March 17, 2008

The Probably Neverending Story

I sincerely apologize for the following story, and you may wonder after reading it how I could write this kind of thing. The answer of course is somewhat easily, but only because it actually happened.

I'm in a photography class. Last week in our last class before spring break - oh, by the way HALLELUJAH - we went outside and took a roll of film, just for kicks.

We were kind of trying to make a spectacle of ourselves, and take pictures of what we were doing in the process. So we took pictures of all of us standing really close together, frozen in motion (with me and another girl beating up our TA) and, my personal favorite, of us standing on either side of a bike path applauding bikers as they rolled by, just like in the Tour de France. Except, um...not really. At all.
We were having a good time, and were trying to think of someway to incorporate random people in our picture on purpose. We didn't know who they would be, but we wanted it to be, again, somewhat of a spectacle.

Then, we saw Soren.

Soren was a guy standing at the end of a walking bridge holding a sign that said Dick Cheney should be impeached. Completely alone. He said a rehearsed line to all that passed about constitutional violations and the like, and he became our random person.
A brave person in our group went up to him and asked if he would be ok with being in one of our pictures and, being the obviously, um, outgoing guy that he was, he agreed. We all walked over and explained the picture we would take. The class would sit in a semi-circle around him and he would start talking, or start to pretend to talk to us like we were little kids and he was telling us a story. Probably about habeus corpus or something equally enthralling.
Then something happened that I can neither explain, nor recall without reeling back in disgust, as I probably will be doing for eternity.
He turned to my TA (who had the camera) and said,

"I don't want to be in any pictures unless someone shows some nipple."


. . . .


Yeah. I wish I were kidding. Really I do.
My TA replied that those weren't really the kind of pictures we were taking, but....
Soren said ok, but could he provide the, um, requested uh, yeah?

Sure.

?

So the picture, which I'm sure will be a gem, shows about 15 college students sitting at the end of a bridge in front of a weird bearded man, holding a sign with the words "Impeach Cheney" on it, who happens to be obviously exposing one side of his chest.

As we walked away, he handed some of us business cards, which really were just pieces of paper about the size of playing cards with his name and email on them. His name - Soren Sorenson. I wish I had been surprised, because then the whole thing might have been just a little funnier. Alas, it is merely mildly nauseating.

March 11, 2008

Coming Soon: Something I'm Excited About

Marlee Matlin is going to be on Dancing With the Stars this season.

I am already amazed.

Not only is she awesome (because she was on the West Wing. Oh, and won an academy award...) but she is also deaf. How cool is that? Not, of course that she is deaf, but the fact that she's going to participate in a dancing competition broadcast on national television. Still, it makes me wonder if from now on the producers are purposely going to look for unlikely candidates for participants. Just think, next time they could pick someone that was blind, and then the season after that someone in a wheelchair or who needed to use crutches all the time and then finally they'd let Lisa Rinna on, only because she fits into this category what with her, shall we say, intellectual failings.*
I have to admit that I am pretty excited for this season. Penn Jillette is going to be a contestant, so he's definitely going to trash talk the judges every chance he gets, and Kristi Yamaguchi - my childhood icon, I think because of our shared names - will also be tearing it up on the dancefloor. (Yeah, I was just that corny.) She has a bit of an advantage what with her actual career, figure skating, closely resembling dancing, although not as much as its new Olympic rival (and massive waste of time, might I add) ice dancing.

If ever a celebrity ice dancing competition began on television, we'd really be in trouble.


*And yes, I called Lisa Rinna retarded. Deal. With. It.

March 7, 2008

Medium Stature Tales

It has been a while since I have updated my blog, so I have thus decided to relate several events that I have experienced in the last several weeks.

#1 - The Bus

I ride the bus quite a bit. Last Sunday, I sat down behind a little kid. He was probably around six or seven and at first I thought he was alone before I saw another kid a few seats away that I guessed may have been his brother. Even so, they were pretty young to be on the bus alone, but whatever, I'm not Dr. Phil and therefore am not going to condemn their parents for being irresponsible. I'm guessing that's what he does as I have, I am proud to say, never watched his show. Anyway, I was sitting there minding my own business when out of nowhere I see the six year old chewing on the cord you tug on when you get to your stop. I tried to look away and think of interesting or, at least, less disgusting things, but at this I utterly failed. I was transfixed. I understand that he's six and a boy, but this was just so gross!! I could not think of one reason, other than maybe coercion that someone would chew on something that many people grab daily and are probably never cleaned.
Then I saw it. This kid had a piece of gum that he would pull out of his mouth in a long-ish quarter inch strip, wrap around the yellow cord then proceed to chew off.
Ick.
It was wrong on so many levels. I really wanted to tell him to stop, but didn't.


#2 - Music

There are many times that I listen to music on the way to or from class. On this I am certainly not alone, but usually I don't have my music too loud because I'm afraid of dying and becoming a statistic. Seriously, would you want to be on the news because of your tragic bike/mailtruck collision death and have the newscast conclude with "The victim was reportedly wearing headphones and therefore did not hear the screams of small children as the truck began to tip over. She was 19."
Anyway...I was walking to class last week, sans headphones, and as a girl with earbuds walked past me, I heard the music blaring out of the tiny speakers and then, the most depressing part, realized that I could tell what band she was actually listening to. It was really sad.
Oh, and it was Coldplay.


#3 - Oprah

I like Oprah, but sometimes I just want to shake her.
Lately I have been watching her show when I'm home and today she had Vera Wang and the director and cast of Across the Universe as guests.
I like Vera Wang. She's been on Project Runway a couple of times, and she seems like a very nice person and is obviously very good at what she does. (Particularly the marketing aspect - i.e. she's on Oprah. Probably best PR move of the year.) This part of the show was good. While I didn't like all of the clothes she showed, there were some cool things and she's selling stuff at Kohl's now which I think is very respectable for a designer - making good clothes more accessible to "normal" people.
The Across the Universe segment however....not such a fan.
Let me say first that it was a very daring film that took a lot of work and I respect that. But...it was probably the worst movie I've seen in a long time. Well, since Step Up at least.
First of all, it was the most predictable movie I have seen since, well, Step Up actually. (Which, may I say, I was forced to see. I want my $7 and wasted 2 hours back. No joke.) As far as acting goes, the main guy wasn't bad, except his haircut annoyed the crap out of me - it was half mullet half hockey hair - not a combination I would recommend. Evan Rachel Wood was basically the same character she always plays. Naive, sometimes "depressed", sometimes "happy", sometimes "mad", but never committing to anything resembling emotion or conviction. The rest of the cast was dismal, except for the guitar player from Detroit. He was the highlight of the movie for me. Not only could he actually act, sing, and play the guitar really, really well (at least I think it was him...) his character was actually genuine and had a story that made some sort of sense. The music was okay, but the whole time I was waiting for Rufus Wainwright to show up and sing Across the Universe. His version is flat out amazing, so naturally I was disappointed when they sang it in the movie. I will admit that I liked Hey Jude, but this was not enough to redeem the crap fest that is this movie.
Oprah apparently LOVED this movie and so had the director on. The funny thing was that she talked just as much about the Broadway version of Lion King (which the director of AtU created or something, I'm still not sure) than the movie before bringing out some of the cast to sing a medley.
I don't think I'm alone on this, but does anyone else find musical guests on tv shows awkward? Especially when they're just singing with a tape (as in today) and standing there with one hand in their pocket. It's just weird.


#4 - My thumb

Prety much just to entertain myself, here's an updated picture of the thumb. Fortunately it doesn't hurt anymore, but oh how lovely it has become.....