The Oscars: Could Tilda Swinton look more like Conan O'Brien?
I often rail against annual awards because they contain an inextricable fallacy: too much depends on the year, so great movies can go unrecognized and bad ones can win because of their competition. But when I actually get to watch the Oscars, I remember how freaking fun it is! There are so many movies I want to see, or want even more badly to see, after tonight. It feeds my starry-eyed admiration of artists, and if it doesn't, I get to criticize their dresses.
My favorite moments from this year:
-Helen Mirren poetically presenting Best Actor. May I be like her when I'm her age.
-The song from Once winning over three from Enchanted.
-The writer of said song getting a second chance to give thanks after she got cut off.
-Jon Stewart existing.
-TV Guide Channel's red carpet coverage, specifically the hairdo analysis done by white marks on the screen like in football.
-Those adorable freres Coen pulling simultaneously on their earlobes. Watch a tandem interview and note how they have the same mannerisms at the same time. And they're not even twins!
-Marion Cotillard thanking life.
Prom 2.0!
My friend published a novel, and her book release party was a prom. I got a kiss on my gloved hand, a "Rachel's my favorite person in the world," a flurry of variations on "You look nice," and a nice warm feeling all evening. The book's sequel is scheduled to come out in February 2009, so we're already planning for the next prom!
On the way there, another friend brought up the song "Yakkity Yak," and I said it brought back memories; my dad used to sing it to me, "That and--oh, what was the other one? I can't think of it..." My friend jumped in with "Splish Splash," phrased not as a question but as an answer. Shockingly, that was exactly the song I meant! I'd definitely never told her that. She said those songs are universal, sung by all dads to all daughters, but I'm not so sure. I think it explains a lot about why we get along so well.
My last few weekends have been characterized by natural unplanned movement from one activity to the next: walking to shopping to slacklining to dancing downtown, for example. I relish that picaresque episodic quality in a day, the sense that I'm really living and loving every minute of it in the most cliche but deeply right way. The quality of my company is sometimes hard to believe, it's so high. The extent to which I'm a raging extrovert is becoming laughably clear. I'll let Walt Whitman say what I'm feeling:
"I have perceived that to be with those I like is enough,
To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,
To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough,
To pass among them or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly round his or her neck for a moment, what is this then?
I do not ask any more delight, I swim in it as a sea.
There is something in staying close to men and women and looking on them, and in the contact and odor of them, that pleases the soul well,
All things please the soul, but these please the soul well."
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Friday, February 15, 2008
Picture Books
I just finished Into the Wild, which was formidable and heartbreaking and sexy and informative, everything I want in a book.
Except pictures.
Are a few photos too much to ask, people? In this case, OK, maybe the family didn't want to publish them, but think of all the other pictureless books. I challenge you to name one nonfiction book that would not benefit from photographs. Really. Post a comment if you can think of one. You can't, can you? Ha. Didn't think so.
Hillary and Barack, McCain, other front-runners, if you're reading this, here's a plank for your platform: mandatory photos for nonfiction books. You'd have my vote. Also, higher salaries for teachers and lower ones for professional athletes and other entertainers. Also farm subsidies for organic growers. Alternative energy. Get out of Iraq. Health care for everyone.
Oh, Lord, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I try not to use the word never, so I'll say some of that stuff is, um, not going to happen. For every truth I see as painfully obvious, someone is exactly as convinced of the opposite. For every Daily Show I watch, there's a half-hour of, I don't know, the actual footage it makes fun of, soaking into someone's tender brain. And while I call things painfully obvious, I just mean to me--after all the books I've read, all the conversations I've had, the towns I've lived in, while other people grew up with different books, talks, and towns. So, a little scarily, "obvious" means nothing, nearly anyone can defend his convictions as well as I do mine, and everything, y'all, everything, is relative. The truth is always ours, no matter who "us" is.
Ha! All that from a tongue-in-cheek rant about photos in books. So I guess I've decided to laugh.
Except pictures.
Are a few photos too much to ask, people? In this case, OK, maybe the family didn't want to publish them, but think of all the other pictureless books. I challenge you to name one nonfiction book that would not benefit from photographs. Really. Post a comment if you can think of one. You can't, can you? Ha. Didn't think so.
Hillary and Barack, McCain, other front-runners, if you're reading this, here's a plank for your platform: mandatory photos for nonfiction books. You'd have my vote. Also, higher salaries for teachers and lower ones for professional athletes and other entertainers. Also farm subsidies for organic growers. Alternative energy. Get out of Iraq. Health care for everyone.
Oh, Lord, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I try not to use the word never, so I'll say some of that stuff is, um, not going to happen. For every truth I see as painfully obvious, someone is exactly as convinced of the opposite. For every Daily Show I watch, there's a half-hour of, I don't know, the actual footage it makes fun of, soaking into someone's tender brain. And while I call things painfully obvious, I just mean to me--after all the books I've read, all the conversations I've had, the towns I've lived in, while other people grew up with different books, talks, and towns. So, a little scarily, "obvious" means nothing, nearly anyone can defend his convictions as well as I do mine, and everything, y'all, everything, is relative. The truth is always ours, no matter who "us" is.
Ha! All that from a tongue-in-cheek rant about photos in books. So I guess I've decided to laugh.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
The other day, our department had a poetry reading. At the reception afterward, I was keeping an eye on a friend because I needed to talk to her before she left. Every time I glanced across the room at her and three others, including a professor, they were all laughing and smiling so genuinely, having such fun and enjoying each other. And I thought, "That's what it's all about." Our program is so special because it's really a community and everyone puts energy into making that a priority. I take it for granted until I hear about other writing programs where no one sees each other outside of class, everyone is cutthroat-competitive, and they're just not friends. Then I feel very fortunate and blessed. I mean, yesterday I went ice-skating with friends from my program. How many people at Iowa or the other "top" writing programs can say that?
Friday, February 8, 2008
TV, AWP, NYC
Watching Ace of Cakes yesterday, I realized just why I like it so darn much: it's a happy, happy show. No one is competing. No one is arguing, really. No one is crying because they have to confront their demons or fear of change. It's a show about artists. Artists having fun. And who doesn't love that? Even if it does make you hungry.
Speaking of artists having fun, I spent the weekend in New York at the Associated Writing Programs conference, and it was a very edifying, enjoyable, and inspiring event. I came home raring to write, write, write, and then to submit stuff for publication, which is not an urge I get often. I ate some formidable pizza (it is true, what they say about New York pizza. Just when you thought regular pizza was perfect...) and very authentic baguette at Le Pain Quotidien, which made me think I should move there (move to the restaurant, I mean, not New York). Sharon Olds's reading was probably the conference highlight for me, all the more a treat because I went to see the person she was reading with, not really her, and she was waaaaay better. The dance was funny because, like, most writers are nerds, and most of them were really breaking it down. One of my friends remarked on the strangeness of (and need for) social gatherings of writers: "We're all writers, you know [meaning introverts], so [at the book fair booths] I'm hoping they don't say anything to me besides hello, and they're probably hoping I don't say anything but hello." Very true for me, too. It was a good time, and I look forward to next year's conference in Chicago.
Speaking of artists having fun, I spent the weekend in New York at the Associated Writing Programs conference, and it was a very edifying, enjoyable, and inspiring event. I came home raring to write, write, write, and then to submit stuff for publication, which is not an urge I get often. I ate some formidable pizza (it is true, what they say about New York pizza. Just when you thought regular pizza was perfect...) and very authentic baguette at Le Pain Quotidien, which made me think I should move there (move to the restaurant, I mean, not New York). Sharon Olds's reading was probably the conference highlight for me, all the more a treat because I went to see the person she was reading with, not really her, and she was waaaaay better. The dance was funny because, like, most writers are nerds, and most of them were really breaking it down. One of my friends remarked on the strangeness of (and need for) social gatherings of writers: "We're all writers, you know [meaning introverts], so [at the book fair booths] I'm hoping they don't say anything to me besides hello, and they're probably hoping I don't say anything but hello." Very true for me, too. It was a good time, and I look forward to next year's conference in Chicago.
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