I need to write a paper by Wednesday (what? you say, that's so far away!) and I'm getting the jitters over writing this. I have the rudimentary fragments of an outline, but I'm waffling on putting any thoughts down on paper. who actually gets nervous over writing a paper that's due in three days? I should be studying for that stat midterm, instead, for which I'm also in deep shit. drowning in poop, almost.
stepping back just a little -- this semester has been so busy for me. I'm making more money than ever, but holding down these two jobs is seriously cramping everything else. I'm struggling to get schoolwork done and also with everything else. add to that the fact that (and I hate using that term, it's so unnecessary but I'm too lazy to reconfigure my sentence to void it) I have no idea what I want to do this summer or even this winter. yes, I know, my life sucks. /sarcasm Okay. Time to stop worrying about Harvard things and time to get back to this paper. I can do it.
Showing posts with label I like to talk a lot. Show all posts
Showing posts with label I like to talk a lot. Show all posts
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
movies to watch
--at least, ones that I'm excited to watch, no matter the ticket prices in Boston! After a pretty empty summer of films, I have a pretty long list of enticing movies (and two documentaries!) to close out 2010.
BLACK SWAN
Trailer released today. Looks amazing. Natalie Portman and Vincent Cassel, with whom I fell in love in Eastern Promises. And of course, Darren Aronofsky is one of my favorite directors. I was surprised to see Mila Kunis opposing Portman in the trailer--I thought she was the most interesting thing about The Book of Eli.
BLACK SWAN
Trailer released today. Looks amazing. Natalie Portman and Vincent Cassel, with whom I fell in love in Eastern Promises. And of course, Darren Aronofsky is one of my favorite directors. I was surprised to see Mila Kunis opposing Portman in the trailer--I thought she was the most interesting thing about The Book of Eli.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Toy Story 3 and duty
I saw Toy Story 3 (finally!) on Tuesday.
What a thrilling, emotionally satisfying, beautifully rendered, human film. The conflict that struck me the most was that of duty. (spoilers ahead) In the middle of the film, Woody has to choose between duty to his owner or duty to his friends--duty to the system and tradition versus his duty to the relationships in his life. He can go back to Andy's house to go to college with him, and a life that's safe although useless but to be displayed, as if on a pedestal, or he can attempt to save his friends from certain harm but risk being press-ganged and trapped in the process. If he tries and fails, he is unable to return to Andy, lacking the ways and means to move about and get things done that Andy does.
The similarities between Woody's struggle and the choices that women make in navigating their lives, their politics, and (sometimes) husbands made me sit up and watch this movie with fascination. As the end approached: what would the toys do? To where would they go? And the choice they made in the end--Bonnie's versus Sunnyside, where Barbie stayed! What does that say?
To answer those questions, a little background is in order. As I was a radical, socialist, red state high school feminist, Andrea Dworkin was formative in my thinking. In particular, Right-Wing Women asks the questions: Why do right-wing women agitate for their own subordination? How does the Right, controlled by men, enlist their participation and loyalty? And why do right-wing women truly hate the feminist struggle for equality? Those questions were crowding at my consciousness, and even now, their derivatives come up daily in my thinking. The answer that Dworkin supplies:
Right-wing women understand that their behavior hurt other women, but most importantly, places them on a pedestal for the admiration of one man in particular: their husband. This choice, whether conscious or subconscious, is actually the safe, intelligent choice.
We as an audience are given a look at life with Bonnie that is simple, generous, kind, and loved--her toys adore her, and she clearly has a good heart, having rescued Chuckles (and Woody, too). Having found this paradise once, it should be no surprise that Woody chooses to spirit himself and his friends off to this owner, to this "husband." It's Woody's devotion to Andy, his performance of and commitment to being the perfect toy (the perfect wife) that leads him away from Sunnyside and into Bonnie's home in the first place. And having found the perfect "husband," why waste something good for something that has a reality of being nasty and only the slight potential of reform (Sunnyside)? Rejecting Bonnie is dangerous. It places the toys at the mercy of a larger mechanism than themselves. Sunnyside renders a lot of agency useless, even if there is no master whose every demand needs to be met.
Here, we can look at Sunnyside as a wider society. More specifically, the ease with which it slides into horror and oppression is perfectly represented in the Caterpillar Room, a state which is reinforced not only by Lotso but also a host of other enforcers, all comfortable in their privilege of the Butterfly Room. A woman who rejects the protection of a potential or real husband by refusing to perform the roles of the perfect wife--the cautionary tale of Sunnyside and the Caterpillar Room is her lot.
The reform at the end of Toy Story 3 is really intriguing. It seems that Barbie is able to inspire Ken to give up parts of his privilege in favor of some nebulous form of (more) equality. Barbie seems to be some sort of antebellum social reformer, in the lines of prison reform, temperance, women's suffrage, and abolitionism. Indeed, Sunnyside is a prison, so what she does is nothing other than prison reform. But without Ken's support, his ways and means derived from his authority as a former enforcer, I don't see Barbie accomplishing what she did. Indeed, she would not have been safe enough to implement a lot of these changes if Ken had not defied Lotso--in Barbie's case, then, Ken has taken over part of her ownership in protecting her.
This scenario then calls into question the role of the oppressor in progressive movements and in reform; Toy Story 3 says it can be for the greater good both of a society and to the individuals who find a good, decent protector (or protectress, for Bonnie).
We get the best of both worlds in this movie. Woody's two duties, to his owner(s) and to his friends (the group grows to include the rest of the toys at Sunnyside, with whom Woody and Co. do feel some sort of solidarity), are both fulfilled. Woody and Co. become useful again to Andy by allowing him to pass his beloved toys on, they find a new owner and make themselves fundamentally useful again as toys to be enjoyed, and Barbie stays behind to make sure the Sunnyside toys also get to experience some of the same joy and security that comes from being owned and wanted, but institutionalized.
This ending is why Toy Story 3 remains a children's movie.
Here's what some other people thought this movie said about society (emphasis mine):
---------------------------
Here's a thought and a lovely photo of the day to end this giant post:
(via)
What a thrilling, emotionally satisfying, beautifully rendered, human film. The conflict that struck me the most was that of duty. (spoilers ahead) In the middle of the film, Woody has to choose between duty to his owner or duty to his friends--duty to the system and tradition versus his duty to the relationships in his life. He can go back to Andy's house to go to college with him, and a life that's safe although useless but to be displayed, as if on a pedestal, or he can attempt to save his friends from certain harm but risk being press-ganged and trapped in the process. If he tries and fails, he is unable to return to Andy, lacking the ways and means to move about and get things done that Andy does.
The similarities between Woody's struggle and the choices that women make in navigating their lives, their politics, and (sometimes) husbands made me sit up and watch this movie with fascination. As the end approached: what would the toys do? To where would they go? And the choice they made in the end--Bonnie's versus Sunnyside, where Barbie stayed! What does that say?
To answer those questions, a little background is in order. As I was a radical, socialist, red state high school feminist, Andrea Dworkin was formative in my thinking. In particular, Right-Wing Women asks the questions: Why do right-wing women agitate for their own subordination? How does the Right, controlled by men, enlist their participation and loyalty? And why do right-wing women truly hate the feminist struggle for equality? Those questions were crowding at my consciousness, and even now, their derivatives come up daily in my thinking. The answer that Dworkin supplies:
Right-wing women understand that their behavior hurt other women, but most importantly, places them on a pedestal for the admiration of one man in particular: their husband. This choice, whether conscious or subconscious, is actually the safe, intelligent choice.
We as an audience are given a look at life with Bonnie that is simple, generous, kind, and loved--her toys adore her, and she clearly has a good heart, having rescued Chuckles (and Woody, too). Having found this paradise once, it should be no surprise that Woody chooses to spirit himself and his friends off to this owner, to this "husband." It's Woody's devotion to Andy, his performance of and commitment to being the perfect toy (the perfect wife) that leads him away from Sunnyside and into Bonnie's home in the first place. And having found the perfect "husband," why waste something good for something that has a reality of being nasty and only the slight potential of reform (Sunnyside)? Rejecting Bonnie is dangerous. It places the toys at the mercy of a larger mechanism than themselves. Sunnyside renders a lot of agency useless, even if there is no master whose every demand needs to be met.
Here, we can look at Sunnyside as a wider society. More specifically, the ease with which it slides into horror and oppression is perfectly represented in the Caterpillar Room, a state which is reinforced not only by Lotso but also a host of other enforcers, all comfortable in their privilege of the Butterfly Room. A woman who rejects the protection of a potential or real husband by refusing to perform the roles of the perfect wife--the cautionary tale of Sunnyside and the Caterpillar Room is her lot.
The reform at the end of Toy Story 3 is really intriguing. It seems that Barbie is able to inspire Ken to give up parts of his privilege in favor of some nebulous form of (more) equality. Barbie seems to be some sort of antebellum social reformer, in the lines of prison reform, temperance, women's suffrage, and abolitionism. Indeed, Sunnyside is a prison, so what she does is nothing other than prison reform. But without Ken's support, his ways and means derived from his authority as a former enforcer, I don't see Barbie accomplishing what she did. Indeed, she would not have been safe enough to implement a lot of these changes if Ken had not defied Lotso--in Barbie's case, then, Ken has taken over part of her ownership in protecting her.
This scenario then calls into question the role of the oppressor in progressive movements and in reform; Toy Story 3 says it can be for the greater good both of a society and to the individuals who find a good, decent protector (or protectress, for Bonnie).
We get the best of both worlds in this movie. Woody's two duties, to his owner(s) and to his friends (the group grows to include the rest of the toys at Sunnyside, with whom Woody and Co. do feel some sort of solidarity), are both fulfilled. Woody and Co. become useful again to Andy by allowing him to pass his beloved toys on, they find a new owner and make themselves fundamentally useful again as toys to be enjoyed, and Barbie stays behind to make sure the Sunnyside toys also get to experience some of the same joy and security that comes from being owned and wanted, but institutionalized.
This ending is why Toy Story 3 remains a children's movie.
Here's what some other people thought this movie said about society (emphasis mine):
The film begins with Woody trying to defend a crumbling system of communism (presumably the Soviet Union). Toys have a duty to their owners, he argues. The owner is a personified totalitarian state (Stalin?) — he decides what the toys do and the toys are not permitted to escape....Communism having collapsed, the toys emigrate to Sunnyside (the US, that nation of immigrants), which leader Lotso depicts as a libertarian paradise. In his introductory he speech, he touts the joys of self-ownership and interacting with children through the market (new children are constantly replacing old ones, maximizing the efficiency of the toys), as well as the improved material comforts his system brings (the repair depot, the dream house)....Ken and Barbie now lead Sunnyside, making it a “fun and groovy” socialist utopia. --The Political Philosophy of Toy Story 3
As social commentary, Toy Story 3 is provocative but vague, even unrealized. Lots-o'-Huggin' Bear's torment of Woody's friends by locking them in with the daycare's younger and considerably less kind children suggests something of a slave trade. Their nightmare imprisonment is practically a statement on gentrification, as you get a sense of the rich life Lots-o'-Huggin' and his cronies enjoy being impossible without other, less fortunate toys wasting away in less desirable, impoverished conditions. (There's no "in" for the undesirables, just one way "out": the trash.) The scenario is evocative, suggestive of a New York City street with a Whole Foods and expensive luxury rentals on one side and the projects on the other, but the correlation the film makes to real-life urban gentrification ultimately feels tacky because the way justice comes to Sunnyside has no correlative in Harlem. (slant mag)
But the movie is all about identity and what do you become when everything you knew is gone?....I could go all day about the prison metaphors, the fact that Woody himself was always kind of obsolete as far as toys go, or entertain excessive discourses about Big Baby, the scariest toy in all three Toy Story movies. And then there’s the fact that the Ken doll (Michael Keaton) is one thousand percent gay and no one in the movie (and probably, a good chunk of the audience) has any idea. So I suppose you can add mob mentalities, closet cases, and the like to the list of Pixar’s storytelling devices. (The Faster Times)
The shocking parallels to the Holocaust in Toy Story 3 begin just moments after the opening playtime set piece. Andy is seventeen and about to leave for college. These toys are left behind, just as host nations left behind the Jews as the Third Reich conquered Europe. --Toy Story 3 as Zionist Text
---------------------------
Here's a thought and a lovely photo of the day to end this giant post:
What are the nature of my duties?
(via)
Friday, January 8, 2010
my job
My job, which wasn't actually a job last semester but will be the next, has me touching and handling objects that are thousands of years old. Which is quite extraordinary, if you think about it -- who makes a basket and thinks, "800 years from now, a girl will take four photos of my basket to document it for all digital posterity"? Or, "Man, this glaze is going to last four-fucking-thousand years, and it's going to awesome and vibrant turquoise still"?
The Egyptians astound me with their glazes. Sadly, since Egyptian artifacts are classified as art pieces, I won't be photographing any more ancient Egyptian figurines and knick knacks any time soon.
The Egyptians astound me with their glazes. Sadly, since Egyptian artifacts are classified as art pieces, I won't be photographing any more ancient Egyptian figurines and knick knacks any time soon.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
sometimes for fun
I read craigslist ads. I found the saddest one today in the m4w section.
Hey, how’s it going? Well, you clicked on this, so that means you are interested, or at least curious, which is good, and I thank you. I guess I’ll start with telling a little about me. [stats here] So anyway, I think that I’m a fun guy to have around, I’m pretty laid back and I consider myself one of the “nice” guys. Anyway, why am I using craigslist? ... I guess you could say that lately I’ve been missing any sort of affection in my life. I would love to meet someone that I can connect with and be friends with, and possibly be “friends with benefits.” Now, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea here and think that I’m looking for sex, which I’m not. What I’m looking for someone to cuddle up with and watch a movie, or maybe make-out or stuff like that. I also have to admit that I’m not really all experienced when it comes to this area, but please don’t let that scare you off. I think I’m a great guy, but I just don’t have all that much experience when it comes to this stuff. So I’m hoping to find someone I can be a good friend with, but also be able to do other stuff with. ... Anyway, I hope you can see where I’m coming from and hopefully looking for the same thing. If we end up in a full-blown relationship, that’s also very good, I’m up for having a girlfriend. ... I would really like to have someone I can cuddle up with or give backrubs and such. If you’d like to know more, then please email me. I have yahoo messenger so we could chat some too. And I have more pics too if you’d like. I hope I have intrigued you and maybe this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. What do you say?I think perhaps we live in a contact- and touch-starved society.
Friday, January 1, 2010
I resolve to
- Start math psets on Thursday
- Read one novel for leisure a month
- Not eat if I'm not hungry
- Lay off the cheese
- Cut down on wasting time on the internet by
- Making to-do lists and
- Actually sticking to them before watching tv/reading blogs
Monday, December 28, 2009
insomnia
So I couldn't fall asleep and so opened my laptop and found Joel Derfner's blog on the interwebz, which he has been keeping since 2002. I first read about him in the Harvard Voice's gayest issue ever, and thought, "cool, I'll get to read about the experiences he wrote about in Swish, but in real-time, so to speak." well, turns out this is the most hilarious thing I've seen all day, and it's a fascinatingly weird blog to read because I'm reading about all this casual sex done in the context of searching for love.
What? you say. Yeah, he has a great comedic voice. And a great sense of irony and his place in the world. Self-awareness. And he redacts identifying information and identifies people only by initials - I'm saying this because I started reading the most recent posts first, in which he mentions an E.S. as the boyfriend, and the first posts have an E.S. as well, but one with whom he broke up and about whom he constantly complained of being fat. Naturally, the question that follows: is this the same E.S.? I've only gotten about a year into the 7-year-old archives, so we'll see!
Well, anyway, the original point of this post was to complain about this smell in my room. It's been driving me crazy this last hour. My mom poured me some whiskey while we were watching The Lives of Others and I didn't finish it because she gave me a ton which is cool but not when I'm trying to watch a dialogue-heavy movie. so I finished it after the movie, but I carried the glass (yes, my mom gave me whiskey in a wine glass - what is wrong with my family?) up to my room and put it on the nightstand by my bed. And for all the people who have been to my house - I have my little brother's room now so the ventilation isn't as good, and this information probably plays a roll in this anecdote or maybe not, I'm just complaining here for a bit. Anyway, even though the glass the empty, I can still smell the whiskey, and it's driving me crazy. at least it isn't Jack. In that case, I may be reminded of a dashing Italian and burning popcorn and then my unfortunate night-before-Veteran's-Day.
[edit] an hour later, I'm still up and can't fall asleep, and I'm still smelling the whiskey. It's got to be in my mind at this point. In any case, I found out that E.S. is one and the same. Ha! I think my roving mind can let me sleep now. In any case, I have to be up in 7 hours, so I should get cracking on that zzzzzz.
What? you say. Yeah, he has a great comedic voice. And a great sense of irony and his place in the world. Self-awareness. And he redacts identifying information and identifies people only by initials - I'm saying this because I started reading the most recent posts first, in which he mentions an E.S. as the boyfriend, and the first posts have an E.S. as well, but one with whom he broke up and about whom he constantly complained of being fat. Naturally, the question that follows: is this the same E.S.? I've only gotten about a year into the 7-year-old archives, so we'll see!
Well, anyway, the original point of this post was to complain about this smell in my room. It's been driving me crazy this last hour. My mom poured me some whiskey while we were watching The Lives of Others and I didn't finish it because she gave me a ton which is cool but not when I'm trying to watch a dialogue-heavy movie. so I finished it after the movie, but I carried the glass (yes, my mom gave me whiskey in a wine glass - what is wrong with my family?) up to my room and put it on the nightstand by my bed. And for all the people who have been to my house - I have my little brother's room now so the ventilation isn't as good, and this information probably plays a roll in this anecdote or maybe not, I'm just complaining here for a bit. Anyway, even though the glass the empty, I can still smell the whiskey, and it's driving me crazy. at least it isn't Jack. In that case, I may be reminded of a dashing Italian and burning popcorn and then my unfortunate night-before-Veteran's-Day.
[edit] an hour later, I'm still up and can't fall asleep, and I'm still smelling the whiskey. It's got to be in my mind at this point. In any case, I found out that E.S. is one and the same. Ha! I think my roving mind can let me sleep now. In any case, I have to be up in 7 hours, so I should get cracking on that zzzzzz.
Monday, July 20, 2009
okay, so I'm giving in
Here's the newest one, just because of the surprise at the end, which makes sense really if you watch the whole thing...
Ambition to Create Novel Expression Underwear Autumn/Winter 2009:
I think it's interesting to note that Acne Underwear only produces underwear for men. now, there's a flip-flop on the lingerie business if there ever was one, seeing how there's a very limited market for fancy underwear for men. Time magazine even called it "weird." But some people are even starting whole lines surrounded by that concept, so there must be something to it...
Ambition to Create Novel Expression Underwear Autumn/Winter 2009:
I think it's interesting to note that Acne Underwear only produces underwear for men. now, there's a flip-flop on the lingerie business if there ever was one, seeing how there's a very limited market for fancy underwear for men. Time magazine even called it "weird." But some people are even starting whole lines surrounded by that concept, so there must be something to it...
Friday, July 17, 2009
they should just ask me to do it
when I was doing my latest movie post, I couldn't find a movie poster for An Education, so I just picked out my favorite movie still. Guess what? They made that still into the movie poster!
(via)
I think they did a great job with the poster. particularly love the cutouts at the bottom. however. is that a weird-ass photoshop job I see? Did they remove Peter Sarsgaard's hand through photoshop? jesus, people. his hand's not THAT ugly. compare:
(via)
I think they did a great job with the poster. particularly love the cutouts at the bottom. however. is that a weird-ass photoshop job I see? Did they remove Peter Sarsgaard's hand through photoshop? jesus, people. his hand's not THAT ugly. compare:
Monday, May 25, 2009
last night
was awesome.
Thanks to those of you who gave me a memorable night. okay food, passable movie, great music, amazing people.
and about the movie - oh, it was better than Wolverine. But still, once special effects get so cheap to make that every summer movie contains such a huge dose of CHEESE factor that I can feel myself metaphorically gagging with the onslaught of cheese oozing from the plot holes of the movie, that is enough. I don't want to start laughing in the movie theater because some stunt was so absurd that the director saw fit to repeat it again, and again. Cars blowing up? That's cool. Cars blowing up because of some warped notion of physics and half-way believable special effects? Not cool, Terminator Salvation, not cool.
Thanks to those of you who gave me a memorable night. okay food, passable movie, great music, amazing people.
and about the movie - oh, it was better than Wolverine. But still, once special effects get so cheap to make that every summer movie contains such a huge dose of CHEESE factor that I can feel myself metaphorically gagging with the onslaught of cheese oozing from the plot holes of the movie, that is enough. I don't want to start laughing in the movie theater because some stunt was so absurd that the director saw fit to repeat it again, and again. Cars blowing up? That's cool. Cars blowing up because of some warped notion of physics and half-way believable special effects? Not cool, Terminator Salvation, not cool.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
matching game
Match the fashion house to the editorial images below. Each depicts the Fall 2009 collection. From Vman, on which I have previously expressed delight.
Choices:
Ralph Lauren Black Label
Calvin Klein
Prada
Louis Vuitton
Images:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Thanks to +joe. Check out the post for my favorites Dior Homme and Jil Sander (thanks to Kris Van Assche and Raf Simons).
---
Answers:
1. Calvin Klein (Italo Zucchelli) 2. Louis Vuitton (Paul Helbers) 3. Ralph Lauren Black 4. Prada (Miuccia Prada)
#3 suprised the hell out of me. I don't even know the name(s?) of the Ralph Lauren in-house designers (and neither did +joe).
So what's the point? IT'S NOT THE CLOTHES. IT'S HOW YOU WEAR THE CLOTHES.
(It's not fashion. It's style.)
Why did I make this post? Because there are UGG boots on the "fashion" spread of my high school yearbook. I am SO glad to be out of here next year.
Choices:
Ralph Lauren Black Label
Calvin Klein
Prada
Louis Vuitton
Images:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Thanks to +joe. Check out the post for my favorites Dior Homme and Jil Sander (thanks to Kris Van Assche and Raf Simons).
---
Answers:
1. Calvin Klein (Italo Zucchelli) 2. Louis Vuitton (Paul Helbers) 3. Ralph Lauren Black 4. Prada (Miuccia Prada)
#3 suprised the hell out of me. I don't even know the name(s?) of the Ralph Lauren in-house designers (and neither did +joe).
So what's the point? IT'S NOT THE CLOTHES. IT'S HOW YOU WEAR THE CLOTHES.
(It's not fashion. It's style.)
Why did I make this post? Because there are UGG boots on the "fashion" spread of my high school yearbook. I am SO glad to be out of here next year.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Tweet
With much talk about Twitter abounding in schools and among friends, I'm intrigued by the latest scandal to hit the net: Amazon Fail. #AmazonFail one of the trending topics on twitter. It's currently 2nd, behind "Happy Easter," but apparently was 1st earlier this afternoon. At any rate, there are 15 tweets per second about AmazonFail.
Thus is the power of twitter, I suspect. it has an uncanny ability to connect people on twitter, with short bursts of outrage. there is no limited friends view or additional hassles of photos, extensive profile information, or site navigation. whether anything newsworthy comes out of tweeting remains to be seen.
Thus is the power of twitter, I suspect. it has an uncanny ability to connect people on twitter, with short bursts of outrage. there is no limited friends view or additional hassles of photos, extensive profile information, or site navigation. whether anything newsworthy comes out of tweeting remains to be seen.
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