fasten your seatbelts...

but first: a new Snickers word. Peanutopolis. Yeah, I want to live there. Especially if as Patrick suggested, it's an underground society run by benevolent dictator Jimmy Carter.

onto movies: I watched Million Dollar Mermaid over the weekend, as Esther Willliams film with choreography by Busby Berkeley. Basically I lament the loss of the sort of spectacle this film provides: ridiculous water ballet, ultrasymmetry, technicolored flames and jets of water and smoke, sparkly things. We can't even remotely take this shit seriously any more. While I'm loathe to talk about so-called "good old days," I do have to wonder what's happened to escapism and does it really have to be replaced with reality tv. Not that I don't love Project Runway, which is reality tv. Makes me miss my sewing days.

Then I watched All About Eve, which was pretty great. It passes the Mo Movie Measure, which is rare enough for a film let alone one made in 1950. Plus Edith Head did the costumes. And it has the quote that's the title of this post, which is one of those great ones I knew not whence it came until now. Plus great performances, and Bette Davis is a stitch. I need to keep chugging ahead with seeing classic movies. Maybe one of these days I'll actually see the damn Godfather.

since laura asked...

The text of the nasty (really only nasty-ish. the version i wrote directly after the waking up event had much more vitriol) note I left was approximately the following:

"Dear Upstairs Neighbor,
Please refrain from playing your stereo or guitar before 9am. And please don't ever play "White Wedding" at 4am again. Thanks.

Yours truly,
Your Downstairs Neighbor"

The funny thing is that roomie John was chilling on the back porch last night and upstairs guy was also oot and aboot and somehow ascertained that John too plays the guitar. Then he requested a "jam session," which is hilarious. Then he asked if John was the leaver of the note and John said no. Upstairs guy said he meant to reply to the note with something to the effect of "What time would you prefer I play 'White Wedding?'" which frankly takes him down a notch on the asshole ladder, because that's funny as hell.

word nerdery strikes again

update on the asshole upstairs: the nasty note I left him seems to have worked! He hasn't woken me up with his guitar or stereo all week! I pray the solution is permanent. And I say huzzah to the efficacy of leaving a nasty note.

Back to word nerdery: I want to recognize the excellence of Snickers' latest ad campaign. At first I just saw it on those little prisms that sit atop cabs, but I saw a full billboard yesterday on Lombard St. All they've done is taken the Snickers logo and filled it in with neologisms--hungerectomy, nougatocity, satisfectellent, substantialicious. I think these are brilliant. I hadn't realized the Snickers logo was so iconic that I'd recognize it instantly without the word "snickers" in it. I do wonder to whom they're marketing--obviously me and my poet friends because we think they're awesome and hilarious--but does the campaign appeal to people who aren't word lovers? Oddly enough the ad campaign actually makes me want to buy a snickers to prove that an ad campaign can be funny and clever and not take itself too seriously and not have to resort to any of the obnoxious (and dare I say sexist? i'm thinking of you, beer commercials) ploys we see so often. Well, I don't actually see them that often since we have tivo at my house and we just badoop through the stuff.

nice day to start again

I was awoken at exactly 4.10am this morning by my upstairs neighbor serendaing his lady caller with "White Wedding" on the acoustic guitar. I don't know which is more appalling:
a) That he had the nerve to do this
b) That she had sex with him afterward

THUG LIFE

Many who know me know I am a fan of both fingerless gloves, which I often refer to as my "hobo gloves," and tattoos. In a stroke of sheer genius, a pattern on knitty sprang up today for how to make fingerless gloves that you then embroider to give yourself wooly knuckle tattoos. I'll say it again, sheer genius. Now I just need to come up with the best possible phrase. WORD NERD comes to mind. There's a list of suggestions with the pattern, a few of which a really choice: DYNO MITE, OMG! WTF?, FOOD RENT, S1K1 PSSO (only funny if you read knitting), TINY HAND (so cute!), 1337 $K1Z (I still find 733+ amusing. Like when I tried to play it as a word in boggle and Noah told me "It's not a word, and even if it was, it starts with a 7").

So who's got a good idea for me? And of course, I'm putting this out there, I will knit you your own pair of knucks, as they're called (or anything else for that matter) for the low low price of yarn and a half. I'm more about the process than the product, as it were. Never much for that Machiavelli chap.

happy to report!

I recently bought a kite at the Exploratorium gift store in a fit of enthusiasm for kites. Shortly thereafter, I took it to the beach (where I've seen many a kite flown) to test it out. And I happened to be at the beach during the one moment in history when it wasn't annoyingly blustery and was in fact the deadest of calm. The doldrums, id you will. If I were a spice trader asea or something, I'd have been really pissed; as it was I was just discouraged. However, I tried it again this evening and it worked! And how! Like gangbusters! So I'm happy to report that I love my kite! Exclamation point! When I said that aloud at the beach, for some reason I was reminded of my favorite line from Heathers: "I love my dead gay son!"

he'll save children but not the british children

Here's my patriotism for the Fourth of July. On Canada Day, oddly enough.

Youtube is totally my BFF. This is so goddamn funny. It sort of jumps the shark at the end, but that's forgivable given such genius lines "he had a wig for his wig and a brain for his heart, he'll kick you apart, he'll kick you apart, ooh" and "he had a pocket full of horses, fucked the shit out of bears."

Wiki, of course, is my other BFF. Along with google. We're all in a BFF club and we've carved our initials in a tree in the park.

Back to reality. Curious about what exactly the referent is when I say "jump the shark," I turned to wiki, and it turns out I'm referencing Happy Days, when the Fonze literally jumps a shark on waterskis, signaling the apocalyptic lameness about to befall the show. I'd have thought the phrase was older. The article is surprisingly detailed and interesting.