Yeah, I went to Sex and the City on opening day. In the middle of the day. BECAUSE I CAN.
This movie is so far from deserving any of the hate and scorn that has been heaped upon it that I am going to go on record as saying that anyone who has gone off on it like that is not on the same planet as I am. I'm not saying everyone should like it -- maybe it's not your cup of tea. But to hate it and especially to call it shallow? You watched the movie through some wormhole, and typed out your strange, angry little reviews from afar with all twelve of your brittle, praying mantis-like arms. (But if our universe dies someday and humanity has to escape through a wormhole to your universe, please forget the whole praying mantis arms thing. Here are some compliments in advance: "Oh my God! There's not an inch of flab on any of those well-toned arms! Are you working out?")
My friend Emily said the Los Angeles Times had the best review and I agree. From the review: "Michael Patrick King, who executive produced the show (with series creator Darren Star) and wrote and directed the movie, has done some brave, surprising things with it, mining territory that's been all but abandoned by Hollywood. It's hard, in fact, to think of any other recent examples of movies that explore the complicated emotional lives of characters comically without stooping to adolescent silliness or that are willing to go to such dark places while remaining a comedy in the Shakespearean sense ..."
This movie is actually wonderfully deep, sweet and tender. I keep wanting to quote this LA Times review. "For a film that delights in indulging in frivolity at every possible turn, it examines subjects that most movies don't dare graze for their terrifying seriousness. And when it does, the movie handles them with surprising grace, wit and maturity. In other words, it's a movie for grown-ups of all ages."
I was a little afraid going, how could it possibly meet my expectations? But the girls (and everyone else behind this movie, of course) done good. They hit it out of the park. Well done, SATC cast and crew. And thank you.
Something called the World Science Festival is going on in New York. It started last night and I went to one of their events. This one began with a screening of a movie that was made by indie musician Mark Oliver Everett about his father, physicist Hugh Everett, who came up with the theory of parallel worlds. The film was titled Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives. Afterwards there was a talk with Mark and physicists Michio Kaku, Max Tegmark, and another physicist who acted as moderator, Brian Cox.
Before I forget, this movie is going to be on PBS in the Fall. See it. It's funny, I mean really funny, and sweet, and you will learn about physics in a completely painless way. I finally got one thing I have been trying to get for years.
Anyway, I'm so excited now. Loved this subject. The main room filled up and so they put some of us (me, alas) in a room upstairs and we watched via closed circuit TV. I didn't get a chance to ask a question and I was DYING to. I'm going to try emailing Max Tegmark and hope that he doesn't ignore me. I know he won't be thrilled by my question, but I'm going to give it a shot. I want to ask if parallel worlds could explain the effects the Duke guys found. The answers Tegmark and Kaku gave to other questions seemed to indicate it was possible. "No matter how big something is it can be in two places," is something Tegmark said. He seems to be saying that what they were talking about doesn't only occur sub-atomically. When asked about communication between universes the answer from Kaku gave seemed to be: maybe someday, by very advanced civilizations.
I just worry that Tegmark will put me in the same category as this woman who asked about talking to dead people. She may have been a very nice person, and maybe she was just nervous, but she asked an ill-formed, not at all thought-out question in a crazy person way and no one wanted to respond to her. Kaku actually gave her a great answer. He seems like a nice man. He answered her using an example from the beginning of the Q&A, where he had said in another universe Elvis is alive. (Meaning, in another universe, Elvis made healthier choices with his life, didn't OD, etc.) If it were possible to communicate with the Elvis in another universe, he pointed out, you wouldn't be talking to the ghost of Elvis, you'd be talking to a live Elvis. In other words, forget about communicating with your dead mother, see if you can find your live mother in a parallel world. (Except you may not exist in that parallel world so she wouldn't know you!) Not that he was encouraging her. Except, as crazy as that sounds, based on their previous answers, it could be possible.
So next week is my birthday!
And this haunts me. When longing for peace I tell myself that in order to have it I have to accept that as I check off things from my to-do list, I will always be adding things, and that won't end until I'm dead. That said, I love checking things off my to-do list.
I'm meeting with a lawyer at my publisher today. I enjoy discussing legal issues, they're like fun puzzles, but I'm sure that I will walk out of that meeting with a longer list of things to do. And the list of things to do with this book is already rather large. You're not done when you finish the book.
Next comes: getting people to buy it. I don't enjoy this part. It feels unseemly at times, although it does have its good moments. I've started a marketing plan. Here are some of the items from that to-do list:
- Get pitches ready for monthly mags by September. "Is God a Ghost?" (Maybe use that theme, or one like it, for a panel or presentation.)
- Put together list of fun events, ie, seances, EVP recording at a haunted house, etc.
- Write pitch for a local haunted house story.
- Come up with a couple of lectures/presentations.
- Put together a list of possible colleges (and other organizations, societies, etc.) who might be interested in a lecture or panel.
- Create Unbelievable blog.
- Come up with ideas for YouTube video.
- Explore how to use Facebook to promote book. And Twitter.
- Look into Adsense.
The picture is of J.B. Rhine, the head of the Duke Parapsychology Lab. He was a handsome, alternately intense/sweet man.
I've reached that time of life. I have friends who have sons in rock bands. Steven Levy and Teresa Carpenter's son Andrew is a singer and the bass guitarist for a band called Great Jones Street and they played at Don Hill's this past weekend. Andrew is the one in the middle in a tie. They were so great and it was a lot of fun. The rest of the band members are Daniel Bernstein, lead guitar, Alex Lundberg, guitar and vocals, and Jareb Gleckel on the drums. All very talented. And cute.
My next door neighbor Beth and her son Malique were nice enough to join me, and since we were already out and about we went to a late show of the new Indiana Jones movie. Kind of a perfect holiday weekend night. I took a great picture of Teresa, and Holly, the mother of the guitarist on the right, but I didn't think to ask them if I could post it here and generally I like to err on the side of caution with this blog, so my friends and I can live together in cyberspace in peace and harmony!
It's been a while since I posted a dress I couldn't possess. I don't really want to possess this one, although I like it. It's just not for me. I wish I could say I took this shot with these lovely leaf reflections on purpose but I didn't notice them at the time. It's like a quiet fireworks display of leaves.
About Bones. I read an interview with the creator saying something along the lines of "as long as it gets people talking." I hate when people justify bad moves with this kind of logic. You could have Seeley plunge a knife into the heart of Bones, killing her instantly, and that would have people talking, but does it make narrative, emotional sense? I loved the whole Gormogon thread, and to wrap it up so hastily and badly and with Zack as the apprentice? Zack?? Come on. Please. That was out of nowhere and is simply not plausible, there is no history to explain Zack going along with this serial killer AND committing murder. It was just so stupid, from a show that has never been stupid. What happened to everyone over there? Seriously. What pushed you to this? I know you know better.
Tomorrow I will talk about the horror of the Bones finale, but today I have to talk about So You Think You Can Dance because it premieres tonight and I'm determined to get everyone to try this show this year. It's my favorite reality show and I honestly think it's something special and you will thank me for this.
I've posted this before I believe, but I loved Heather Armstrong's (Dooce) piece about the show. Some highlights:
"... the true success of the show is that it doesn't go to great lengths to exploit a contestant's weakness or failure. What makes this show so great is that it celebrates just how magnificently the contestants can move their bodies.
"Few reality shows, if any, have ever given me chills like this one has, and while watching "So You Think You Can Dance" this summer I have cried more than once when a street dancer has realized that his world can be so much bigger ... watching these young kids who have never danced anything but hip hop pick up a slow waltz as if they have been practicing it for years has been some of the most inspiring television I have ever watched. I have discovered that I like watching people dance just as much, if not more, than I like listening to people sing ...
"... every week it has put me square in the middle of a new dance routine, an exhilarating new style, as new for me as it is for the dancers, and in the relative solitude of my living room I can feel at least for a few thrilling minutes as if the rhythm is moving through my own feet."
Please, please, please give it a try. Hang in there during the auditions part, whether you like that part or not. You need it to get to know the dancers, but the show really comes alive once the finalists are picked.
What I love as mich as the dancers, which Heather alludes to at the end, is that it's also just as much about the choreographers who really try to come up with new and exciting routines weeks after week, some of which rise to the level of art.
If you get into it, you will want to go to this url after the shows, it's a blog for fans:
http://bloggingsytycd.blogspot.com/
My undergraduate degree is in fine arts, and while I was a student my fellow male students were always asking the girls if they could draw or paint them, naked of course. Hey, I don’t blame them for taking a shot, and some were sincere, but come on. It was about getting to see girls naked. I always said no. At the same time, I wasn't against the idea, and I was too modest and wanted to get past that. So when an artist named Craig McPherson who was older and a little further along in his career asked I went to an old ice factory in Washington Heights and took off my clothes.
Sometime later my friend Chris saw this drawing and said, "That's Stacy Horn's butt!" I've always loved that part of the story. We've been best friends since we were 12--I guess she’d seen my butt enough to know it, even transformed in another medium.
I don't believe I ever saw Craig again, but he emailed me a couple of weeks ago and generously sent me the drawings he made that day. I am just so thrilled to have them. I absolutely love them. Isn't this beautiful? The second one was too big for my scanner, but it's lovely, too. Here is Craig's website. I love his work. I am patting myself on the back for having such good judgement. I'm drawn to the same things he is visually, he sees the city as I see it. This dark, industrial, smoldering, clanking, fiery city. He has a mural down at the World Financial Center (commissioned by American Express) that I have to go see. A detective that I was talking to when I found out said he knew it well. Craig also has a show up right now at the Frick in Pittsburgh, if you're in the area.
Thank you so much for these drawings, Craig. As I said, I will treasure them. Thank you.
They don't usually cuddle like this. Normally they just hang out in the same general area, like in the photograph below this one.
This is what they usually do, hang out a foot or two from each other. It's like they're saying, "I like you, but I don't love you. Let's keep this straight." But secretly, they love each other.
I couldn't stay very long this year, I was meeting some old friends for lunch, and I missed my favorite part, all the hip hop dancers, but here are some dancing drummers I liked.
I didn't watch the first few seasons of American Idol, so I missed Fantasia's season. And whenever I saw her on something I never got her. This week I got her. I mean, my jaw just dropped her performance was so great. I know some people were "wtf" like Simon, but she just blew me away. Her and her smoking hot back-up girls. Everyone else, the other contestants, now seem like lifeless, personality-less, walking dead zombies next to her, I'm sorry to say. I'm not sure it comes across in this YouTube video, but it was just freaking amazing.
"Oh, did you want to work here? My sitting on your laptop isn't working for you? Oh, you mean now? Move now? Me? You're reaching for me. Maybe you just want to pet me. Or play. Maybe I just need to flip over on my back. Here. On your laptop. No, I'm just messing with you. I know you want me to move. Hey. Check it out. Look how big I am. I cover the whole laptop and more."
Tonight my choir rehearses with the orchestra. Love this part. I don't totally love where I'm going to stand. I'm the first person on the left in the front row. I like being surrounded by singers. But maybe the few people around me will be great singers and I will love my spot. Besides, there's over 100 of us and sometimes you get a great spot, sometimes you don't. It's the luck of the draw, you win some, you lose some. The good part is being right up against the orchestra.
Love my cover, just love it. I had wanted the subtitle to mention the Duke Parapsychology Lab, but the publisher wanted something broader and this is what they went with. It's fine. The inside flap copy and the back cover will go into how the book is about J. B. Rhine and a group of scientists at Duke who conducted the investigations and experiments.
I love it because it's so eye-catching, and graphically striking and I think it will get people to pick up the book, and I believe if they just read a paragraph or two they will buy it. It actually makes me think of the Invisible Man before ghost, but that's a good association and the subtitle quickly makes it clear.
So, the book comes out in March, which is less than a year away! It feels like tomorrow practically, to me. Scared! Scared about what reviewers will say. Scared about what the scientific community will say (if they take note of it at all).
Scared,
scared,
scared,
nervous,
scared,
but of course I can't wait.
At least I will be waiting in my can't-possibly-be-cleaner apartment! The picture is a little dark, which makes my place look kind of dreary, but I was experimenting with taking pictures without the flash. It's actually quite cheery in here.
This photograph by James Hill was in the Times yesterday. There are just so many amazingly talented people in the world. Look at this. It was from a story about Russia, I believe.
The mini-vacation I gave myself ended yesterday, so it's back to work today. I'm so blue. Plus it's a cold, rainy, cheerless day, weather-wise. My carpet will be returned this morning, all nice and clean, so there's that. Sigh. I need something to cheer me up. A nice surprise or something. Good news about something. Something!
Oh, before I forget, there were lilacs all over the place in New Paltz, and they smelled how lilacs are supposed to smell. You get anywhere near them and you get a blast of their wonderful scent. So, it's just Manhattan and Brooklyn lilacs that are, alas, sub-standard.
Update: Deborah has totally correctly identified the bird as a red-winged blackbird.
I went to a friend's house warming party in New Paltz and there was this great pond across the street where I saw the bird in the second shot, which I couldn't identify, and this one, which is a heron, but the only reason I know that is because someone walked by and told me it was a heron. He stood so still that at first I thought he wasn't real. I thought he was a statue that someone placed in the pond. (Really. I thought that.)
The second bird was black with an orange spot. Does anyone know what kind of bird he is?
- T-shirt.
- Socks.
- Goggles.
- Goggles with lights.
- Flashlight. (Actually I moved that to my daily backpack after seeing the movie Cloverfield. Now, when a monster rampages New York and I am hiding in a subway, I will be able to see the smaller monsters that fell from the big monster when they come after me.)
- Toilet paper.
- Duct tape.
- Face mask thing.
- Matches.
- A tube of first aid stuff that they gave away at some City thing I went to on emergency preparedness. Not sure what is in there. It will be a surprise.
- Extra pair of glasses.
- Scissors.
- Screwdriver.
- Sharpie pen.
- Power bars.
- First Aid manual.
- A whistle.
- $100 in mostly small bills, because stores may not have change in an emergency.
- Gauze pads.
- A plastic bag containing info about my cats, out-dated forms that say they had their rabies shots (must get current forms) and a list of hotels that take cats.
- Tags with my cats name on them and my name and cellphone number.
- A plastic bag with info about me, birth certificate, social security number, phone numbers of family, friends, doctors.
- First aid kit, the zipper on the bag is broken. It's got prescriptions, girl stuff, sun block, toothbrush, floss, Motrin, more gauze, bandaids, and lots of Imodium because my worst fear in a terrorist attack or tornado is to have bathroom issues and no bathroom.
I used to have an extra pair of sneakers and a pair of jeans in there, but I don't currently have extra sneakers or jeans to spare.
That's a shot of the Verrazano Bridge taken from a street in Sunset Park, Queens (where I now want to live). I love that bridge. UPDATE Sunset Park is in Brooklyn. I must have been suffering from cleaning exhaustion when I wrote that.
So today should be the last day of my Spring cleaning, and all that will be left is the return of my freshly cleaned livingroom rug. Oh, the bliss I will feel then. I will get a pedicure and walk barefoot on my nice clean rug while looking around and admiring my work.
I had a horrible horrible day yesterday due to this company that I had hired to reinstall my air conditioner for me. They are called Airwave, and they have a good reputation in the city, but they were just an absolute nightmare. I will post the story tomorrow after I've recovered from the post-traumatic stress of it all. But briefly, they had charged me an arm and a leg to reinstall my air conditioner so that it could be taken in and out of the window easily, but when the window cleaners and I tried to take it out, it wouldn't come out. I called Airwave and asked them how to do it, and they say it's easy, but then they were unable to tell me how, and then they wanted to charge me another $100 to take it out for me, and then another $100 to put it back in. Can you believe it? It actually gets worse.
The window cleaners and upholstery cleaners come this morning! Soon my apartment will be sparkly fresh and spring clean. And now, a Spring photograph. These are cherry blossoms at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. Which reminds me, can someone tell me why flowers don't smell as strongly as they used to? We walked through a row of lilac bushes and the smell should have knocked us unconscious, but I could barely smell them.
- Bathroom painted, everything in the room washed, replacement wall shelves ordered.
- Bedroom curtains washed, blinds cleaned, rug shook out on roof, pad underneath the rug replaced.
- Plants dusted, pruned, soil added.
- Bus tickets to Boston ordered for June 2 (my reward/birthday thing). Along those lines, started picking up what I need to give myself a little sprucing up, starting with good scissors to cut my bangs.
- Arranged for upholstery cleaning guys to come in tomorrow to do the couch and my office chair.
- Tomorrow and Thursday will be the major cleaning days. The window guys will be here to do the windows (while I hide the cats and myself, I can't bear to watch, their balancing act while washing the windows is too scary).
... in my adult years I should say (years after 30). I had some pretty bad ones in my youth. Okay, this one is really tame, but still. Spring cleaning has begun and I started with painting my bathroom. It was looking so dingy. Oh God, if ever there was a more miserable, tedious way to pass the precious few hours we have in life--I've painted plenty of rooms in my day, but I'd forgotten what it's like.
The main thing is I couldn't reach everywhere and the room is so small the ladder only fit inside in one way, so to get all the other spots that needed to be painted, I had to teeter on boxes (filled with all my Duke research) and stretch and strain and push, and one coat looked like hell so I had to do that all TWICE.
Oh God, this post is not capturing the horror. Oh and the off-white color I selected looks too yellow-y on the walls. The one good thing is the pretty new sparkly looking shower curtain I put up afterwards.
I found out there's a bus to Boston that leaves from Chinatown every hour and only costs $35 round trip!! (I'm the last to know.) I was going to go yesterday, but then I decided it would make a fun birthday thing to do so I'm going next month.
But I bought these books Thursday night, when I still thought I might go yesterday. Three were from an NPR list of great science fiction books, and one, The Brief History of the Dead, was from another NPR list by the same person, but I forget the theme. But any book that imagines what it's like to be dead is for me!
I weaned myself out of carrying pocketbooks years ago, but sometimes you need to carry stuff and backpacks don't look very professional. I got this bag for those times.
I didn't buy the candle because it was yellow, I bought it for the honeysuckle scent. The fact that is was yellow was just a bonus.
In other, non-yellow news, I've been taking a mini-vacation, but somehow I'm not really making the most of it or enjoying it. What should I do?? Maybe I should just go back to work until I can figure that out.
Sigh.
Well, tomorrow I'm going to see both Ironman and Made of Honor. So, there's that.