that would be a bit kitschy or distracting from the process of analysis in favor of "mere" emulation, but with as much delight as I've gotten from running into my favorite Japanese characters at the old Anime Weekend Atlanta convention I always went to as a teen, I wouldn't mind running into a few Owen Meanys, Jane Eyres, or Offreds. Roberta Muldroon from The World According To Garp could be fun. I suppose my lit cosplay fantasy fails beyond the realm of costume dramas of the Masterpiece Theater sort, since it would seem everyone was simply coming as eccentrically dressed non-characters. Which in turn highlights another great aspect of actual anime-inspired cosplay-- just take a look at those photos in the Mother Jones essay and tell me when you get to play high-fashion dress up anymore. Such a transformation is reserved for a small elite group of models and actors, and I'm pretty glad cosplay is out there as another means of tapping into that creativity and otherness for the everyman, or everychick.
Posted by Spike at 11:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
What Privileges Do You Have?
This is an interesting meme I've seen floating mainly around Livejournal. According to Moriarty6 over there, this is "from "What Privileges Do You Have?", based on an exercise about class and privilege developed by Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, Stacy Ploskonka at Indiana State University" and he notes that if you fill out the meme, the creators ask that you credit them.
I don't know entirely how much I agree with this, not having looked into these folks' research a whole lot. One one hand, privilege is privilege, but on the other hand I have known some folks over the years who could mark a lot of these statements as true for them, who I would consider coming from a background of interrupted privilege in terms of poverty, government intervention in their family life, mental illness, etc. Privilege to me is what you have backing you up to increase your odds of success. Like Wikipedia points out, privilege isn't just a matter of wealth or indicators of wealth, but is a matter of political power as well.
However you want to consider it, this meme is interesting at least as a reminder that some things our middle-class centric pop-culture has deemed overwhelmingly normal (like college being the new high school, being grade 13) isn't really true, which is in turn a reminder of how much we try to hide and ignore class issues, especially on the poorer end of the spectrum. It's also an interesting reminder of how complex class issues are, and how far they extend beyond simply what kind of job you have (if you have one) and how much money you have in the bank.
Continue reading "What Privileges Do You Have?"
Posted by Spike at 02:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 04, 2008
Friday Creature
A little less than a month ago, my mom posted on her blog about the neighborhood hawk laying some teenage whoopass down on an unfortunate squirrel. She mentions in the post she was "headed out," and that errand was to pick me up from school. On the way home she was telling me about the hawk and mentioned we might be able to catch it before it flew away if it was still chowing down. I had a better zoom on my camera at the time (my dad got her a good zoom lens for her camera for Christmas, so the playing field is leveled now) which worked out well since the hawk did not like an audience for its lunch. It took off from its lower perch in a tree, forcing us to snap shots of it up on the telephone pole. This is what I got, although I can assure you it's nothing like what my mom would get if she zipped back in time with that new lens.
Check out the other critters this Friday on the ark/.
Posted by Spike at 11:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 03, 2008
It's Cold? In TENNESSEE?
I'm not binding myself to wordless-ness on this one, since there isn't the binding alliterative power of the Wordless Wednesday, although I'm linking this to the Thursday edition they run now.
Most Chattanoogans are probably familiar with the quaint little fireman fountain in the middle of Georgia Ave, but I caught the lucky shot of it in one of its rare, but always gorgeous, frozen states when Dear Boyfriend had to stop at the intersection for just long enough for me to lunge into the back seat and snap this out the window from the passenger seat.
Posted by Spike at 05:47 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
New Hampshire, Caucuses, and John Irving
All Christmas break I've been happily enjoying some pleasure reading. First on my list I picked up John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany, and I'm sad to say I'm still working my way through it. The break has simply been too exciting and busy to devote as much time to reading as I'd like. So I've been spending the afternoon trying to get through some more of it as the spring semester looms in the near future. My mom happens to have the caucus coverage on TV, and I couldn't help but smile at the coincidence* of looking forward to the New Hampshire caucus while reading a novel set in that state by an author fairly obsessed with that place.
Owen Meany has turned out to be a timely read for me, as one of its major themes is religion, and different ways of approaching Christianity and religion in general both personally and denominationally. It's interesting to read a book with these themes keeping in mind it was published in 1989 and looks back to the 1950s and 60s. Another dimension to that is that I can't help but compare the novel's perspective to the struggles with faith I saw and experienced last year in college, living with a devout Christian and often seeing her aggressively faithful boyfriend, and my other roommate who's family has pulled her through a gamut of conservative denominations though she herself is a more mild-mannered personal-relationship-with-the-lord kind of gal.
The religious themes tie in to the election naturally, somewhat, with candidates like Huckabee and Romney in the race, and trends we've seen in the past eight years. What really inspired this post, however, is a little paragraph I ran across that seems to sum up our general national political landscape as well as the novel sums up a broad spectrum of religious styles.
It's a very pleasant synchronicity in reading a novel that portrays a broad spectrum of religious and political views through the characters populating a fictional New Hampshire town as when the New Hampshire caucus is supposed to be a preview of national primary trends.
*Of course, the novel repeatedly makes clear that Owen Meany himself does not believe in coincidences, so perhaps this afternoon and my pondering was preordained.
Posted by Spike at 04:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 02, 2008
Wordless Wednesday
Posted by Spike at 03:14 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
January 01, 2008
Happy New Year and All That
The Boyfriend and I went up to Johnson City, Tennessee yesterday afternoon to visit some compadres of ours, one of whom was prevented from joining in the sort revelry that occurs when we get together by the fact she is about to hit her third trimester in the wacky world of pregnancy. It was a big party and I got to see a lot of old friends, which is always a treat. Alex had a good time as well, though he was less familiar with many of the folks there. Once again, as my mom recently proved in a series of posts on her blog, Chattanooga is a small town for such a big city. I was introduced to a girl last night who goes to med school up at MTSU but has been friends for a long time with the older sister of a girl I went to high school with and have continued to run into before her recent move out west. It's bizarre to be so seemingly far removed from home-town business and to have someone you've never met before shout from across the room, "Hey, you hung out with so-and-so a while back, didn't you?"
On another New Years note, I'm not so into resolutions (too depressing, as they set you up for failure in February) but I do have some long term goals I've been working at for a while now and might as well share.
*Exercise 5 days a week (just got a new jump rope!)
*Keep trying to eat better (more veggies, less meat/fat)
*Keep up going out with Alex once a week for some us time
*Clean up more regularly, not make messes or let them go as long
*Make dates with myself to relax by doing something better than surfing the internet endlessly
*Enforced recreational reading!!!
*Volunteer somewhere
*Enjoy the now (sometimes my mom has good advice)
Posted by Spike at 05:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack